Getting aligners tomorrow! Wish me luck!

[invisibyte]

Hello to all you crazy nutters like myself, who have chosen to forego snacking, drinking, smoking and general debauchery to straighten their smile!

I'm so glad I found these boards, the support and information here is invaluable for me as I embark on this invisalign journey.

Just a quick post to introduce myself - I'm a 24 year old Female from Melbourne, Australia, and tomorrow will be receiving my first set of aligners! I am having both uppers and lowers, not sure how many or the time estimate yet, the entire lot is costing me $7500 AUD (not sure how much that is in US$, but I'm thinking it's still quite a lot since our $ is so bad at the moment... ha... )

So, at this point, on the cusp of the day when I will have my chompers wrapped up for the first time, my main concerns are:

* How noticeable they will be - I am straightening my front teeth mainly, as I have one tooth that has bucked itself forward to make way for the crowding in my uppers... I may not even be able to close my mouth well with the aligners on! *gasp* (imagining horrible slackjaw bogan look)
* Getting them off! I hear it's very painful at first, and your teeth feel as though they're being ripped out! I always have nightmares of my teeth falling out, so I'm scared of this sensation, and the "loose" sensation when the trays are off. I think I could deal with the pain of them ON just fine, because at least they should feel secure!
* Holidaying - I am going to Thailand in 3 weeks, and this will still be early days with aligners... I will have to swap them half way through my trip aswell... I'm worried the adjustment phase may hamper my holiday.
* How I will survive without coffees - I love my coffee in between meal times.
* How I will go out drinking! I have a few big events this year (weddings, one of which is in Mexico! Oh, the Marguritas! )
* My speech - I am a martial arts instructor, so as you can imagine, i spend a lot of time talking to large groups... which will be a problem if I sound like a 3-year-old child talking with its mouth full.

Well, I think that's about it for now. Wish me luck, and I'll post in again after the dreaded first day has elapsed!

[Wobblydeb]

Hello and welcome to the club

Debauchery is still entirely possible so don't worry about that...

As for some of your other worries:
* You'll be able to close your mouth fine. There is only a fractional difference to the normal profile of your teeth. Your bite might change as the weeks go by, but by then you won't notice it with the aligners in.
* Whenever you change trays, put them in before going to bed - it makes it far easier the first time you have to take a new set out My teeth have never felt remotely loose when I take the trays out - they just ache a little bit the first couple of days. Its nowhere near as bad as regular braces though!
* Don't worry about your holiday, you'll be fine. I switched to set 12 on Christmas Eve and I didn't notice them at all on Christmas Day
* Yep, coffee and tea has been my biggest problem. I'll have beers with my aligners in occasionally but you cannot do that with hot drinks. I've tried to have my coffee straight after eating or just taking my aligners out briefly other times.
* When going out drinking I've ended up leaving them in and making sure they get a good clean afterwards - or waiting to have a drink until I'm eating and taking them out anyway.
* My lisp was only noticeable to me for 3 days and since then no problems. You'll quickly get accustomed to talking with them in

Good luck and let us know how you get on! The first few days is the toughest (lisp, aching teeth, getting them off) but it gets SO much easier after that.

[invisibyte]

Thanks Deb! You sound like a woman of my own mind! Thanks for your comments, they helped put my at ease before today's events.

And so... I now have my first set of aligners on! And *gasp*, they don't hurt at all! Slight pressure which I'm sure will have me wanting to gnaw off my own face for relief after a while, as some have suggested... but really I'm pleasantly surprised at how little it affects my speech.

And they are SO unnoticeable! I sent a closeup picture of me and my big smile to my boyfriend, and he wrote back "I thought you were getting your aligners today?" Case closed. Haha. Wonderful. Of course, up close I have a lovely shiney spit-bubble look to my teeth, and the frontmost teeth don't seem to quite fill out the bottom of the aligner but it really is so hard to tell. The bottom one comes off so easily I could do it immediately with no mirror. The top is more difficult but still a breeze compared to what I was expecting from other posters. (I have no attachments so far... so that'd be why!)

So I have 22 U and 22 L, and will have filing and attachments in 6 weeks (after my 3rd set). So no attachments for Thailand! Hurray!

Other than that... I am slagging a lot and lisp a bit, but right now I couldn't give a damn - my teeth are finally being straightened! 44 weeks to go...

[Wobblydeb]

Glad it all went well, and that you're getting a chance to get accustomed to them before the buttons are attached I had a fortnight only, and then they got more difficult to remove!

Keep an eye on those frontmost teeth. Over the fortnight they should start fitting properly (as your teeth move). If they don't, point it out to your dentist for him to monitor.

[Alex2411]

sounds good, im in my first week of using invisalign, they didnt hurt me either, but they did irritate me for a day, but after that their fine. glad your happy with them as i am to

[invisibyte]

Well! Some updates on how I'm going...

It's now been 5 days since I got the aligners on for the first time...

I can't complain too much as I haven't had any tongue soreness, or much trouble taking them in and out, and so far no attachments (till the 6th week), so my ortho is easing me into them nicely. A few little qualms though (of course, we all have something to complain about!)

1. my poor jaw!! I find that my jaw gets very, very sore and tired, especially towards the end of the day. I think this is because I must be overcompensating for the "strange" thing in my mouth, so I hold my jaw more awkwardly than usual. Also, i find that the constant pressure on my teeth is most noticeable toward the end of the day - sometimes i want to claw my face off!

2. I don't have a lot of trouble taking them off - in fact I could do it without a mirror from Day 1 with minimal discomfort... the only discomfort I get is on the front-most tooth (right side) on the upper, that is the one that protrudes and was the main motivation for me to straighten my teeth. I always feel that the aligner pulls on that tooth individually, because it's out of alignment, and I'm a little concerned that with constant on and off, I may loosen the tooth or damage it because all the pulling seems to be localized there.

3. lisping. Some days its gone, some days it's back. In the evenings it's worse because this is when I feel like I'm going slightly insane at having them in all the time. I feel like some of the time its almost psychological - I almost get a 'claustrophobic' feeling having them on constantly, and suddenly have this urge to 'escape'. I've been pretty good at keeping them on though.

4. Smell! It doesn't take long for them to develop this gross, plastic-y aroma that is mixed with bad breath smell, and it's just foul. Usually I can get rid of it brushing the aligners with toothpaste. But the smell comes back quickly. So far i do not bother washing them with anything but normal toothpaste. I have heard some people wash them in Listerine - the instructions that my aligners came with says that Listerine products can damage the aligner, so I avoid this. Anyone noticed this?

Anyway, that's about all - I think i have already lost about 1kg cos of the reduced snacking. I have been keeping them in around 21hrs a day - quite good for me, I think. Once or twice I have had a snack and not brushed after - once I had an icy-pole (Popsicle) in the cinema (my bf was snacking on popcorn and Slurpee, it was killing me!) I simply popped toothpaste in my mouth with my finger, rinsed with water from a bottle, and popped the aligners back in, all in the cinema. I purposefully chose an icy-pole so nothing could get stuck to floss out, and when we got home about 2 hrs later, I did a proper brush and floss. No need to be soo stringent that the fun is taken out of life, i think! I have worked out these few tricks, and I find that i appreciate treats so much more now!

Please let me know how things are going and if you can relate to anything I've mentioned here.

[flesym12]

My dentist gave me a "Sonic Cleaner" and some "Retainer Brite" tablets to try, and they work great for keeping my aligners fresh and clean. I use them in the morning when the aligners are pretty gross and smelly, and it saves me time from having to brush the aligners in the morning: http://www.dentakit.com/retainerbrite.html