Tales of a snaggle-toothed bride to be!

If you're planning to do any traveling with invisalign, you may want to think twice about going to any country that doesn't have drinkable tap water. It's a real pain to use bottled water whenever you brush your teeth. At least that's what I found.

I've been back since Saturday and managed to squeeze in a quick appointment with Dr. A. This round consists of 6U/4L (+3 over correction trays if needed) trays. I hope I'm happy after this. No attachments this time.

Pictures ...

Well, I knew it had been a long time since I updated but I didn't realize that I haven't posted since August!! Oh my - since then the snow has fallen twice where I live, halloween has past and we've even instigated a garden light war in our neighborhood.

And my teeth... well when it comes to my teeth I suppose there's two ways to look at it. On the negative side, I had to go through a second round of refinements after getting through my uber round of 20U/13L refinements. On the more ...

Well the good news is that I had kind of been hoping, at the beginning of this set of refinements, that I'd be able to get my attachments off before an upcoming wedding where I'll be a bridesmaid and they are now off. I have exactly two weeks to whiten before then too! The not so good news is that Dr. A and I decided that I am probably going to go for another round refinements. I kind of guessed that this is what he had in mind when he had mentioned this would be a longer appointment but still a ...

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been really busy these past couple of weekends between hosting and attending bridal showers, helping with a friend's wedding, and starting a new job. This is supervain but I'm really glad that my teeth are so much straighter now and I feel pretty comfortable (despite all the attachments) smiling widely whenever I meet someone for the first time. First impressions are important and I think mine is much warmer and more pleasant now thanks to invisalign.
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Since I've gotten my new front attachments, my teeth have felt really sore with every tray change. It kind of reminds me of my first series of trays. Hopefully, this will result in some big changes! I'm not sure what's going to happen after this current series

I had a chat with Dr. A about retainers as well. He usually puts in a bonded retainer on the lowers and an essix retainer on top because apparently having essix top and bottom takes some getting used t0 (too bulky?). Given that ...

I'm still here but I have to confess I'm getting lazier and lazier with my updates. In case you're wondering, I'm now changing up my lower trays (in my last 3 overcorrection trays) more slowly than my top ones to avoid wearing the last tray for months on end. I've gotten a lot more questions about my invisalign trays(after close 1.5 years of wearing them!) since I got my new attachments. Mostly people are just curious or considering getting them themselves.

I've been a rather bad ...

Pictures: here

So today I got 3 more attachments for a total of 12 attachments (7 upper/5 lower). The three new ones are on my upper front two teeth and right lateral incisor. To be honest, I'm not too crazy about them. For one thing, they're much larger than I had anticipated and to me, they catch the light in a way that makes my invisalign much less discrete. Having said that, they're probably still slightly less obvious than having ceramic braces without the wire and you still have to get pretty close to see ...

After being struck with a cold and then allergies in tandem I figured I was probably done with being sick for a little while. Lo and behold I woke up last 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 ...

... 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, ...

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 ...

For as long as I can remember, my lower lip has always seemed a bit thicker than my top lip. 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. ...

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 ...

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 ...

I don't want 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 ...