invisalign update---almost a year in!

hey there.  i thought i'd do another invisalign update since i recently went to the ortho and there are actually some updates to the treatment plan coming up.  so, i started wearing invisalign last june, it has been almost a year.  my teeth have moved so much since then!

i'm actually surprised at how much my teeth have continued to move because during this pregnancy i haven't been super consistent with wearing the trays 22 hours a day.  in the beginning i wasn't wearing them often during the day because i had such bad "morning" sickness that having them in my mouth was making me gag all the time.  then when i could stand it, i put them back in but pretty much only at night, so i wore one set for a month instead of changing them out once a week.  then i kind of got it together and started wearing them more often.  still not the 22 hours a day, but as best i could.  and that's kind of where i'm at now.  i try to wear them as often as i can but the max i can do is about 15-16 hours a day.  that's because i feel like i am eating constantly.  that's not completely true, but because i am a million weeks pregnant and am always hungry and also because i have gestational diabetes and am supposed to eat 3 meals and 3 snacks a day i feel like i am constantly eating.  so it's hard to take the trays out, eat, brush and floss teeth, put trays back in for an hour, take them out and repeat like 6 times a day.  so i am just doing the best i can and then wear them at night, all through the night.  and surprisingly, my teeth have been tracking and moving pretty well.  tracking means that the teeth are moving at the rate and the directions that they are supposed to every week or 2 weeks, every time you change trays.

so when i saw the ortho, i was on tray 33.  my initial treatment plan was for 42 trays, 38 of which actively move my teeth and the rest, 39-42, are kind of just like a retainer where they hold my teeth in place until the next phase of treatment is ready.  my ortho has been really great and accommodating as far as the pregnancy and how it has affected my ability to wear the trays.  the new plan is to change my trays every 6-7 days so that i can get to tray 39 by the time june 25th comes around.  we have an appointment scheduled for that day, in which they will remove the attachments from my teeth and re-scan my teeth and get everything sent to invisalign again for the next phase of the treatment plan.  i will be 38 weeks a couple of days after that appointment.  so the ortho said the timing is perfect because then i don't have to worry about keeping the trays in for a certain number of hours per day, and i don't have to worry about switching the trays out and all that while i am A) about to go into labor and B) dealing with a new baby and everything that postpartum entails.  it takes about 6 weeks to get the new trays, so i will have a little bit of a break.  during that time i will just be wearing the retainer trays at night to keep my teeth in place.  then i'll get the next sets of trays.  i imagine they will put new attachments on my teeth and i will definitely be wearing elastics to change my bite.  i'm not sure how many trays i will get the second time around and how long it will take, but originally when i got the estimate the cost was for a 2 year treatment plan (whether it was for invisalign or traditional braces, the cost and time was the same).  so it may be another year or it could be less.  i guess it depends on how my teeth move and how quickly my bite is fixed.  but the second phase is less about moving all the teeth around in my mouth and more about fixing certain teeth that didn't move perfectly the first time around and fixing the bite.  for example, the canine on my left side isn't moving exactly the way it should be so it's holding up the tooth next to it.  that tooth will have more pressure put on it in the next round, known as the refinement period.

so anyway, almost the first year down.  and the timing has been great as far as having a little break right before the baby is born and for 6 weeks or so afterwards.  overall i have been very happy with this invisalign process.  probably because my ortho is great, too.  it has been easy and pretty smooth.  i definitely had to get used to it in the beginning, but once my mouth toughened up it has been not too painful.

and here's the most exciting part....check out how much my teeth have moved!!!!

wooohoooo!  it's not perfect and not done yet, but getting there!  top is tray 33, bottom is tray 1

this is after i got my two upper pre-molars removed but before i got my invisalign trays

this is at tray 32, about 11 or so months later

this is about two weeks in, so maybe tray 2

and almost a year later

such a big difference!

 haha sorry for all the car selfies.  i snap them when i am parked or stopped.  but i think i do that because the lighting is so much better than in my house, haha.  anyway, so as you can see my teeth are far from perfect but they look soooooooooo much better!  right now my bite is all jacked up and it's making my jaw click every single time i open my mouth, and makes it awkward to chew food, but that will be sorted out after i start the new trays and elastics.  i am so so so excited to see how this turns out in the end!  so worth it!