Tooth whitening!

 So I'm a bit of dork as you can probably tell from the blog.

Anyway, even the dork in me had to fully take in the set up for this whitening kit I bought from Costco.

Here's the box

Here is what the contraption looks like.  Nice soft rubber insert for where teeth go.  

It looks kind of like a spaceship.

I'm going to try to take pictures in the same bathroom to keep the light source the same in my photos.  I can't tell what colour my teeth currently are.  Somewhere in the middle?

Here is what this thing looks like in my mouth.  Once you put the gel in, the light is supposed to expedite the whitening.  They didn't provide too much scientific material to back that up.

The experience was a little offputting.  Previously I just put the gel in my trays and went around my business until it was time to rinse it out.  This time around, I had to keep this thing in my mouth the whole time, hoping it didn't come out if I sneezed.  I was drooling all over the place.  Next time I may try with my trays on.  I do like the softness of the material they used to make the mouthguard, just not convinced, it can keep the whitening gel on my teeth.

Will update on the whitening process in a few days after I've applied a few more times.

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!

UPDATED: An inspiration photo - (with more pictures!)

 As I flipped through my old blog posts, one thing I realized was that I had never posted an after photo once I was finished with my third set of refinements and into my retainer way back in 2011.  Well, there happens to be a good reason for that which is that I found out I was pregnant just at that very same time.  As a result, following the progress of my teeth took second fiddle to sorting out a baby room, prenatal vitamins, lab test, sharing the news and all that good stuff.

Anyhow, at some point I stopped taking regular close up photos of my teeth.  The best I can do is from a selfie I took during a trip I took with a good friend in the fall of 2011.  Here's hoping I can get my teeth to a similar state by the time I'm all done - again!

***Update - October 9/2020:

I had a bit of time to dig around in my old computer today.  It reinforced my suspicion that I didn't take a round of photos after I was done with Invisalign.  Though I found many pregnancy progress photos.  Not reposting those here!  I did find some smiling photos that are a bit clearer than the previous one I posted from this period:

This was taken during refinement round 2 - you can still see the attachments, taken in summer of 2010

Based on time, this was half way through refinement round 3, you can see a few gaps, taken early fall 2011

Taken after refinements round 3, February 2012

Taken after refinements round 3, October 2011

Taken after refinements round 3 with tray on, October 2011

So as you can see, my teeth were never "perfect" after round three but if that's as good as it gets for my case, I'm happy to go back to it.  One thing that's interesting to me is that I'm sure if my front right tooth and it's neighbour to my right ever fully aligned.  Will have to see how they look at the end of this process.

Can I get any sicker?

After being struck with a cold and then allergies I figured I was probably done with being sick for a little while. Lo and behold I woke up on Thursday with a toothache reminiscent of my post wisdom tooth extraction days (bottom ones were fully impacted). I was so uncomfortable I had to take a tylenol to get through the work day but I was still somewhat hopeful, figuring that the most likely explanation was nightly teeth grinding. I had been wearing tray 11 at that point for about 10 days so it didn't make sense for the pain to be from my invisalign.

When the pain returned on Friday with a vengeance, I decided it was time to action. I gave my dentist a call and managed to book myself in to see her the next day. I was a bit anxious as I left the house for my appointment - hoping that I wouldn't need a root canal or filling. Luckily, after taking a good look at my teeth and some xrays, my dentist determined that there doesn't seem like anything was wrong with my teeth.

So, after a lot of research and the onslaught of a number of other symptoms. I think what I had was a sinus infection. It's just so odd - I could have sworn it was a really bad toothache. Anyway I'm just glad that I'm not sick anymore and happy that there's nothing wrong with my teeth.

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!

And now for a special public health message directly from my sick bed

I've been quite sick for the past week or so and am hoping to be able to drag myself into work tomorrow. While I've been quite miserable, I feel even worse that I seem to have made a couple of colleagues at work sick too. So given that I've got some time on my hands I thought I 'd draw up a list of things to keep in mind during invisalign treatment for those who are sick, living with others who may be sick and/or having a tendency to be a bit of a hypochondriac.

1. If you've decided to get your flu shot, get it early on in the season. If multiple flu shots are available, make sure you get all of them and remember that the incidence rate of various flu strains can change within the same season.

2. Even if you've gotten your flu shot and seem to be immune to a house mate's illness, don't let down your guard in case they catch a cold towards the end of the flu and unknowingly pass it along to you!

3. Always wash your hands before and after taking off/putting on your trays and try to wipe down the surrounding area as much as possible. You never know what germs you may have picked up or unsuspectingly left behind.

4. Have some hand sanitizer on hand in your purse if you use one or in various places where they would come in handy. That way if you need to pull out your trays quickly or decide to bypass a bathroom to put/take your trays on/off, you can ensure that your hands are reasonably clean.

5. Put your health before your invisalign treatment. That's not to say that it's a good excuse to be lax about cleaning your trays and dental hygiene. However, if you haven't been able to eat well for the past while and finally have your appetite back, it won't hurt to spend some time without your trays on so that you can have a bigger meal or snack in between meals if you can only eat a little at a time.

Aside from that, I try to make sure I do all of the usual things like get lots of rest, take in Vitamin C, stay hydrated. Hopefully later this week I'll be able to work out again too.

Anyhow, that's all I can think of for now. Do let me know if there's anything else you'd recommend.

Refinement tray 8 pictures and more!

Hello! Sorry I've been so lax about updating as of late.

I don't have any good excuses really aside from being on vacation and getting sick over the past week. Teethwise, it's been business as usual for the most part. I went to see my dentist just before my trip as I noticed some issues with my teeth and gums. She was really impressed (again!) with how much my teeth have changed since the first time I saw her but mentioned that I seemed to be having some trouble reaching my back teeth and below my bottom attachments (which were turning a bit yellow - yuck!) as she could tell from the build up. She checked my gum pockets and said there's been some pronounced improvement there as well. I guess I've come a long way from where I started.

In retrospect, it might have been better to have my teeth professionally after I got back from my teeth but hopefully it doesn't make too huge of a difference and I tried to be as diligent as I could while I was away. We were in Miami for a few days before our cruise (funnily enough, we were there for superbowl weekend and didn't even know it until after we booked our cruise - silly Canadians, we are) and enjoyed some really good food. This meant of course that we went to quite a few restaurants and I ended up brushing my teeth wherever I could as soon as I could. Most of the time, it wasn't a huge deal, since we ate at off peak times (empty bathrooms!) and our hotel was close to a number of eateries so sometimes I just waited until we returned. There were a couple of times (ie. Sat. before the superbowl) though when I had to just whip out the electric toothbrush in front a bathroom full of women primping and preening. I find if you don't look all embarrassed about it, nobody really seems to care but I still get the odd sideways glance (if I don't have a toothbrush in my mouth, I just look directly at them and smile warmly).

Surprisingly enough, once we went on our cruise (7 days through the Carribean with NCL), it was a lot easier to either get to our cabin or a semi-empty bathroom in between meals. Trying to keep my trays in for a decent amount of time was another matter. Between all of that food (everywhere, all the time!) and getting to various events, I have to admit, sometimes I slipped my trays in after a quick, discrete swishing and other times, I just kept them out for a bit. I thought the port stops would be more difficult to manage but we went on a lot of Cruise organized excursions and while they charged an arm and a leg, they did include lunches at nice venues with clean bathrooms. With all of that negligent tray wearing going on I ended up wearing tray 7 for a few extra days to make up.

We spent a couple more days in Miami (24C and they described it as cold!) before coming home to snow, -10C (mild by our standards), and all of the excitement around the Olympics (Vancouver's a pretty long way from where we live but it was still easy to get excited being part of the host nation). Since then I've been down with a bit of a cold but hopefully I'm getting through the tail end of it.

One thing I've noticed as of late is that I'm not quite as motivated to stop everything and put them in after meals anymore. I guess I'll just have find a way to keep myself on track - perhaps, thoughts of yet another long refinement set??

Pictures from the end of tray 8:

My crooked tooth catches the light a bit, me thinks.

It'll be interesting to see what my bite looks like at the of treatment.

Darn front right incisor.

Refinement tray 6 pictures and update

I used to wonder where all of those formerly avid invisalign posters/bloggers went after they disappeared off the face internet. Now I think I know. After the majority of the correction has occurred, it's not nearly exciting to track to progress from one refinement tray to the next. It feels like quite a slow process at times until I remember that I've already gotten through 6 trays. I picked up trays 7-10 earlier this afternoon and am going to take a look to see what sort of differences I can spot between refinement trays 1 to 10. Now that I'm on refinements, Dr. A is making himself more available for questions and the like. I wish I had more teeth questions with which to impress him with my eagerness to comply or exhibit my curiosity but at this point I don't have too many questions, save one. I keep seeing this little space between snaggy the little top right lateral incisor and he explained that since my front incisors are both being intruded, I'll see a bit of space there all the way through treatment.

Other than that, I've started to lose weight again since I started working out and am going to have to readjust my meals accordingly. Nothing major, it just offsets the weight I put on initially with Invisalign and seems to be able now. It's an opportune time to lose the extra bit of flab since we're headed south for a much belated honeymoon starting next week. Perhaps when I return, I'll have an update on the challenges of wearing invisalign while on vacation.

Pictures:

My midline is finally lining up!

As snaggy finally comes forth, he's showing some signs of possible decay on the one side that developed in the shadow of the neighboring incisor. I booked an appt with my dentist for next week to see what she thinks and an early cleaning.

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.

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!

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!

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.

Tray 17 update with pics

So I had a pretty quick visit with Dr. A today but a few important things were discussed albeit pretty briefly.  It looks like I'll be going through all of my over correction trays (18-20U and 19-21L) and will likely need refinements (he thinks it would probably just be a few but was hesitant to commit).  I'll also be getting a permanent retainer on the bottom and a clear essix type retainer on top.  Finally, he explained that my over correction trays will only bring my teeth together more tightly rather than continue to rotate my teeth into the correct position.  My next visit if all goes well is in 2 months.

I really wish I had had written down all of my questions for him in advance but I was in such a rush to make my 7:30am appointment this morning I didn't have a chance to compose myself and ended up rushing through the appointment.  What I would have asked and may still ask via email was when my attachments were coming off (so I can book a cleaning), if my next appointment would involve molds, if the shooting pains in my front tooth were normal, if refinements would fix my bite (molars still aren't touching) if it doesn't feel normal again by the end of this set, my angled bottom tooth, the excess attachment material on my teeth etc...

Oh well.  I'm onto tray 18 now and my teeth are really sore.  I may just give in and take something for it.  I can see that front tooth moved a bit with the last tray though so I am sort of ok with it for now - no pain, no gain!

Pictures!

Almost there, my mutant extra long canine and uneven gumline kind of spoil the effect.

Snaggy's almost in line...

funny how this canine seems to be at such a weird angle

I think my front tooth is finally starting to slide into place!  The letter must have helped.