Aligners Arrive--Day 1

See the spit bubbles?

Side view w/liners

Bubbles less obvious w/straighter teeth

The dark coloring shows the #of the tray you're wearing

The top right dark spot actually reads "Invisalign"

Long story short:

I arrive at the doc's office and go over all of the do's and don'ts. Now of course I've been awaiting this moment for quite some time. I've become obsessed with teeth and smiles and have looked up every Invisalign article, blog, website, and before and after pics I could find. I'm sitting in the chair and by this time I feel like I'm the doc's colleague. I'm bubbling over with knowledge; I almost feel like I should be giving HIM the scoop about the product. I know, don't eat or drink with them on, wear them for at least 20 hours, change them every two weeks, clean them like this....yada, yada, yada. I've become Charlie Brown listening to the teacher. All that talking but WAH WHAA WAHH... I felt as though a trail of ants were trekking up my leg as he popped in the aligners. I wanted to see them, take them out, pop them in and admire my slippery new smile. "Questions?" the doc asks. Nope, not a one. Immediately I could feel the pressure as the trays hugged my teeth for dear life. But who cared, right?! Afterall, this was the beginning of closing in the gap. Whoo-hoo...

So fast forward to this very moment and I've now had the trays in for about nine hours. The only thing that stands out as bothersome is the embarrassing collection of spit bubbles that collect in the trays. It's mainly noticeable at the central gap of my front teeth. You can hardly see the aligner on my lower teeth that are straighter. I just remind myself that it's 100Xs better than metal brackets and it seems like a small price to pay. The bottom liners are slightly digging into my gums and scraping against the underside of my tongue, but again, it's not that big of an issue for me. I'll trim it down tomorrow if it's still a nuisance. The dreaded incident of speaking with a lisp has been minimal. I talked to a few people and afterwards clued them in about the trays to see if they noticed a significant change in my speech and few had. No major pain to report either. (Important to note though, I did take 2 Advils about an hour before having the aligners inserted.) I would describe the feeling/pressure as more of an annoying ache. Also, when I finally decided to eat, my teeth were really sore when taking out the aligners and chewing. It was more comfortable after eating to have them back in. In my opinion this is a sign of success in progress! I wouldn't advise having anything crunchy to eat at first--not very pleasant. The crazy thing is that I tried to eat fast, brush fast, rinse fast, and floss fast so I could put the trays back in ASAP. Every second they are out of my mouth I feel like my teeth are reverting and my hard earned dollars are going down the drain. Ok, well I'll post again at the changing of the trays ceremony in two weeks. God bless...