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.

My incredible shrinking lip and other side effects of invisalign treatment

For as long as I can remember, my lower lip has always seemed a bit thicker than my top lip (picture). It's a subtle difference but something I noted in my side profile. And while I often noted how my misbehaving incisor poking out from between closed lips contributed to my lopsided "no teeth" smile, I didn't realize how much my overbite contributed to my formerly protruding lower lip.

Funny how oblivious I was despite all of the pictures I've been taking of my teeth in the past year. It's only while playing with different shades of lip gloss (I've been having fun with new make up and cosmetic products lately but that's a story for a different kind of blog!), that I've really noticed the shape of my lips an how they've changed. They've gone from being a little lopsided and disproportionate to being much more symmetrical in shape and size. I'd post a picture but I wouldn't have a good a comparator. If I do find one, I'll try to post it up with my next tray update.

Speaking of changes. I'm happy to report that I've lost my invisalign belly! I'm so happy since we'll be in Miami and the Carribean soon and swim suits are much less forgiving than sweaters and "eating shirts". As cliche as it sounds, it left as suddenly as it arrived. In an earlier post, I'd mentioned that as my eating habits had changed after I started my treatment (3 big meals vs. grazing over the course of the day), my weight kept increasing gradually. Initially, I wasn't too alarmed as I was quite thin post wisdom teeth surgery and had wanted to gain a bit. The problem with this though was that all the weight seemed to accumulate around my abdominal area, creating a rather muffin-like effect where my waist used to be.

After some soul searching and finally coming to terms with the fact that my metabolism isn't what it once was and that this state of affairs couldn't continue, I finally made some lifestyle changes that included not overeating at evening meals and working out 3 times a week (I cook and eat pretty healthily to begin with and worked out just not that regularly). As I mentioned in my last post, it looks like my weight has finally stabilized but I've lost the belly (!!) and fit my clothes comfortably again (I assume some fat has been converted to muscle) so I'm a happy camper.

What I find neat about all of this is how changing my teeth have changed other aspects of my appearance. I guess it makes me realize how inter-connected my teeth are to rest of the body (and reinforces all of those of studies looking at dental and heart health!). I know in the past I've been a bit negligent where my teeth were concerned but now that I've invested so much into getting my teeth to where they are, I really hope I don't ever regress in that regard again. In some ways, it may have been a good thing that my treatment will end so long after the wedding as it's not a milestone after which I can slack off.

Anyhow, a couple more days to pack, get ready and connect with family and friends before we're off on trip. See you in a few weeks!

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.

Refinement tray 4 pictures

The photos below were taken a few days ago before I switched over to tray 5. For the most part, I've noticed a bit of tightness at the beginning of each tray but not much beyond that. No visible changes yet but there's still quite a ways to go yet. The one thing I have noticed is that my teeth are staining a bit around my attachments. I'll have to make more of an effort to get to keep them clean and maybe book an early cleaning appointment. It makes me a bit concerned about when I get attachments on my front teeth though.

Pics:

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