Look, Mom! No Cavities!

Well, I went in for my 6 month dental checkup and... No Cavities! I know this isn't much of an update, but there seems to be some concern about Invisalign causing cavities. I have had Invisalign for 11 months, this is my second 6 month check up in that time, and no sign of anything.

Not that I'm recommending this as all, but I don't really brush and floss like I'm supposed to according to Invisalign. I generally eat, then chew some gum for a few minutes, then put my aligners back in. When I get a few minutes, I will brush and floss like I'm supposed to and make sure my aligners are clean again. 

My point is, you must have to have some REALLY bad hygiene with Invisalign if that's what's causing your cavities, in my opinion...

Good News/Bad News

Which would you like first? The good news? Or the bad news? You're getting the good news first!

The Good News

I went in for my regular dental checkup and cleaning... no cavities!!! I was a little bit concerned with all of the horror stories of people getting cavities with Invisalign. Personally, I think it's just people not brushing and flossing correctly before they put their trays back in. BUT, that's just my opinion and I don't want to offend anyone. :)

And now...

The Bad News

As I have previously mentioned, I'm on the Invisalign Assist Program, so after every 10 trays, they do new digital scans to make sure everything is tracking correctly before making the next 10 sets of trays. Well... the new trays came in so I went to pick them up yesterday. Yay!! (Or so I thought before I went in.) A couple of issues;

• One tooth on the bottom is a little slow and isn't moving the way that it's supposed to, so they added more trays to the bottom. Not a huge problem since I was supposed to have 16 Lower and 23 upper trays to begin with, it makes things a little more even and I won't have to wear the bottom tray so long waiting to finish the top set and waiting to move on to refinements or retainers or whatever I chose to do when these are done.
  
  • They have also made some changes to the top since one of the front teeth is moving, but it's not straight up and down, it's now crooked. So I now have 27 trays (Upper and Lower), which how now increased my total time by 2 months! :(
• I now have 2 small attachments on one of my front teeth, one in the upper corner and one in the opposite lower corner to kind of torque the roots and get the tooth into the proper vertical position. 

I FREAKED OUT when they told me. Seriously kids, for a minute I had to hold back the tears! When I expressed my concerns, this was the response - "Well look at it this way. You could have brackets and braces." (At this point I HATE that she shares my silver lining kind of thinking.) To which I responded - "OR... I could have just NOT started this whole process at all. Never mind, I wouldn't like that at all." :)

• Some of the other attachments were removed and moved a little and one was removed completely.
  
  • Before I went in yesterday, I had 7 teeth with attachments. I walked out with attachments on 7 teeth, but 2 teeth have 2 attachments each, my front tooth and one on the bottom.

And Now For Some Positive Thinking

1. I am sure glad that I am on the Invisalign Assist program. If it hadn't been for all of this horrible news yesterday, these are things I would have needed fixed when I was done with the original 23 trays and would have definitely made for a VERY long refinement period. 
   
2. I will have to do these scans again at the end of tray 20. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that at that point I can get these 2 attachments back off of my front tooth. Who knows - maybe I will end up with less trays at that point.
3. In the last 24 hours, I have come to terms with the additional trays and the attachments on my front tooth. (and they are  VERY small in comparison to the other attachments that I have.) I was very paranoid with about it at first but asked a coworker to be honest with me and she said she couldn't tell when I was talking. 
4. I'm VERY grateful to have a dental professional that listens to my concerns and helps me rationalize things.
   
   I also realize that the next set of scans could reward me with even more trays and/or even worse attachments, but I'm not thinking about that. The end result is all I'm focused on right now. It's too late to turn back and even if some horribly placed attachments are noticeable, it's still better than the hideous gap I started out with!
   
   

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Nothing New Really

 I have 2 things to tell you about, that don't really require a blog post, but I wanted to share...

1. I am officially over half way through my bottom aligners! I put tray 9 of 16 in 5 days ago! YAY!!!

Still a little longer on the top because I have 23 total (I am 1/3 of the way done on top, however). I'm just happy with the half way milestone and wanted to share! :)


2. Yesterday, I took my son to the pumpkin patch. I decided I wanted some hot chocolate, so being the disciplined Invisalign wearer that I am, I took them out. It was a horribly windy day and when I went to put them in the case, the wind grabbed one of them and it landed in the mud. GROSS!!! :( I was not about to put it back in my mouth without a proper cleaning (soaked in denture cleaner and scrubbed with a toothbrush) so I ended up having them out for about 4 hours in one shot yesterday, and that doesn't count the time I had them out for regular meals!
Anyway, all is well now. They were pretty tight when I first put them back in, but that subsided rather quickly.


I do have my next followup appointment on October 26th. I plan on posting updated pictures again at that time. At that appointment, I will be having more scans done to make sure everything is progressing as planned, so fingers crossed! :) I guess I am on the plan which is call "Invisalign Assist" so every 10 trays they make sure everything is going as planned with a new scan, before making the 10 sets of trays.




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