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!

Splitting trays! (tray 5 upper, 4 lower)

I've had quite a bit of bad luck with my upper trays splitting around my cross bite area. To date, trays 1, 3, and 4 have all split before their time. Hopefully this hasn't affected my treatment. Having said that, I slipped in my 5th upper tray without any difficulty last night though and am still wearing my 4th bottom tray which will put me out of sync for a week.

I've gotten quite obsessive about photographing my progress (often under pretty unflattering lighting conditions). My fiance teases me a bit about this along with my newly developed habit of clicking my teeth together randomly.  I took the next few at my mom's house (a herd of gaming geeks had taken over my place) so the lighting might look a bit different from the usual photos.


'ok' side

'snaggle toothed' side

mouth agape - look at all those jagged edges!

mouth closed - also highlights my uneven gumline

a smile - this is probably closest to what most people will see of my teeth

I have to admit, I never realized how misaligned my teeth were until I started taking all of these pictures and scrutinizing them more closely. I do think though that they don't look quite as bad as they're made to look here due to angle and light but there is still a ton of room for improvement.  I'm so glad I'm doing this (invisalign) before the wedding though, it would have been so sad to smile unnaturally and/or end up disliking my wedding photos because of my teeth. Here's to straighter teeth!

Snap, crackle, pop!

So I managed to do it again. I snapped my tray out (perhaps a bit too hard), it cracked a fair bit, and I called Dr. A's office before I popped from stressing out about what to do next. This is the second time I've had a top aligner crack on me (tray 1 did it too!) before it was time to be retired so I'll have to take extra care when removing it from now on, at least until my cross bite on the one side isn't as deep.

Anyhow, I was advised to move on to tray 4 a week early which I was surprised to hear. They seem to fit ok though. One thing I forgot to ask is if I should switch my bottom tray or finish wearing them for the full two weeks. Will have to bug them tomorrow I guess.

In other news, I saw my mom today. I haven't seen her in two weeks and she commented that my teeth had shifted and looked better. This without being asked! i happily retold the story to the fiance after he got home from work as it seems to be my favorite game ("hey, have my teeth moved???") with the fiance these days.

Actually when I think about it, long before I even met my fiance, my mom had always gently encouraged me to take care of my teeth. I really wish I had heeded her advice earlier on but in a way I'm kind of glad that I can afford to pay for them myself now and they're not an additional burden on her and my dad. Now that they're finally on, she's become one of my biggest cheerleaders.

I love love love my mom. She's the best.

Some pictures for your viewing enjoyment.