Invisalign update--12 weeks & how i clean the trays

i thought i'd make another invisalign update since i'm on my 13th tray now.  it's been about 3 months already!  it kind of feels like forever and went by super quick at the same time.  kind of like pregnancy.  there's nothing really new to report, except that i don't have my elastics yet, i think i will get them at my next appointment in a couple weeks.  and then on tray 6 i noticed there was something weird on the back of my front teeth.  i looked it up and they are called bite ramps.  and they really are like little ramps on the back of the front teeth.  they are there to keep me from biting all the way down  so my back teeth don't touch and i noticed they also help correct my bite.  it was reallllly irritating at first and makes me have a much more noticeable lisp.  thankfully after the first week i got used to it, although i still have a bit of a lisp but not any worse than before the bite ramps.

i notice that my teeth have moved quite a bit!  again, it might be more evident to me but i have had people tell me that they can see a difference.  i have gaps between almost all my teeth now whereas before they were pretty much all overlapping each other.  i have some pretty large gaps between my back molars, and food gets caught there and it's super annoying.  but again, i am flossing and brushing probably about 4-5 times per day.  

i am still changing the trays once per week, so i feel like i am zooming right along.  i have about 31 trays left until the end of this first phase of treatment.  i am not excited about having elastics because it just adds another thing i have to do before and after eating.  oh well.

this was taken august 5, which was about 8 weeks in

this was taken august 11, about 9 1/2 weeks in.  the bottom picture is day 2 of invisalign and the top picture is 9 1/2 weeks later

top is day 1, bottom is 12 weeks

taken 12 weeks in

taken 13 weeks in 

that's pretty much it for the updates!  my teeth are still faaaaaaar from being straight, but we're getting there slowly but surely.

now, as for how i keep everything clean, again, i floss and brush after every time i eat and i brush the trays with toothpaste as well.  sometimes i rinse my mouth with listerine if i had a garlic heavy meal or something like that.  when i wake up in the morning i soak the trays in polident, which is a denture soak, while i am eating breakfast.  i do it in the morning because the trays have been in my mouth for about 12 hours straight at that point, from post-dinner time until breakfast (i usually am done eating dinner and having tea by 7pm and have breakfast the next morning around 8am right now), and the trays need a little refresh---more than just brushing with toothpaste.  i do that every morning.  after breakfast and dinner i brush with sensodyne because it helps my teeth not be quite so sensitive and sore, and then during the day i brush with young living's thieves toothpaste.  i didn't want to over-do it with the fluoride and teeth whitening stuff because i read it can have negative effects on your enamel if used too much.  i love the way the thieves toothpaste makes my teeth feel!  

anyway, when i first started wearing the trays all of this seemed like such a big task, but it all takes a few minutes and it is just part of my daily routine now.  

i may post again in a few weeks after i get my elastics!  13 going on 39!  hahahaha.