4th visit, brace fitting

Monday 16th August.

I've finally had my invisalign braces fitted! Yipee!

After waiting a good few weeks for the return of the aligners, I am finally a true 'brace face'. My half hour appointment lasted nearly 45 minutes today. Tony Burns, my orthodontist, ran throught the expected outcome of the aligners with me. I was then taken to the treatment room to begin the inter proximal shaving stage of treatment. Not pleasant! Although not at all painful as I had imagined it to be. After tolerating what seemed like a pneumatic drill vibrating inside my skull, I now have nice little spaces in between certain teeth to allow movement of my over crowded teeth. Only a few teeth have been filed as Tony seems to think it will be less traumatic to carry out the procedure intermittently rather than all at once, so still rather a lot of 'shaving' of teeth to be done. At least I know it isn't painful now.

Attachments: In order for more pressure to be put on certain teeth to aid movement, I have had 5 attachments on my top teeth and 4 on the bottom set. These are the only slightly noticeable things once the aligners are in place but boy can you feel where they are once you remove the aligners!

Once the dentist had fitted the aligners I was given clear instructions on how to look after them/ store them. Sounded easy enough.... turns out it's quite time consuming with having to remove, clean, brush and floss each time I eat. I'm just getting used to removing the very tight aligners and replacing them after each meal. The knack is to flick them off from the inside and outside of the teeth before trying to ease them off. Being totally honest, I found myself sweating (probably in panic!) the first time I tried to remove them! 25 minutes it took me, just to get them off to eat a banana!!! At one point I did start to panic that it would be an impossible feat, but hey, patience is a virtue and I won't be beaten. Off they popped. My new 'spaces' are gathering bits of food that I'm not used to, so flossing is an absolute MUST!

I have been prescribed numerous tubes of high strength flouride toothpaste to help avoid potential cavities. If I get ANY cavities with the amount of over zealous cleaning and flossing I am doing, I will be gutted. I have never looked after my teeth so much in my whole life! I purchased Retainer Brite tablets to keep the aligners bacteria free and nice and bright looking.

I have had the aligners on for 5 days now and can honestly say they are not half as bad as I expected. I did take a strong ibuprofen tablet the day after fitting, as my gums were throbbing, but nothing too dramatic. Nobody has noticed them and I have a slight lisp which is disappearing more each day. My teeth are very sensitive once the aligners are removed and one of the attachments is making it extremely difficult to chew my food as the top tooth is catching it as I bite down, which I shall mention next time I visit the clinic. All in all I am very very pleased with them. I can now remove them and replace them in seconds and although slightly uncomfortable for a few days, I now don't feel like I have them on! Brilliant. They must be doing their job already with the tenderness of the gums.

Side effects: Very dry lips, can't work out why, but nothing a tub of vaseline can't rectify. Also the benefits are I don't snack AT ALL in between meals as it would be a total pain in the backside to remove, clean, brush, floss, replace just for the sake of a flapjack or a biscuit which can only be a positive!

I have to change the aligners in 2 weeks for the next set (13 upper, 20 lower in total), which I am told will feel tighter and maybe slightly uncomfortable to begin with.

So......... a successful fitting and few first days, here's to the next 2 years to gain the Hollywood smile!!!!!