Day 1 of my Invisalign Journey
I’m 26 years old and I have the typical Invisalign story. My parents couldn’t afford to take me to the dentist when I was young, let alone get me braces. I always had a snaggle tooth (messed up canine), but it never really bothered me. However, as I got older my teeth started to shift more and more. After I got my wisdom teeth taken out my bottom teeth started to shift. So, I started to dislike the appearance of my teeth and felt self conscious about smiling.
Here are my teeth (It’s a lot easier to post knowing I am in the process of fixing them, haha):
I’m a graduate student so it is in my nature to research extensively about something. I started looking into Invisalign and ceramic braces. I came across a lot of horror stories about Invisalign that scared me, but the more I looked the more positive stories I came across. It’s understandable that there are a lot of negative stories out there, people like to complain. After hours of looking into it I decided to go with Invisalign.
The first part of the process was impressions. I recommend going somewhere where you can get a 3D intra-oral scan of your teeth using the iTero scanner, because they claim it’s more reliable. Nonetheless, the traditional impressions were not that bad. It just felt like chewed gum in my mouth.
Today I went in for my first set of aligners! It’s an exciting/nerve racking day. I had to get 13 attachments put on. It’s not the most pleasant process and the stuff they put on smells like glue. Then, I had to get my teeth filed. I thought it would hurt, but it really didn’t. The ortho was like punching me in the side of the face trying to get a grip on the file, which was the worst part, haha.
*drum role* Aligner time!!
I had read soooo many reviews that spoke about the pain of Invisalign so I was really nervous, but as of now it does not hurt yet. They are tight. Annoying. Bulky. Did I say annoying? But overall no intense pain. Oh yeah! I have a slight lisp :( Since I teach and will be conducting interviews this is probably the worst part of the process thus far.
I eat frequently throughout the day, so I am really upset about having to change my diet, but I’m sure I will get used to it overtime.
I’m going to update this periodically. Since I found a lot of online information about Invisalign really helpful I want to contribute to that, so feel free to ask me any questions that you may have!
