April 2011-October 2011

After Invisalign treatment, followed by two years of part metal braces and elastics, things were at at interesting point.

The good: the gap from a missing molar down on the lower right? Gone. My ortho managed to lift it out of its sunken state and bring up to site with the other teeth.

The bad: it threw my bite out and I wasn't happy.

My ortho announced "he was done". I asked what that meant, and he said the braces need to come off and I'm all set. One way he suggested to get the bite in a better aligment was to grind some some erupted bits on some of my molars which he feared was throwing my bite out. At first I thought, hmm, OK, let's see. But then as he was grinding the first tooth I kind of freaked. This wasn't right. Cutting bits of tooth away to get a better bite was not what should happen. My ortho was really pissed off with me. I said I wanted to leave and come back another time for him to finish this grinding job. So I sat for a few weeks and went to see my dentist for an opinion on my bite. In polite words, he said I had no bite. I wish I had pictures of the bite because it was clear there wasn't one. My dentist agreed that grinding down teeth was not a good thing. He agreed it was good that I walked out.

So where to turn now? I decided to go see another ortho for another opinion. I was very nervous about doing this, but my current ortho had been so bad with communicating and explaining things to me, I had nothing to lose but to go see someone else. I went armed with my pictures and ortho history and had an interesting consultation. The ortho looked over my pictures, and looked in my mouth, and I could tell he was pretty horrified. He agreed I had no bite, and he was concerned about what had been happening to my teeth. Well, that was it, I broke down crying. I don't know where it came from, but I could not stop crying. I'm in my 40's and was crying like a toddler. I was so embarrassed! I think someone confirming what I had feared and dreaded overwhelmed me. The years of work on these teeth, and I still had no bite. Was I stuck like this forever?

Well, this amazing ortho made me cry even more because he said he would fix my bite and not charge for his time. I wasn't facing another $6,000 bill (the initial cost of my Invisalign back in 2005), and this person was not going to jump and make a ton of money out of me. He said he wanted to restore my faith in orthodontists. I think I cried on and off for the rest of the day unloading years of stress about my teeth.

May, 2011 I dumped my ortho. After seven years, I was the one DONE with him. He was mad, but I refused to speak with him. I moved to the new ortho and first thing he did was to take all the equipment out, and give me a whole summer of no braces. Freedom! No aligners. Nothing. It was bliss. This brings us to October 2011, with plans to go into full metal braces.

I feel bad about not having any pics for this stage, and I feel guilty about asking my ortho office to send me them seeing as I didn't essentially pay for them.

January 2009 - April 2011

**This may be a short post to cover two years of treatment, but I had other things going on and teeth blogging took a back seat. If there seems to be massive gaps in the explanations, please message and I'll try to fill you in.  

Around late 2008/early 2009
My wisdom teeth were not doing their job. They resisted Invisalign. I needed some dental treatment and snapped the x-rays from my dentist. What I saw horrified me. The erupted tooth was moving (somewhat), but the roots were firm.

Because the Invisalign revisions were essentially free, we decided to go for two more revisions. So that totaled my Invisalign treatment at 100 aligners for the upper set. 100 aligners. I'll let you sit there with that for a moment. Here was my bite after all of that, and I was somewhat happy with it. Now more goofy teeth! But bear in mind the back teeth roots are screwed at this point

May 2009
By May we ditched Invisalign. I needed these molar roots to move, and I needed something to happen. I moved over to metal on the back teeth only with various stages of elastics and the most HIDEOUS metal bar in the roof of my mouth. I think I went home and cried. OK, in the grand scheme of things it was just teeth, but really? I now have to have this in my mouth?? I made a lovely indentation in my tongue, too. It looks quite innocent in the picture, but it was pure hell before I got used to it.

The lower metal bar just wrapped around the inside edge of my lower teeth. My ortho also cut down my last set of aligners to use as retainers for the front teeth so I had those to clean, plus flossing and messing around with metal at the back. I wore this set up for almost two years which takes us to April 2011.

Bear with me

I'm going to fill in the gaps on my treatment. This weekend. All of it. I know some of you are keen to see what happened, and to be honest I've forgotten some of it, and that serves me right for not keeping up with this blog. I took some pictures along the way, but there will be big jumps. Here we go...

I am still here...

Lots of things got in the way of me posting on this blog but I am still here and still in braces. METAL braces. Invisalign ended and so I was put in metal torture instruments for 2 years. I now have a feeling my ortho is dumping me and I'm currently looking for a new one as my bite is pretty much screwed right now. I promise, promise pics very soon!

I've been lazy...

I know, I know...I haven't updated in a looong time.

I finished my aligners at the beginning of the year but my wisdom teeth were still not joining my other teeth in the world on munching. After a visit with my dentist I discovered that the wisdom teeth are caving in and not moving vertically as they should.

At the moment I am on the last of a set of 4 aligners which was a mini refinement for some other teeth.

This week I will be going for a check up with the ortho. This will mean either another set of refinements or I will be set up with metal braces to get the wisdom teeth to move along. I'm not happy with this but at the moment there is nothing I can do about it but grit my teeth and play nicely.

Pics to follow when I can get around to it. Sorry I've been so absent but I am still in braces and still battling with my teeth!

5 more to go....

I thought the last stages of my treatment would be easy but it's probably been the hardest of all. #78 aligner was complete agony. It pushed so hard on my front teeth that I couldn't take the aligners out for a day and when I did to try and clean my teeth it was so painful I just put up with a skanky top set until the pain faded.

#79 went in so easily but there is a lot of pressure on my wisdom teeth. There is still a gap large enough to fit my tongue in, so can they really close that gap in 5 aligners?? It is hard to see on the aligner, but I am concerned about whether they will meet or not.

As you can see from the side picture, the front gaps have closed, and the front teeth have been pushed back. The overjet has gone from 12mm to 5mm, and I'm hoping it will close even more. At aligner #50 the overjet was 10mm so there has been major movement up front!

My ortho still has not discovered the missing attachment and I've been making less visits which is very convenient. Instead of 6 weeks, I've been taking 12+ week vacations. That makes me happy.

Now I am getting close enough to be worried about refinements, retainers, and the whole new saga of dealing with a new set of teeth.

It's been a long time...

Somehow blogging about my teeth became less and less important, but important things have been happening to my teeth. Now at #63 I can finally see a home stretch. That home stretch is still a long road, but it feels good. Having these aligners is now second nature to me. Sometimes I panic thinking I don't have them in, only to be reassured by a quick flick of the tounge.

I don't care who sees the gaps, I don't effing care. If someone sees gaps, and judges me on them, that is their friggin problem, not mine! There has been a lot of talk about how self conscious people get with having Invislaign and quite frankly they need to pull up their big girl pants and deal with it. C'mon, is that all you have to worry about? Sheesh. Get over yourselves!

An attachment fell off somewhere along the way between the last post and this one. It was the new big one. I have had 3 ortho visits since it parted ways, and my ortho still hasn't realized it has gone. Hah! He was reluctant to put it on in the first place, but to not even realize it has disappeared? It makes me wonder why he even bothers to get me to come in.

So, I think that is all I have to moan about for this exciting installment. The pictures speak for themselves really. I'm very excited about how clean and pearly my teeth are looking. That is without bleaching for over 2 years! My hygienist does a fantastic job.

See you around #70!