Half way through refinements! (tray 10)

... well that's if you don't include the 3 over-correction trays at the end.

In the past month, I've managed to get sick as many times as I've changed trays and so this past month has felt exceedingly long. I am hopefully getting over my second cold though and with some luck the rest of treatment should just fly by. I've got a few weddings to attend over the summer and elated about it the unseasonably warm weather we've been getting (no more snow!).

Not surprisingly, these past two trays have been pretty uneventful. The one exception being that the attachment on my left canine did not seem to sit properly and the top of it was cutting my lip. It sat properly after a few days though so no biggie. I was slightly worried though that it was the beginning of the end and that the rest of my trays wouldn't sit properly, optimist that I am.

I went to visit Dr. A this past Thursday and was given my next two trays. Only two as I am supposed to be getting more attachments at tray 13. These of course will be on my front teeth which I have mixed feelings about. On the one hand, they'll be a lot more noticeable, but on the other, I really hope those front four finally move into place. It's about time! The other thing I was instructed to do was to slow down my bottom tray changing schedule. I had actually thought about it earlier but never got around to asking about it so I'm glad Dr. A mentioned it. My last trays from my previous set were pretty gross by the time my refinements arrived.

Some comparison pictures between re: tray 2 (first set with refinements) and 10:

natural smile (tray 2)

natural smile (tray 10)

Bottom and top teeth - Tray 2 (this was taken right after they added the new attachments)

Bottom and top teeth -

Tray 10

Right side - tray 2

Right side - tray 10 (sorry my attachments are a bit stained and gross - it does look like my one incisor has moved a tiny bit though)

Upper arch tray 2

Upper arch tray 10 - a little more rotation required

(picture removed Sept 2020)

A big birthday smile. Luckily, I was healthy enough to celebrate in between two separate bouts of the cold. Just like last year, I had to spend this birthday in braces but hopefully I'll be in retainers by my next birthday!

Refinement clincheck!

It took some effort but the nice people at Dr. A's office uploaded my refinement clincheck finally.

Here it is:

Front view

Upper view

Lower view

At first I found the change in the front view a bit disappointing but then I took a closer look at the upper view and it looks like my next round of trays should address my remaining issues. My top arch looks like it will finally round out! Either way, I'm pretty unphased at this point. I'm too far in to give up and I've gotten so used to the trays, I don't mind them at all.

End of refinement tray 2 pictures and attachments

Sorry I haven't been updating as much, my last couple of trays have been pretty uneventful. They were both without attachments and aside from my front tooth being pretty sensitive, I barely noticed that I had them on. I was a bit annoyed because I wanted to talk to Dr. A about this (tooth sensitivity) when I came into his office on Wednesday but he just popped in briefly while the hygienist was working on my mouth and was nowhere to be found when I was finished.

It's been so long though, I forgot how attachments felt but lucky for me I've got 8 of them now! Fortunately, I had also cut the side of my lip flossing so it made the struggle of trying to get my new tray (3) out even more fun. It's been a couple of days now though so I've gotten used to having attachments in. I'm supposed to get more (on my front teeth) but not until tray 13 so it won't be for a while yet.

Pictures:

natural smile

my new attachments

Ah, so this is why there are 23 more trays...

I've decided that given that my teeth won't be changing as much from tray to tray anymore, I'll probably just post pictures of every second tray from here on in. After a couple of weeks in my first set of refinement trays, I've gotten back into the swing of things again and to be honest I barely notice them. What I did notice however as I was taking a few pictures last night prior to starting my new trays this morning is just how much my right front tooth needs to rotate to get in line with the others. It makes me a little sad after all that time and effort but at the same time I'm glad some of my major concerns are finally going to be addressed and I'm looking forward to some nicely rounded arches by the end of this round.

Some pictures:

Eek - no wonder I need so many more trays!

The left tray is my last tray from my first set, right is my first refinement tray. Notice the subtle differences between the two? New trays are also a much better fit.

With my new refinements trays in.

Refinements! (I must have been a bad girl)

It's been 2 days now. 2 days since the office manager at Dr. A's office called to let me know that my refinements were in. I suppose I could have just let it be a surprise but I couldn't suppress the urge to ask how many trays there would be.

There are 23U/13L.

In case you are not familiar with my story I had 20U/21L initially.

I thanked her and tried to put on a brave face as I told my husband and a close friend. 23 more but perhaps I won't need to wear them for the full 2 weeks? Or won't need attachments? Or...

Well I went in this morning for my appointment (which was also 15 minutes lately despite me leaving before 7 to get there on time but that's a whole other matter) and it looks like none of the above.

There are 23 trays. To be worn 2 weeks each. There will be attachments (not until tray 3). Lots of them. Including my front teeth. Apparently this was a bit of a surprise to Dr. A as well although he did mention that the movements will be smaller and more precise. He also thinks my bite will feel a lot better after this round. It's still a bit of an unpleasant surprise after my first round of trays though. Having said, I do appreciate that I don't have to wear my months old trays anymore and that the new ones fit so much more snugly.

My teeth will hopefully be nice and straight by the end of this round (although it's likely that after 23 trays I will need at least another round of refinements) but for now I think I'm just going to mope and pout to my husband for a bit longer. heh. le sigh.

Refinement moulds and a split!

Sorry I've been meaning to write this post for a while and am finally getting around to it now. I blame it on the turkey that we had the weekend before I went in my moulds last Tuesday. It was our first time cooking and hosting Thanksgiving dinner and it turned out surprising good is I do say so myself! So as I dragged myself in after the long weekend early in the morning, I figured it would be a pretty straightforward appointment and that I'd be at work within the hour. I sure wish that had been then case!

First the not so great but expected guesstimate. It looks like I'll need another 10+ trays according to Dr. A and a preliminary scan of my teeth. This was a bit disappointing but I had sort of expected it given that my teeth were still pretty wonky looking to me (and also how not-so-straight my teeth were to begin with).

After that they took off my attachments which wasn't too bad since I've been through it once before (when I had them off for wedding) and polished my teeth (which triggered a mental note to myself to book a cleaning). Then Dr. A stepped out and one of his assistants took some molds of my bottom teeth and then she redid them and then she redid them again. I was pretty relieved when she took the third set and checked in with Dr. A to confirm that they were ok.

At this point I figured I'd be into work about 15 minutes late than expected. Little did I know that I would also have to have my top ones done at least 7 times by 4 different people. Yes, that is correct - seven, I was keeping track. Apparently the room was too warm or the moulding material a bit old (not sure what to make of that). I was so glad when the last assistant finally got it right on her first attempt. She literally applied some of the clear moulding material (not the purple goop) directly to my teeth. Not sure if this is proper invisalign technique but I'm just thankful I didn't spend my entire day getting moulds done.

While I did get most of my questions answered during the appointment I was hoping to have more of a conversation with Dr. A regarding the rest of my course of treatment but had to be satisfied with peppering the assistants with questions instead. It sounds like it will take up to another 2 weeks for them (not including past week since I had moulds done) to arrive so in the mean time, I've booked some time with my regular dentist who I haven't seen since I started treatment (I have had my teeth cleaned multiple times though) so I'll be interested in what she has to say. I'm also going to use the last little bit of whitening stuff I have to brighten my teeth a bit!

A couple of pictures:

My teeth after twenty trays and removal of attachments. Never noticed it that much before but I think my smile is a bit lopsided.

It doesn't show up very well here but there is a little crack between the last tooth with an attachment and the next tooth. Surprisingly this tray has lasted me since me in its current state for over 3 weeks now as it cracked part way through week 2 and I had one more lower than upper tray (plus one week since moulds). Good thing because it's my last one and it will be a little while longer before I receive my refinements! Funny how they always told me to move on to the next tray before this and really, you would think that I would have learned not to split my trays by now!

End of my first round of 20U/21L

So here I am, at the end of my first round of invisalign... waiting until my appointment next Tuesday to discuss refinements with Dr. A. My teeth really haven't moved very much with the last tray but I thought it'd be interesting to show you every fifth tray since I started, starting from my most recent photo (prob makes more sense if you scroll from the last picture first but I forgot about that when I uploaded the photos).

tray 20 - midline is almost straight and my top and bottom teeth are almost touching, it looks like my own front tooth is longer than the other though

tray 15 - my little crossbite tooth finally sees the light of day!

tray 10 - gappy!

tray 5 - in my gangly stage, it must get worse before it gets better!

pre-invisalign

So, as you can see, there's still a lot of room for improvement but my teeth have changed a lot since I first started. I'd still like to see right front tooth rotate some more and canine come in a bit. I'll update next week after I hear what Dr. A has to say!