In the Beginning

OK, quick history. I'm 38 and have never had braces. I've always had issues with my upper canines sticking out (they grew in before my baby teeth fell out). My upper and lower lateral incisors and canines are very crowded (the lower being worse than the upper).

After years of visits to the dentist, and a tough time cleaning these trouble areas, I decided it was time to look into orthodontics.

During the summer of 08, I met with a few orthodontists, and found one I was comfortable with. She told me that I would be a candidate for Invisalign, but that I would have to have 4 teeth extracted. A little scary, sure, but I decided to give it a go.

Over the next 6 - 8 months or so, we did impressions, and xrays, and pictures, and all sorts of wonderfully fun things (nothing like plaster in your mouth). My ortho decided which teeth needed to be extracted (the 4 1st pre-molars), and sent me off to an oral surgeon. We met, and he asked me if I also wanted to have my ONE wisdom tooth, which was way up there in the top of my mouth, extracted while he was in there. I figured, what the heck, and said sure.

On January 23rd of this year, I went under the knife (and whatever else they used to rip teeth out) and had all 5 teeth extracted. It was relatively painless. The recovery was OK, and the only real issue I had was with the stitches bothering me after a few days.

Then, on February 4th (my daughters 5th birthday as a matter of fact), I got my first set of aligners put in.

My next post will be about my experience thus far with my aligners, and hopefully contain a few pics