I literally cannot believe I have had orthodontics in my mouth for 18 months now. I did NOT expect to have braces the entire course of my estimated 12-18 month treatment, but as many will attest to: it’s more the norm than the alternative. Clearly, I am not done with my treatment. I’m still wearing Invisalign, but we’ve made some tweaks as I approached the end of my 10-tray case. If you’re interested in seeing/reading more about my month 18 adult braces update, click below…
So when I was on tray 8 of 10 in my Invisalign trays, I went to my ortho and although I was pretty happy with how things were looking (and especially that I could smile most of the time and not be mortified at my metal braces), I noticed a very apparently slant on my bottom teeth. If you scroll down towards the bottom of last post, you can see that when my bite is closed, the bottom teeth aren’t aligned on the right side of my smile (in the photo).
I was honest with the doctor in saying I did not expect perfection. I knew my crossbite may not ever be 100% corrected and I figured this slant was due to that. I just wanted to know if there was any chance we could tweak those bottom teeth so they’re even just SLIGHTLY less slanted.
My ortho took new impressions and said we may have a shot at slight improvement, but again (as I’ve heard multiple times), as an adult, it’s very hard to give me perfection. And that’s OK with me.
A week later, 10 MORE trays came in. I stopped my current set of trays (I was on tray #9/10) and started this new box. This next set of 10 trays means I needed new buttons/attachments put on my teeth. On a positive note, the buttons on my front top teeth are gone (YAY!) but I have attachments on MAJORITY of my lower and a good chunk of my upper right side. It’s ok though. I want this to work.
The first tray from my 2nd box was VERY painful. These buttons are certainly working their hardest at fixing my lower teeth and they’re not doing it quietly, lol.
I should complete this box of 10 trays around July 10th (yay, just in time for my birthday on July 20)!
For reference, here’s where we started 18 months ago:
Here we are as of today:
(see last month’s bite pic from this post)
My next scheduled braces update will be JUNE 5, 2017.
-Steffanie
