Metal Mouth Message Board

I'm a 27 year old guy from the UK. I've always been annoyed by the fact one of my lateral incisors had twisted and gone partially behind one of the interiors, and this in turn formed a cross-bite with my lower teeth. Plus most of my teeth seem to be pushed towards the right side of my mouth. Most people always told me they'd never noticed, but it was annoying me.

I opted to talk to an Invisalign orthodontist, as one place was doing it quite cheap and so far it has turned out quite well as I am two weeks into my first treatment.

The only problem I have is that down the right-side of my mouth, the top and bottom don't line up, apparently this is only something I'd be able to fix with thousands of pounds and years worth of dental work.... I can live with it if my top lot are fixed.

Here's a picture of as they are at the beginning of treatment and my face as a whole (they don't look too bad sometimes)




And now I have my aligners in:



They're not that noticeable I don't think.

So as of week 2:

Had to take them out one night because I was drinking with friends and I did it the night before whilst leaving them in, and they really smelled the next day, even though I was scrubbing them.

I've learned that from day 1 you must give them a brush with a bit of toothpaste to keep them clean. Even sometimes I've thought they were clean when putting them back in, few hours later when you take them out they can really smell.

Very odd in the first week, as your teeth have moved and you take them out to eat, it doesn't actually feel like you're eating with your own teeth.

I've made a little page where if you roll your mouse over the pictures, it changes to what they will look like at the end of the treatment. Coupled with looking at my teeth as they are now, actually made me feel better about everything.

It can be viewed here:

http://www.freshfilmprod.com/view/teeth.html

It will be interesting to see how it turns out.
Best of Luck.

Well, I've had my first two attachments put in today. I need three more eventually.

God they feel odd. I've got to be careful when I'm eating as the attachment on my lower-left canine gets hit by my upper canine when I shut my mouth. I'm afraid that if I bite down too hard.

It's made the aligners slightly difficult to get off though.

Strange the feeling of how tight they are again, towards the end of the first set I could pop them off with my tongue.

Only just realised that there are 11 sets only for my lower teeth (22 weeks) and 21 sets (42 weeks for my uppers). This is slightly good news I think as at least one set will be aligner-free relatively soon.

Put in my 3rd tray yesterday, and my god do my front teeth hurt. Must be moving them quite a lot.

Hi Mr Rich Uk

You really can't see them, you're lucky you don't have to have a metal mouth like most of us

Good luck with your treatment

Thought I'd update anyone who cares what I've been up to and my experience of everything.

So now I'm on tray 17 out of 21 on the top set, bottom set was finished back at tray 11 (just have to wear them at night).

I'm unsure of what the plan is to be honest with my bottom set, as they seem to move back a little whenever Ive forgotten to wear the bottom brace at night, so I'm being quite vigilant at the moment.

My treatment is now 5 weeks longer than it should have been, so it means I'll still be wearing them on my summer holiday, which is a tad annoying. This was due to my appointment for my check up landing right on Christmas, so they had to do it in january. Then there was a mix up with my appointments and then last time I had a check up a tooth hadn't moved enough and so I had to wear the brace for another week.

Having real trouble with breath now, flossing all the time, brushing all the time... still every morning I wake up with the worst breath of all time.

Teeth have gone a little more yellow than they were before, but I was kind of expecting that.

I was never expecting miracle results to be honest, never perfect, but at least they will be straighter and I won't have the annoying crossbite at the front.

Going well, but if I had my time again, not sure I would have gone for Invisalign. You can be lazy with them.

If I had the option of invisilign I think I would decline. Theyre great for people who really want a descreet way of treatment but I think down the line metal braces actually insure a correct smile for the rest of your life as long as you wear your retainers properly. You CAN get lazy with the invisilgn braces, and im sure I would. But Ive always wanted a beautiful smile and you really have to be militant about invisilign. But it is a huge step in itself to even get treatment for orthodontia problems. So snaps for you. Your teeth look great! Congrats on your tray progress! :]]]

You're right, you have to be so militant about it. Towards the end now and it's getting more and more important that I wear them all the time.

I actually wish I'd had metal now as I can see hardly any difference made to the bottom set whatsoever and the rotation of my lateral canine only has six weeks left to come round and it hardly seems to have had any progress. Or am I just being impatient? I think it's the latter as I'm bored now. 10 months and there just hasn't been the kind of impact that I was expecting.

Also, I'm waking up every morning with the worst mouth, a acidic bacterial feeling in the back of my throat....

I'll post a pic up soon of where I got to, but I have basically come to the end of the trays.

In the end I needed about 7 refinement trays. What began in August 2009 and was suppose to last for 10 months, has actually gone all the way to January 2011. I've had to wear the same lower set at night, and for the past 8 weeks during the day as well... for 9 months! So they are pretty gross now.

Overall I'm pretty happy as the lateral incisor on the upper set that was behind the central teeth and also went behind the lower set as well as visible in the first picture of this thread, that's now out. It's not 100% perfect, but I think that once I've had my teeth whitened and also I'm going to have some of them contoured I think it's a vast improvement.

Got to have lower and upper retainers which I wear at night for the first 6 months.. but what can you do?

Congrats for coming to the end of treatment. It's too bad it took so long but you made it! A piece of advice for you, though. Wear those retainers every night for 6 months and then a few nights a week for as long as you possibly can. If you stop wearing them, they DO move back. I'm speaking as someone about to go into my second time in braces. I wasn't even given a retainer for my bottom teeth the first time round and now they are exactly the way they were before braces now. I didn't keep up with the retainer on the tops and they are now worse than they were originally. Retainers are a must:(