Halfway done! :D :D :D

Hello!

I am now officially halfway done with my Invisalign treatment. Wearing tray # 21 as I type. I also had a progress check appointment with my orthodontist and got my next 10 trays to wear. My ortho said everything’s tracking well but I need to be more regular with my elastics wear. I won’t lie, that’s my least favorite part of the treatment and I slack off on it every now and then. But since I am trying to finish my invisalign by December so I can have the perfect smile before my wedding at the end of december, I am going to be super regular with my elastics and wearing them 24/7.  Hopefully!

Here are some update pictures.

Tray 14                                                           Tray 15                                                   Tray 15

      Tray 16                                                         Tray 18                                                 Tray 18
 
 Tray 19                                                           Tray 19                                                   Tray 20

At this point, I am getting a little impatient. Most of the movement is happening in the back now or the bottom arch so I don’t notice it as much as when the movement was focused in the front. To make myself feel better, I started comparing my very first tray to tray 20 and immediately realized how far I had come.

Here’s a comparison picture. The top left is my bottom tray 1 and bottom left is my lower tray 20. Top right is my tray 1 for upper arch and bottom right is my tray 20 for upper arch. Look at all that progress!!

I am still changing my trays every 5 days now instead of the usual 2 weeks. Acceledent is working out great for me and I can’t wait to be done in December if everything goes well!

Love,

R

Invisalign & Acceledent Update # 1.

Now that I have covered all the background information on my Invisalign and acceledent journey, it’s time to update and become current with my progress.

I just finished wearing tray 13. It’s been 11 weeks since I have had acceledent and 17 weeks since I got invisalign. I didn’t have acceledent for the first two trays and I wore them each for two weeks.
My treatment also includes wearing rubber bands for most of the time I’m wearing invisalign. They’re there to help with the overbite and also to make sure Invisalign’s pressure  doesn’t push my teeth out while moving them. I have to be honest, I’m not a big fan of rubber bands. They’re my least favorite part of this whole journey and I’m not as consistent with them through out the day as I am with my trays but I always make sure to wear them at night.

My thoughts on invisalign so far:

I’m so used to wearing them all the time, I barely even notice. It has become part of my routine now.  It took a couple of weeks to get in the habit of always having them in and never forgetting them but now it’s second nature.  I also have stopped caring if people notice them inside my mouth so I wear them all the time now at all social gatherings.
I change my trays every 7 days so they don’t really get stained as with people who wear them for two weeks.  It has really cut down the gross factor and the smell that gets embedded in the trays for wearing them for that long.

My thoughts on Acceledent so far:

It’s great so far. I love that I can change my trays every 7 days instead of the normal wear time of two weeks. Best part is that it has sped up my treatment so I have people telling me they’re starting to notice my teeth getting straighter and better looking. Acceledent holds its charge for three days before you have to recharge so I just plug in it every three says after using it. It’s a relatively easy to use, I just put it in my mouth right before bed. It has become a part of my nightly routine now that I never forget it.  So far, in these 11 weeks I have forgotten to use it only once. 😂 so far, so good!

Here are some progress pictures all the way up till tray set 13. I have slowly started to notice that my front teeth are now relatively straight. Both canines are slowly coming down as well, but not a huge difference. Haven’t really noticed much change in the bottom arch though.

Tray 3

Tray 4.

Tray 5

After completing Tray 6 set.

Tray 7- With and without the trays.

Tray 8                                                      Tray 9                                                  Tray 10

Tray 11                                                              Tray 12                                                     Tray 13

And here’s a comparison of my teeth before the treatment started and right after tray 13.

      then vs now.

The front teeth aren’t crooked or tilted to one side anymore. This is an amazing chnage just within 15 weeks! Thanks to Invisalign and a major shout out to Acceledent!

What do you all think of the changes so far?!

-R

Acceledent- What. How. Why?

I got Invisalign. Then I got Acceldent to speed up my Invisalign.

I won’t get into how Invisalign works. There are hundreds of blogs and youtube videos about that. But there isn’t much firsthand info about Acceledent out there. Understandable, as it’s a fairly new technology and on top of that it’s expensive too which I think deters many from giving it a go.

Here’s some very basic info on what it is and how it works, directly on Acceledent’s website. http://acceledent.com/what-it-is/

Basically it works by sending micropulses to speed up movement of your teeth to follow your orthodontics plan.

What does it feel like? In simpler terms, it feels like having a sonicare toothbrush in your mouth.

Does it hurt? Not at all. I barely even feel it.

How long to use it for? 20 mins, everyday. No more, no less. Don’t try using it for more than 20 minutes/day. That’ll not make the treatment go faster. Your teeth need time to adjust to their new position.

I use it everyday for 20 minutes. It’s timed within so it shuts off when 20 minutes are up so you don’t need to keep an eye on the clock. It also stops for a second and starts again at 10 min mark to let you know half of the time is up.

It really does work! I have been changing my trays every 7 days instead of every two weeks every since I started using it and I love it. That means I can finish my treatment in half the time initially told *fingers crossed*

The best part of having acceledent is getting no headaches or too much pressure on your teeth after you change a tray. Invisalign trays are built so the next trays is always tighter than the one before- that’s what forces your teeth to move essentially. But having a new tighter tray means a little bit pain in your jaw due to pressure and moving of the teeth. Ever since getting acceledent, changing trays have become so easy! I make sure to use acceledent as soon as I put in a new tray and it really helps with alleviating most if not all of the pressure of a new tray. Huge plus in my book. I have read people talking about how a new set of tray gives me headaches and jaw pain and luckily I haven’t experienced that even once and I credit that to using Acceledent. Changing into a new tray is a breeze with acceledent. It really is your best friend during your Invisalign journey!

My Invisalign Story!

So Why did I get Invisalign?!
I never had particularly too crooked of teeth so I didn’t really think about Invisalign or braces actually. I had my left canine that stuck out a little but it didn’t bother me enough to spend $5000  and 2 years in braces.

Fast forward couple of years, my wisdom teeth came in and that’s when the problem started. I started to notice my front teeth getting a little crooked slowly. This process was so slow that I didn’t even notice till one day my mom mentioned that my teeth look a little crooked and that’s when I ran to the mirror to really examine them all in detail. Indeed, there was a lot of crowding happening both on the top row and the bottom one was actually pretty bad. I started researching braces but the idea of having metal in my mouth didn’t seem too inviting. Actually it didn’t seem inviting at all! Meanwhile my brother had just finished his invisalign treatment and was always raving about his straight teeth so I decided to look into Invisalign. The more I researched Invisalign and read everyone’s success stories, the more I wanted it but one factor that always deterred me was its price. It’s not cheap! I decided to make an appointment with an orthodontist who’s part of my regular dentist’s office and she quoted me $7500!!  WAY TOO EXPENSIVE! for me, at least.  I decided to hold off on it till I had some financial stability to be able to afford it. And I am so glad that I did because I ended up being one of the lucky winners of a giveaway Invisalign had with some bridal magazine. I never thought, in a million years, that I would ever win a whole invisalign treatment!!! Probably one of my happiest moments in life! haha.

As exciting as winning the giveaway treatment was, the process to get everything sorted out to start the treatment was actually a little slow. It took about five months from when the winner was announced till I was told I can go ahead and pick an orthodontist of my choice. Yes, it took a while but should I really be complaining about that when I just won the whole treatment?! No I shouldn’t be! So happy and excited to be getting Invisalign FOR FREE!!!

I made the selection of my top 3 orthodontists after looking at top providers in my area on the official Invisalign website and luckily I was able to get set up with my first choice. So there I was, finally on my way to get Invisalign and have a great smile!

To give you an idea on how my teeth went from being fairly decent to crooked, here are some pictures taken over the past 5-6 years.

See the two canines sticking out and becoming more prominently out of place? I feel like the wisdom teeth coming in, pushed them out too. The whole top row started to shift to the right gradually.

The last picture is a couple of weeks before I got Invisalign and is a good picture to compare my progress to.

Stay tuned as I cover rest of my Invisalign story! 🙂