radiopeter

From this:

To this:

To this:

And FINALLY to these!!!

1 year, 5 months, and 23 days

I received a comment on the δοντια μου (my teeth) post I did a couple days back from Jealene (Hi Jealene!) and I wanted to dish on living with Invisalign for over a year now.

It has been a long, and honestly fairly easy journey. But I learned a ton along the way. And while it’s not 100% done, I’ve certainly come to know a few tricks that I didn’t know before.

When I first began, I realized that I eat a lot. I eat all the time. Seriously. Like six or seven times a day, albeit small meals here and there, with the occasional large meal now and again. With all the in and outs of my trays, I didn’t want to have tons of food stuck in my teeth, only to rot while I was wearing my trays. You may squirm at hearing that, but imagine having yuck-mouth times ten, and that is what I got when I don’t brush and pop my trays back in right after eating.

SO, I went out and bought a handful of toothbrushes and tubes of toothpaste and scattered them everywhere I was. What does that mean? One at each job (I had several jobs when I began), several at home (I’d be brushing my teeth six or seven times a day, so I’d rotate toothbrushes), and I went online and bought a DentaKit to carry with me in my backpack (which I normally have) everywhere I went. I ditched the extra tray holder included, because the foldable cup stored inside the kit can be the tray holder if you need it to. And stow a couple Advil / Tylenol / Alleve / whatever you like in the kit.

The DentaKit was the single most useful thing I bought and I still use it regularly, but I’ve swapped out the travel toothbrush with one I like more. It has a mirror (a godsend for a vain guy like me) and places for floss, a portable cup, a toothbrush, and a small tube of toothpaste. If I’d recommend one single thing for Invisalign wearers, it’s the DentaKit. The convenience of having everything in a handy kit that is smaller than a paperback book is worth the $30.

The other major thing I learned, aside from developing a love for mint-waxed floss, is that the “Retainer Brite” cleaning tablets are pretty much useless. Same with the Polident, Efferdent, etc. I tried them all and nothing works better than a .79 cent (or .59 cent) hard bristled tooth brush from the generic section of your favorite pharmacy/convenience store.

Each morning I pop out my trays, toss ‘em in a glass of water before my shower and scrub them with the hard toothbrush after I brush my teeth. Takes a couple extra minutes in the morning, but the stiffer bristles get all the gunk out of the nooks and crannies nicely. With or without the cleaning tablets, you still have to scrub to get them clean. I even bought a ’sonic cleaner’ (not an ultrasonic…do they make those for Invisalign?) and it did little good. The only thing I found the tablets did for my trays was make them taste a bit minty. Since I use mint mouthwash and mint floss, minty trays were a moot point.

Beyond that, I always kept a folded paper towel in a pocket somewhere in case I was out and wanted to eat something. Pop out the trays, wrap them in the paper towel, put ‘em in your pocket. That way you aren’t tempted to leave them on a table somewhere.

Thursdays are the days I change my trays. I started on a Thursday night and I still stick to a Thursday night schedule (I have a couple lowers left). Thursday mornings I’d put the new trays next to the sink so I wouldn’t forget to change them that night.

As far as pain goes, yeah, it hurts sometimes. Not necessarily a sharp stabbing pain, but it throbs a bit. The morning after some new trays my teeth are a bit sensitive, but it depends on which ones are moving. That is where the stowaway Advil etc. comes in handy in the DentaKit. Sometimes during the first day or so of new trays, my mouth would hurt. It wasn’t a regular thing, and usually one Advil took care of it. But better to be prepared.

When my front teeth were moving around, the first couple days after a new tray I couldn’t even think of apples or carrots. But by the end of the first week, I could return to chomping away on harder stuff with no problems.

Ok, that was a total brain dump on Invisalign stuff. Jealene, I hope that helps some!

(my teeth)

So. It’s been a long journey with Invisalign and loads of work on my mouth. Basically, my bonus last year bought me a new smile. My bottom teeth are still a work in progress, but yesterday I visited my orthodontist, Dr. Kathryn Delfs, and she swapped my two “pegged” incisors for two temporary ones that tell the tale of the forthcoming veneers.

I love my new smile.

Yes, yes, I am vain. So what. It’s my bliss, and I’ve been known on more than one occasion to extol the virtues of vanity. Why shouldn’t I care about my appearance? Appearance counts for a whole lot in this world, and there is absolutely no denying it.

I can hear the emo kids screaming now.

If appearance didn’t matter, we’d all have smaller eyes and huge noses. And then scent would matter (although scent does matter to me). Or else we’d have huge hands and little eyes and noses, and our sense of touch would be how we’d explore our world. But we are visual creatures, like so many in this animal kingdom we claim to be at the top of.

I digress. This post is about my vanity and my teeth. Which look fan-freakin’-tastic right now, and they aren’t even in their final stages. As seen below, I had a pretty rocky-road smile with these tiny little peg-like incisors (one of which chipped last week). But now, the new ones are filled in and they smooth out the incisor/canine relationship.

My goodness how scientific sounding. Innit? I chose to put these in b&w because the coloring is not quite right on them yet, and once the new ones are in I’ll amaze you with my new choppers in full glorious color. I may even do them in hi-rez just to gross you and the rest of the internets out.

Seriously, who needs hi-def pictures of fleshy gums, right?

Ok, ok, on to the photographs.

My old choppers (far left and right bumps are Invisalign buttons)

και τα νέα (and the new ones)

All thanks to my miracle worker Dr. Delfs. Should you happen to live in Chicago, and need a great Orthodontist, as well as a kick-ass dentists office, I can’t recommend University Associates in Dentistry (Dr. Marcus is my dentist, Johanna my hygienist) any higher. These folks are fun, professional, and a delight to visit.

Face it. Nobody loves going to the dentist. But I actually look forward to visiting UAD whenever I have an appointment.

This morning at the orthodontist I got another set of seven trays. These are the adjustments that will bring me to my final alignment. From there I need a retainer for a few weeks, then I’ll get my upper smile corrected with a cap.

So for now I’m back to wearing the trays all the time. Three more attachments (my old ones were removed) but they’re not too bad. There are two on top, and one on the bottom. And the bottom trays are one tooth shorter than before, so they really feel comfortable.

The things I do for beauty…

My attachments are gone from my teeth!!! Thank GOD for that because I actually had my first meal without them. It didn’t really feel any different, but my resting bite feels a lot more natural.

This morning at my ortho’s, she removed all the attachments and took impressions of my bite again. My lower needs some more adjustment, so the molds will get sent to Invisalign for imaging a new set of trays. In a couple weeks that should be back and we get to watch the videos (again) of the movements. From there, the final trays will be ordered.

For now I only have to wear my trays at night. They are much looser than before because the attachments are gone. It’s a really strange sensation but I’m glad to be free of them.

I think I’ll buy a pack of gum. I haven’t chewed gum since before Thanksgiving…

Visited my ortho this morning, where she freed me from most of the attachments on my upper teeth. I have two left, but you can barely see them because they are far to the side. I have new trays for my lowers, but I’ll only have to wear my existing upper tray at night.

Now, just a matter of waiting until July 12th, when I’m done with my lowers!

Visited my orthodontist this morning for a bit more filing and received the final three trays for my upper teeth. In six weeks my smile will be all set to shed the four little buttons on my uppers and shine for the world. The doctor said she’d remove the buttons at my next visit. I’ll still have to wear the upper trays, but my smile will be where I want it to be. However, I won’t be done with the bottom teeth until July 12th, but I’ll have my upper smile back in action.

New Invisalign trays last night. I got in bed early because I didn’t sleep enough Wednesday night, new trays in place. Advil was my friend as I slept, but waking up this morning it felt like someone was trying to shove my front teeth up into my nose.

Isn’t that a pretty picture?

These are my 8th set of trays, past the halfway point on my uppers, but not on the lower teeth. I think this is the point where my upper teeth are starting to come into a straight line because looking at trays 7, 8, and 9, that seems to be what is happening. Somehow, turning movement or sideways movement doesn’t hurt nearly as much as pushing or pulling the teeth up and down.

I broke down and had an Advil for breakfast. Yum.

Pardon the poor quality of the first, it was taken with my RAZR. The second one was with my D70. You can see in these two photos how much my teeth have moved in just six trays, which translates to 12 weeks. The top teeth are much more in line, and the bottom major offending tooth is starting to line up with the others. Over the course of the next couple months, the bottom teeth will move down and into line and the top teeth will form a nearly perfect arc.

My top teeth are half-done for my Invisalign treatment. There was a bit of concern on my part about one of my incisors not fitting in the tray properly, but my ortho decided the tooth needed to be shaved a bit more and it should fall into line. Nothing major, but more of that eerie grinding noise in my head.

After these next three trays, my bottom teeth will be nearly half done. My top teeth are already 50% of the way to being completed (on tray 6 of 12) but I have 19 on the bottom, so still a ways to go there.

Now I can see movement. Even looking at the pictures I initially took, I can see a definite change. I can’t take a snapshot right now, but I will try to get one in this evening to show you the difference. It’s pretty damn amazing.

So a note to all of you interested in Invisalign. Do NOT skip the essential step of taking something for the pain BEFORE you put a new set of trays in at bedtime.

I woke up this morning with a symphony of hell in my mouth. My alarm rang and the first thing I noticed was how much my teeth hurt. The evening before, I decided not to take advil before I put in my new trays as a test.

So after eating a quick bit of leftovers last night, I popped my new trays in, turned down the heat, and curled up under the blankets with the cats. My teeth were aching a bit, but nothing tremendous. Until this morning.

Ouch I say. Ouch.

I saw a Frontline (or maybe it was POV or Independent Lens) once about the science of surgery and the whole scheme by insurance companies to get you out of the hospital as quickly as possible after you’ve been cut open. Researchers found that pain management for large incisions can be managed more effectively if you use anesthetic injections on the incision, even while the patient is already asleep.

The theory was, in brief, if you never inflicted pain on the pain receptors because you numbed them before you cut, as the incision site healed, the pain receptors would report less pain than if you just knocked the patient out and cut them open. It has something to do with how cellular trauma opens more pain channels, or makes the pain receptors more likely to fire after they’ve been traumatized. Really fascinating stuff (yes, I’m a total geek).

Current procedures, or at least when I saw the documentary (which was a few years ago), usually involved putting the patient to sleep, but didn’t take the added step of using local anesthetics at the incision site. According to the insurance companies, who pay for it all, why use a local when the patient isn’t going to feel it anyway?

The researchers indeed found that local anesthetics did help, and thus the patients recovered faster, using far less pain medication and experiencing quicker incision healing times.

I suppose that was a long way of explaining why, before you put your trays in, you should take something for the pain. It seems to me, by the same theory as the incision example I mentioned, if the pain receptors in your gums are less stressed while the initial movements are happening during that first night of a new tray, by the time the medication wears off, they won’t hurt as much.

I seem to have proved it with my mouth.

Truth be told, it isn’t THAT painful. It’s more of an ache. But for the next set of trays (set five) I move to, I will take something before bed. For set six, I think I’ll repeat the experiment to see what happens.

Well, it’s been six weeks since I started dating Invisalign. The relationship has been a bit rocky, but it’s going well thus far.

Wait, what am I saying? We’re not dating. We’re in a *shudder* committed relationship!

Jokes aside, it really is going on well with no apparent problems. I’m getting used to the routines associated with wearing them and I’m snacking WAY less than I normally would. So it isn’t bad at all.

I visited my ortho this morning to monitor my progress and get my next three sets of trays. All was good, and she ground away some more of my teeth, which is painless but sounds (at least in my head) like I’m chomping a bowl full of Cap’n'Crunch cereal before the milk has had a chance to make it soggy.

Not that I’m a cereal eater. I enjoy the occasional bowl of Cheerios, but cereal isn’t my thing.

Anyway, I left in a state of bliss because she gave me some bleach for my teefs. Let the whitening begin!

My typical morning routine has shifted slightly with Invisalign.

1. Alarm rings.
2. Hop out of bed and trudge to the bathroom.
3. Fumble with the gigantic bag of retainer brite tabs and drop one in a warm glass of water.
4. Snick, click, pop, off come both retainers and into the fizzy blue water.
5. THEN the normal routine begins.
6. After showering etc, I brush the retainers and then brush & floss my teeth.
7. And finally, I pop them both back in and get my day started.

Not to mention, drinking tea has become increasingly difficult. I have to pop the trays out, tuck them into their blue clamshell case, have my tea, brush and rinse, and pop them back in.

Oh, and I’m back on food again. Finished the fast over the weekend and started eating. My stomach is totally smaller, so I’m full really fast. Not a bad thing, but I’m sure over time it’ll stretch out again.

It was far easier to fast this time than ever before.

Well it’s over a week since my first set of trays. And I have to say that right now they are a cakewalk. They do actually feel really comfortable at the moment, so I’m wondering if two weeks is a bit long to wear a set of trays. Can change them any faster? Will need to check with my ortho when I visit next month. I’m not going to take any chances right now, but it makes me go hmm…

Chattin’ about my new teeth, work drama, smart podcasts, and DJing.

Watch ‘em move!

Ok, so the receptionistas got it wrong. I only needed to stop in to verify the teeth movements and see if I was satisfied with my final results. My ortho showed me a bunch of 3D animations online of my teeth movements and there’s tons of good news to be had.

First, it’s only going to take 8 months or so for the top teeth to move into place. I don’t have much wrong with them, so that’s good. Only one tooth is ‘behind’ another. Otherwise it’s pretty easy to align them.

Second, my bottoom teeth won’t need more than a year to move, which is great news. They may even fall into line at around the 10 month mark, so less than a year in trays.

And finally, some of the best news, my back teeth WON’T NEED TO MOVE AT ALL which means less pain and very little jaw stress. Since all the movement will be up front, it’s a much easier treatment course. Yee-haw!

The trays have now been ordered. They’ll arrive in a couple weeks.

I’m gonna have quite a few speedbumps on my teeth. Eleven to be exact. Those appear as the red dots in the video that I’m going to post right after this one.

It’s gonna happen. Soon.

Can’t wait!

This morning at 9:45 I have an appointment with the ortho to start with my first set of trays. I’m a bit nervous but mostly curious.

Will I need a million dots cemented on my teeth to move them around a lot? Will it hurt so much that I’ll be awake at night? How much weight will I really lose? (that’s a silly question, but I’m thinking about it)

My friend Jerry said he had them for about a year when they first came on the market. He said THEY HURT, so we’ll see. I’m eyeing a bottle of the white man’s poison (advil) at the moment and methinks I might take one or two as a precaution.

Life is gonna change once I get these things in my mouth. Not a bad thing, but it’s definitely going to change. I shall report back once I’ve returned from the ortho.

So my ortho’s office just called. Apparently they have my Invisalign stuffs all ready to go. But in our initial talks, they didn’t tell me I had to put another $1000 down. I already put $500 down for the impressions and stuff. And now another $1000? Jeez.

I hafta wait a week or two before I go dropping that kinda coin so quickly. The upshot is that on the 19th I should be getting my first set of Invisalign trays. As promised, I’ll keep each and every one of you involved with my Invisalign progress. Photos, pictures, commentary, the works.

And when my teeth hurt and I need to rage, trust me, you’ll hear about it.

This morning I had a photo shoot with my orthodontist. She took stills of my face, profile, and tons of fun stuffs in my mouth. There were mirrors, stretching things, and a ring flash the size of Mt. Rushmore in my word hole.

After the photo fun was over, she made a bite impression, an upper, and lower impression of my teeth. It was really quick and easy, far easier than I remember when I’d previously had impressions. Right now, as I’m typing this, the purple replicas of my mouth are being whisked off to the Align company to scan into their systems and make the computer animation that will show how my teeth will move during the next year.

Step one is done. Now all I do is wait for a phone call from the doctor’s office. Step two is the consultation, where we review the animation and talk about the length of treatment and stuff. I’m not sure when it all begins, but I’m anxious to get it started. By this time next year, I should have purrrfectly aligned lower teeth.

Yay.

I never had braces when I was a kid. My top teeth are fairly straight, and my smile is nice. But on my lower teeth, one tooth is pushed a bit back behind the others. I’ve always wanted to have that fixed, but I hate the thought of braces. Enter Invisalign.

I decided, since I’ve started seeing a new dentist, to ask about Invisalign. It turned out that there was a specialist on site. She took a quick look at my teeth and quoted me the price. I checked with my insurance and between them and my budget, it all works out well, so I’m going to do it.

In a few weeks, I’ll have my teeth impressions taken and the molds will be sent to the Align folks. They’ll model the movements of the teeth with a computer and begin casting the trays. If all goes well, every two weeks I’ll receive a new set of trays. The trays will move my teeth around and straighten out my lower teeth while improving my uppers.

The downshot is that I’ll have to wear these trays a LOT, which is going to take some getting used to while I speak. However, whenever I need to take them off, i.e. eating, teeth cleaning, etc., they just slip right off with no drama.

I’m going to try and document as much of this process as possible here on my blog, including photos and some videos if possible. I’ve even created a new post category for it, as I want to be able to share the experience with everyone AND I want to document my own progress.