Day III - Hunger pains kick in

Today has been a breeze compared to the first day with them on. I technically started wearing them on Monday, July 23rd right before bed, but my first real day was Tuesday, July 24th. So I am between 3-4 days.

The pain I had on the first two days have dulled, and I only have a bit of an ache, my teeth are still a bit sensitive.

I am sure you have heard of the "Invisalign Diet", besides the pain and sensitivity of your teeth and not being able to chew on hard food, once you start wearing the trays you don't want to take them off unless necessary. Everytime I take them off, I have to go through the process of removing them, cleaning them (I might be OCD ;) ) , but you will notice when you take them off, that there might be a tiny bit of grime, flossing, brushing your teeth and then I rinse with mouthwash.

In order to clean them, I simply brush the inside and outside of each tray using my toothbrush and some water. The bristles on the brush get the bit of grime that is developing.

 

I noticed how much I would reach for a snack since I started wearing these. Now I will only take them off for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

This morning for breakfast I had a Breakfast Essentials (Chocolate) smoothie. I added milk, and frozen strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. It was delicious. What's great about Breakfast Essential packets is that they are filled with vitamins. And I had a small chocolate pudding.

Last night for dinner, I had a cup of jello and cup of chocolate pudding. I went to bed hungry. I have been eating soups, but I desired something cooler because we are in the middle of summer.

I still don't have a real desire to eat anything hard with my teeth. Just thinking about chewing on a steak makes my teeth hurt. How are you guys doing?

Day II with Invisalign

I woke up to feeling much better, my gums are not very sore today. The pain has dulled considerably. What a difference and it is only day two. For me, wearing them consistently and for as many hours a day has helped me. Many times I have considered removing them for a short period, to let me and my teeth breath. As if they really need to breath, but I decided to bite the bullet and keep them in. The more you keep them in the faster and more efficient your progress will be, so I only remove them to eat.

I am glad I know my brother who went through this because he has been my support system and has been a great role model for this process. I was told countless times that he is a perfect model of discipline and that due to that discipline his results are amazing, so I want to follow in his footsteps.

Taking them off this morning for breakfast was much easier. I eat a small chocolate pudding and a clementine and drank some water. Not the best mix. I wanted to eat 2 small clementines, but after I finished the first one, my mouth, teeth and jaw was tired of chewing.

Some short lived habits I found myself doing at first was sucking on the aligners while they were in my mouth, to get saliva out of them, and due to that I irritated one side of my cheek a little bit, I learned that after I used mouth wash and felt the sting, so I made a conscience effort not to do that. I also found myself playing with ridges of the aligner with my tongue, small and annoying self habits that I broke from quickly after Day I.

My mouth is finally adjusting to its new neighbor that will stick with me for the next 6 months!

First day out

I finished one full day of wearing my invisalign trays. It is recommended to leave it in for at least 20-22 hours a day. I wore mine for 23 hours and it was quite an experience. I started the day with a meeting, so I was a bit nervous someone would notice.

My fears included:

• Someone noticing them in my mouth
• My speech
• Could I pay attention to the meeting and not the pain in my mouth
• Someone noticing the slight mouth guard/hockey mouth I strongly feel I have developed since putting them in.

My fears were put aside because I don't think anyone noticed anything, and my speech was perfectly fine. I think practicing talking and saying words the night before really helped.

I am little nervous to smile openly and freely.

For lunch, I luckily can go home, and I was able to freely remove the trays and rinse them, and enjoy some soup, then I quickly brushed, flossed, rinsed with mouth wash and put them back in. It hurts taking them off because the teeth are sensitive, and my saliva acts like a suction cup to the aligners. It felt good to take them off just for a little bit. My mouth was getting a little claustrophobic.

For dinner I had frozen yogurt with slices of kiwi, strawberries and blueberries. I don't have any desire to chew with my teeth because they are so sensitive.Chewing on the soft fruit felt strange. Even though I have only been wearing them for a day, I forgot how it feels to to bite down hard and chew on something.

I want to eat super large meatballs, with pasta and garlic bread.

To prepare I went shopping and bought:

• Jello
• Pudding
• Apple Sauce
• Soup
• Breakfast essentials (to make chocolate smoothies)

I plan on living off of these smooth and soft foods until my teeth and mouth start feeling better. I assume that every three weeks when I change into a new tray I will go through this pain, but I won't know until I get there.

Overall, the day went much better than I thought it would. I did have constant pain during the entire day. The amount of pain came in waves. Distractions during the day help. I am getting used to it and I feel that the pain is going to subside as time goes by.

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!

Picking up the aligners and Do's and Dont's

 After only a few days I was called and told that the molds are in, usually they take 2-3 weeks, it only took about 3-5 days. Unfortunately, it wasn't a convenient time for me to pick them up, as I mentioned before, I live 2 hours away, and I was just heading out of state to a conference. I made an appointment to pick them up after I returned from my conference.

I picked them up today.

First, the attachments were added, all together I needed about 7 attachments placed on my teeth. This process was fairly quick, the teeth are prepared to attach the glue dots, as I call them, and then a template tray is placed on your teeth and the dots are cured, once hardened they are then polished and your bite is checked. From what I understand not everyone needs these attached, and the amount of them vary per case. As you can see below, they are virtually invisible on my teeth.

Next, was the sanded floss, a few of the bottom teeth were flossed in between, I was worried it would be noticeable, but when that was all done I was handed a mirror to practice inserting and removing the trays. It was true, the attachments were not very noticeable and matched my teeth, and the flossed teeth were not noticeable at all either.

I practiced on a "template" tray, which was a tray of my molded teeth, it was tight, but I was told, that the aligner will be tighter. I was told that to put them in I should push it on the middle (front teeth) first, and then snap the left side and then the right side. It was fairly easy, then to remove it, I would do the opposite, with my fingernail pull from the back right, the back left, then slowly remove it from the front.

I did this a few times, and I thought it was pretty easy. I was asked if I wanted to practice using the real trays, but I opted not to, I wasn't going to leave with them on, because it was early in the afternoon, and I still wanted to have lunch and dinner. I knew right after dinner I would put them in for the night.

What I was told:

• I would wear my aligners 22-24 hours a day.
• You can only drink water when wearing them.
•  Only take them off to eat and brush/floss teeth.
  
  I was handed:
  
• Four aligners all together, I was told that one set was for the first 3 weeks, and the second set for another 3 weeks, so I don't have to return for another 6 weeks.
• A blue and red tray holder. I was told that the blue holder will be my new best friend, I would carry my trays in there all the time, or use them as a holder when I go out to eat or couldn't/didn't wear them.
  
  The red holder is to place the tray I was done with, so in three weeks my first set will be placed in there. I was told some patients will have a "relapse", they might go on vacation and forget, or opt not to take their aligners with them, and if that happens, they can open the red tray, and go back to the previous aligners, so it's good to keep them around just incase. And sometimes, in rare cases, they can break, if they break, you at least have the previous aligners to wear in the mean time.
  
• Lastly, I was given a toothbrush, and was told how to clean my aligners. Simply with water and toothpaste and a toothbrush. I was told some patients will put water and a bit of soap in a ziplock bag and shake the trays in there.
  
  How does it feel?

My mouth feels a bit funny with the attachments, they were attached to my canine teeth, so I feel like Dracula. But I am sure I will get used to it.

My next step is to put them in after dinner tonight...