Updated: Time for some gum care

 So I went in for that much anticipated trip to have my teeth cleaned and I had a pretty thorough scaling.  I was going to to start whitening my teeth tonight but as I looked at my gums I noticed a couple of spots where they have really receded and I can actually see between my teeth.  I've had gum disease previously and really worked to get my teeth and gums healthy over the years but maybe I had let things too far when I was younger and was without dental coverage.  I don't know if I just didn't notice the little gaps before,  or if it was due to the cleaning, the invisalign or what but I think I'm going to give my gums a bit of a break from the whitening chemicals.  At least for tonight.

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Updated October 9/2020- after reading up on this, I guess the appearance of a bit recession is normal after a cleaning especially if the gums were inflamed before the cleaning.  They are looking back to normal now.  Will start whitening later tonight.  Can't believe it's Friday!

Tray 3U/2L (refinement 3) again

 One thing I realized as I was going through old posts is how much I appreciate having pictures of my progress especially in the very early stages of Invisalign.  It's a great reminder of how much work it was, especially seeing those clunky attachments!!

Anyhow, I know progress pictures aren't quite as exciting anymore at this stage but here they are.  I just switched to tray 3U last night and am still wearing 2L.  I don't feel anything when I change trays.  I thought I'd throw in a picture of how the trays look after multiple rounds of Polident and scrubbing.  I did have some reservations about wearing them again.  The most yellowed trays are my final ones which I had to wear for the longest time while waiting for my retainers.  Bottom right picture was taken with aligners in.  You can see my bite and midline are a bit off and my front tooth isn't quite flush with its neighbours yet.  Will see what they look like at the end.    

I feel like a bit of nerd but I'm looking forward to seeing my hygienist on Monday.  I'm honestly not sure what condition my teeth are in after not having seen my hygienist for so long during the shutdown. Hopefully my teeth and gums are doing ok. After I get my teeth cleaned, I'm going to use my trays for some home whitening using a kit that I got on sale at Costco!  Also I dropped by my dentist office for chewies on Friday so hopefully that will help too.  I wish I had asked for them earlier.  they are so expensive online!

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.

Tray 18 update with pics and dirrrty teeth

These last couple of trays have left me with really sore and sensitive teeth. I think tray 18 has rotated my right front tooth in the right direction but it doesn't look like it's quite where it should be. I just want these next few trays to hurry up and go go go because I'm anxious to move on to refinements which I am pretty sure I will need. I'd also like to do a thorough cleaning of my teeth. Years of overlapping teeth have revealed stains in my teeth that my hygienist couldn't reach with her professional equipment let alone me with my little electric tooth brush.

slightly less overlap in the front??

yuck - i find the attachments make it harder to clean my teeth. that combined with the overlapping sections of teeth finally seeing the light of day makes for a pretty gross set of chompers!

my bite seems a bit off to me still...

it looks like the back of snaggy has kept my front right incisor from rotating any further.

A (dental hygiene) reality check

As you may recall last week I went for a 3 hour dental hygiene appointment at the local dental school.  Since I've gotten serious about my oral health several months ago and especially since I got my invisalign trays, I've been very conscientious about brushing (3x), flossing (at least 2x) and rinsing (1x with salt water and 1x with fluoride rinse) daily.  I've also had my teeth cleaned professionally 2-3x in the past several months alone.  So I was really surprised when at the end of my 3 hour session last week (this was the assessment alone!!), the dental hygiene student (let's call her D) told me that she'd need to see me at least twice to get all the build up off of my teeth.  

I have to admit I feel a bit badly about seeing D since I never visited the clinics when my friend T was going through the dental hygiene program and was looking for volunteers to have their teeth cleaned.  For the most part, I think I was just really embarrassed about the state of my teeth.  Since I started having all of my dental issues looked after in addition to my invisalign, I've felt a lot more confident about my teeth.  In addition, D happens to be wearing invisalign too which is kind of a nice coincidence because at first I was worried that my student wouldn't know what to do with an invisalign patient. 

Today I went in for my first of said 2-3 sessions.  It was rather uncomfortable but interesting to hear D and her instructor converse about my teeth and gums.  Her instructor was wondering why my gums seemed a bit inflamed relative to the fine layer of build up and eventually came back and pointed out that my invisalign trays were the likely culprit.   Anyhow, hopefully after my appointments with D are over, I'll be back to 2 cleanings per year schedule.  

The two things that did make me feel (sore teeth and all) a bit better was that D commented on clean my teeth are despite some of the buildup below the gum line and... the cleaning cost me only a fraction of what I normally pay for a cleaning ($26 at university vs. 20% of $300 (or $60) at my dentist's office).  It's not a huge difference I suppose but with the upcoming wedding and also in anticipation of some of the other things I'd like to have done with my teeth (ie. whitening) saving money by any means has become more and more rewarding to my increasingly frugal self.