Day one - Inserting the Aligners the first time

The photo above shows how my teeth look after I put the invisalign on. The aligners provide a slight blur, so in my opinion your teeth look better with them on. As you can see, they are virtually invisible.

 After dinner, I brushed my teeth, flossed, and rinsed with mouth wash, this will be my ritual every time I take my aligner off. This is important to do, otherwise you run the risk of a few things, like pieces of food being in the tray while wearing them, other then it feeling and looking gross, you also run the risks of cavities and plaque build-up. I rinsed the aligner and shook it dry and then I tried to put it in for the first time.

I was told to first push the upper aligner in first by snapping it in the front teeth then pushing up on each side, one at a time.

The aligner was so tight, that it kept popping off. You really have to put a lot of pressure on them to push them in. You also want to make sure that they are pressed up as much as possible. You don't want there to be a lot of space between the bottom of your teeth and the aligner. After trying about 6-7 times, I got them in.I heard a snap and that assured me that they were in, they felt snug, and I made sure that the aligner went over my attachment (glue dots/anchors).

I then tried a few times to get the bottom aligner in, that one was more painful and tight, and I think it is because of the crowding I have.

Overall the pain was not too bad, at first, but about 2 hours later the pain set in. I thought it was the water I just sipped, and I thought because the water gets trapped within the aligner that it caused it to swell, but I have come to realize that it was just that my teeth are slowly starting to shift.

The pain felt strong, it felt like I flossed too hard on each tooth, then the pain felt like someone grabbed a rock and scraped my gums. It's an achy pain. I also touched the aligner and pretended to ever so lightly bite down on my hand and my teeth were sensitive. I can't imagine eating or biting down on anything.

I spent the rest of the night pressing them down, just in case I didn't properly insert them. But I couldn't push them up or down anymore. Saliva and water I occasionally sipped would get trapped in the tray, but I don't think this is a problem.

I also spent the night practicing my speech, because I noticed right away that I developed a small lisp, especially words with s and t's.

It was a long night. At first, I couldn't fall asleep, so I took one Ibuprofen, which didn't do anything, so after 2 hours, I took one more, and that helped me so much. I was able to sleep.

When I woke up in the morning, I dreaded taking them off, but I had no choice, I slowly removed and it hurt. My teeth were sensitive and while removing them the pressure that you need to take to remove them hurts.

I rinsed them and decided to eat breakfast.

I decided that I probably won't be eating snacks, and just sticking to three meals a day due to the hassle of removing them, but I will be talking about this in my next post, the "Invisalign Diet".

I drank some chocolate milk and a banana. A banana is so soft, it was perfect to start the day with. Afterwards, I brushed my teeth, flossed and rinsed with mouthwash, and painfully put them back in to start my day.

Until next time, I will let you know how my first full day of wearing them went. Wish my luck!