First comes love, then comes marriage...

I hate to be presumptuous but please don't congratulate me yet, there is no bun in this oven as far as I know.

I have been thinking a lot lately about what it might be like to have to be expecting and undergoing invisalign treatment at the same time though. A year ago when I started this journey, I was hoping to be finished with my trays by now or at the very least by the time we go away in February. Given that I'm only on my 4/23U, 4/13L 1st refinement, it will be a while yet and any illusions I had of honeymooning on retainer time are long gone.

I haven't yet given up hope though that if and when we have children, I'll be brace free. At this point it's hard to say whether or not I'll need a second round of refinements but I think it's a definite possibility with so many refinement trays. And I suppose one could adapt to anything but based others' experience of morning sickness, munchie cravings and the like, I would think pregnancy could make invisalign compliance somewhat of a challenge to say the least.

Anyhow, if anyone out there has gone through the experience, I'd love to hear from you. As for me, I'm happy report that married life has been good for me thus far and I guess I'll just take one thing and tray at a time for now.

Refinement tray 4 pictures coming soon though I can tell you in advance that they're not particularly earth shattering but do stay tuned...

(I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. Enjoy the rest of the holidays!)

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.

Confessions to my dentist

If you've been following my blog you'll know that I have a history of dental issues that I finally started taking seriously a few months prior to my starting my invisalign treatment. Those dental issues led me to my current regular dentist, Dr. H, a little over a year ago. We have a pretty good relationship which probably due in part to her being quite informative without being paternalistic, about my age and easy for me to relate to. Prior to the summer 2008, I was a quite overdue in terms of seeing a dentist (to say the least!) but quite intent on having things looked at and hopefully having my teeth straightened before the wedding. After a few grueling sessions of deep scaling, xrays, surgical removal of my wisdom teeth (the last was done by her practice partner as my bottom ones were impacted), I finally made my way to a number of different orthos and dentists for consultations.

As it turned out, none of the orthos she had referred me to offered invisalign which I had my heart set on and while I might have considered metal/ceramic braces, the cost for taking them off for the day of the wedding just seemed a bit atrocious to me (upwards of $700 CDN). So in the end, I went with Dr. A, who is a dentist and premier invisalign provider and I haven't seen Dr. H since I began treatment. It wasn't intentional, it just sort of happened given that there were a couple of instances where it was suggested that I have my teeth cleaned at various points in my treatment and it was more convenient to arrange it with Dr. A's office and another instance where my insurance (after having my teeth cleaned about 4 times in the same year) ran out and I decided to pay out of pocket at the local university.

Needless to say, I've been a bit anxious and embarrassed about not keeping Dr. H in the loop and was a bit sheepish when I saw her this morning. She must have gone through her notes because she seemed to remember me quite clearly despite the long absence. I also explained about the invisalign treatment and where I was in treatment and she seemed to be pretty impressed with how my teeth had moved since she last saw me. Also commented on the fact that it was so much easier to clean my teeth now that they're so much straighter and that they seem to be in great shape. It doesn't look like I have any new cavities, however, there do seem a couple of spots I seem to have some trouble cleaning in the back of my teeth and gums have receded a bit. We also talked about retainers a bit and she did suggest that with my history of gum disease, it might be better for me to have removable retainers after I'm finished which makes sense. I might mention that to Dr. A if I get a chance to speak with him at my next appointment.

All in all, it was a pretty good appointment. After seeing Dr. H, I realize how I miss having dental professional who I can spend some time talking to and asking questions of. Dr. A while very efficient just doesn't spend the time. I don't know if this is the difference between going to a dentist for invisalign or just his style but if I had to do all of this over again and had all the time in the world, I'm not sure if I would have gone with an invisalign dentist but then again, I probably didn't do as much research as I should of in terms of understanding that the dental professional can play a very large role in determining the course of treatment.

Anyhow, these are just my musings on a Friday morning off. I'm not unhappy with my treatment, I'm just wondering if it might have been approached different had I decided to go with a different dental professional. Having said that, given that a little over year ago, I was dealing with all sorts of dental issues and today I got out of a dental cleaning and checkup in just over an hour with lots of positive comments from my dentist plus have reasonably straight teeth in my wedding pictures, I'm a pretty happy camper.

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!