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!

It's been nearly 10 years and I'm back again!

I didn't expect to be here again yet here I am.  Of course there are a lot of things that I wasn't expecting in the year 2020.  I plan to share a little bit more of the details over the next few weeks as I take some time to reflect but here are the high/lowlights of my post braces life:

- still married and with two kids now both in school

- have been working full time outside of maternity leave so its been a busy 10 years

-  have worn both a wire and multiple essix retainers regularly and have broken a number of them over the years

- have seen some regression since being in retainers and been somewhat unhappy about it over the last year or two.

- the last time a retainer broke and I went to see my dentist he suggested I try Vivera retainers.  When I mentioned I still had my old trays.  He suggested I try cleaning my old retainers and popping them back in before we do a new mold.  

- I really want this right so I went back to the beginning of my final refinements (6U+ 3 overcorrection trays) so it'll take me a few months to get through them all.  I've also purchased some whitening gel so looking forward to having a straighter and whiter smile again soon.

One thing I'll note is that brushing my teeth as a middle aged working mother, while working in a senior role in an office tower during a pandemic, keeping up with the invisalign hygiene is way different then the first time when I started this process in my late 20s.  It's brutal and takes so much more discipline.  I sometimes think, if only I had started this process when I was still working at home several months ago. But then again, nothing ever came of coulda woulda shoulda.  I'm back here now and I'm going to just get it done.

My teeth at the beginning of this "reboot".  Not as bad as at the beginning of treatment but leaves some room for improvement!

So far so good... sort of

I just realized that some people might be interested in my treatment plan if they've got a similar case and want to draw comparisons. My initial set of trays will be 20 upper and 21 lower to be worn 2 weeks each with 11 attachments (three in every corner of my mouth except my top left). Cost was approx $4400 CDN and includes 3 sets of refinements.

I was starting to get used to my previous aligner. To the point where I barely noticed it at all and my initial lisp (noticeable to me but not my fiance) was gone. And then I noticed it - a crack right center on my top aligner. I don't how long it's been there but figured it wasn't a good thing and have since moved on to my next aligner as I was instructed at my initial orientation.

It's actually quite a tight fit but if that means that it's moving my teeth in the right direction then I suppose it's a good thing. It does feel a bit funny in my mouth though and I keep running my tongue against it subconsciously. I just hope that my next set of aligners aren't too hard take off once I get my buttons on (next visit). It makes me wonder if they made that first aligner easy to take on and off on purpose so as not to scare me out of treatment!

Anyhow - hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and a productive boxing day (for the Canadians out there).

2 week pictures below.