I started treatment with a huge buck tooth (right upper front tooth), crowding, and very wonky bottom teeth. Now, I look in the mirror and am amazed at how 'magazine perfect' they look. I went for my appointment today to get my last 4 sets of trays. I am on 19 of 22 upper and 22 lower. Or so I thought.
Turns out, my teeth have responded so well to the treatment, that the last 3 trays (20, 21 and 22) are in fact called 'over-correcters', which are there in the case of stubborn teeth. My ortho showed me the '+' symbol on the packet after the number, which symbolizes this. But my teeth are so straight now that he said (if I like) I can finish altogether after this current tray, so in exactly 2 weeks!! Then it's attachments off, straight to retainers, no refinements necessary, and I'm home free.
I am happily surprised, because I had just assumed I'd be done by X-mas if I'm lucky, and then I'd have all sorts of re-moulds, refinements, etc etc... but here my ortho is saying I'm basically done! He gave me one 'over-corrector' (tray 20) and said to just wear that one if I would like to over-correct, but he doesn't recommend any more than that, because that can in fact cause crookedness in the other direction, if that makes sense.
So hang in there everyone, you too may be pleasantly surprised! The whole experience went by so quickly for me, and yes I was slack with my trays and definitely didn't wear them 20+ hours every day, but it hardly impacted on my lifestyle at all, and was not a difficult commitment. I almost had fun with it! Good luck to you all x
Invisibyte.
