Dental work, AHHH

I never did anything wrong or ate anything that I wasn't supposed to.. when you get a dry socket the blood clot gets thrown. I know not to suck on a straw and all that stuff since I had two extractions before that one. The blood clot just didn't form so I ended up with it. I did have 3 stitches and the line fell out so I am pretty sure how that formed. It sucked. But I didn't eat anything I wasn't supposed to. I was super careful but got one any way. And that whitish bone being exposed hurt like h*ll!

Update!

I am on tray 3 of invisalign! I switch to the 4th tray on Thursday, keep that on for two weeks, then it's back to orthodontist to check on the progress and get 4 more new trays.

I have 11 trays total and was surprised there wasn't more... so I'm hoping to see some major results when I get the next 4.

I religiously brush and floss now because with the invisalign, it's really gross if you don't! lol... after I eat, if I put the trays back in, then my trays just get gross.

Soo excited to see results soon-ish though. Plan to get another teeth cleaning soon just to keep up with things and do preventative care.

Mostly unlucky in the monetary sense. Over $5,000 in metal in my mouth right now, but my braces come off next month. My family was pretty poor growing up so the last time I remember going to the dentist for fillings was like 10 or 15 years ago? I got my wisdom teeth removed at 17, but other than that nothing else. Somehow after all that time I ended up with 4 very shallow cavities they preemptively filled. Had four teeth removed for braces, braces have been horrible, but it's almost over.

Only 11 trays is pretty awesome. I have 24. I'm on my 7th. So far 3 out of those have been pretty painful, but otherwise, it's not bad. My teeth have never been cleaner from all the flossing and brushing every time I eat something too (I had my cleaning 3 weeks ago). We can definitely tell the difference with my teeth already, but yeah it won't look really great until I'm on my last couple trays (although with invisalign on you can't really see the space between my teeth anyway). I won't be totally perfect when it's done (my gums are a bit uneven on top of my two front teeth so it will be a bit lower on one side), but still totally worth it.

We had some issues with insurance paying for the wisdom teeth removal but it's finally taken care of, and we only had to pay $400 or something.

I've always had ridiculously good teeth sorry lol. They normally only want to see me annually too (normally it's 6 monthly). I've never had anything done to my teeth. And they're all straight!! Not sure how I wangled it, but hey ho!!

NHS dental care is very cheap (like £14 for check up if that, and ridiculously cheap treatment), and now it's 100% free for me as I'm preggo and will be until sprog is 1 year old.

My only gripe is I have a new dentist and he's WEIRD!!!! And told me I need to breastfeed as it's good for my gums. But he's weird, so it came across creepy as.

I haven't been to the dentist in about ten years.

:/

I'm scared when I do go, I'm going to have a cavity or a bunch of them, despite taking good care of my teeth with diet and hygeine. I rarely eat sugary foods, I love crunchy vegetables... Sometimes I drink alcohol, sometimes I drink wine or soda but I always brush afterwards. But I haven't been to the dentist since I began smoking as a teen. My teeth look beautiful but I'm still scared.

My jaw needs to be broken so my wisdom teeth can be extracted because they cause me a lot of pain as they continue to try to smush my bottom teeth closer together. I had a lot of wiggle room with my top wisdom teeth, as I had a big gross gap between my incisors that closed quite a lot when my wisdoms dropped down. My bottom teeth had no such luck.

My boyfriend's mouth needs a lot of work, he says he can SEE cavities. I think it'll be worthwhile to get us dental insurance.

Gosh! That's a lot! I am fortunate not to have needed any alignment, I am terrible ... I haven't even been to the dentist since my senior in high school, that was back in 2001 . But I never neglect my teeth, I brush always brush in the morning and before bed, at least and always gargle twice a day also.

Yeah, technically I already went through 24 trays back when I was 16/17, sooo I guess it's kind of an added 11 trays from what already shifted and moved back then.

Yeah when I first had them back in HS, I recall them being super painful the first few days but honestly? This time around I've experienced very minimal pain. The first aligner was really sore for the first 3 days. But now, it's not a big deal. I put my new one in before I go to bed so most of the hard shifting hopefully happens while I am sleeping.

Ugh sooo had no idea you could get rubberbands with invisalign. just got mine today and they're pretty much a PITA. So much more of an annoyance taking in/out. To re-attach the rubber bands, you need a mirror, and both hands. Ugh... only a couple more months...

I had so many bands when I had braces.. eventually you won't need a mirror or two hands! It'll be muscle memory to slap those suckers on in the right place ahaha

I had 3 years away from the dentist and was a chronic pop drinker.

I had 8 cavities and a small amount of the start of gum disease.

I'm now really good about brushing 2x a day and mostly good about flossing and not consistently taking in sugars outside of meal time.

I've got four out of the eight fillings done... and one is screwed up. Hurts like a witch and it's been over a month. Sooo, heading back in to see what is up with that.

I hate dental work.

Yeah I hope so! I shouldn't complain. It's not like I have metal brackets. And I CAN take them out whenever needed. I do cheat sometimes, like I went to a concert a few weeks ago and we were tailgating for hours and I was afraid I would end up losing my invisalign so I just... didn't wear them that day LOL. Which is nice. But then I just try to not take them out as much the next day.

The rubber bands aren't too bad so far. More of an annoyance than anything but no extra pain.

IF I stay on track, I should be done right around Christmas time. But a lot of times you need refinements apparently, which invisalign does for free for up to a certain amount of extra trays if needed.

Ugh tooth pain is the worst too.

I had no idea you could get rubber bands with Invisalign. Where do you even hook them to? I mean all my teeth are covered with the thing... I have hooks on them, and that's it.

If you don't mind seeing pics of my mouth... lOL...


Warning mouth pics:

they put a little metal button thingy on my back teeth, and then I have a little 'slice' in the top of my aligner that the rubberband hooks onto.

If anyone is really curious, I found out my ortho has a patient log in and online and OMG I found my pics from when I was 11 LOL...

These were nasty-ass teeth at 11 years old.

They got to this point on their own from 11 to 16. At 16, my teeth looked like this:

I got through about 19 aligners when I was stupid and stopped wearing them and we also stopped paying so went into collection for a bit ugh, not a good time.

But they got to this point, so this was my teeth when I just started my recent aligners at 23 years old.

The end result should be this in the next few months:

Sooo if you exclude the missing years because of my stupidity and just count aligners, it took invisalign about 30 aligners (changing every 2 weeks) to hopefully get this final result.

Ok I'm really curious... what's the point of the rubber bands? It just seems weird!

But yeah, invisalign is amazing. I can see a huge difference already in just 5 months. I'm at my 9th set out of 23.

Something about my bite, I don't know.

Good luck! It's so worth it imo.

So did your teeth move at all when you stopped using it? I'm curious because most people say that if you stop cold turkey, they will move back to their former position.

I didn't really realize that I'd have to wear a retainer at night pretty much forever (and during the day too for an extra 4 months, which is the real bummer), but it's a small price to pay, I guess.

Rubber bands keep your mouth closed snugly when you're not talking or otherwise using it, keeping your bite aligned while your teeth move about. They usually only make you use them in a certain point of your orthodontic work - I think when they predict you will get the most tooth migration, but I'm not positive. I had regular metal braces for two years, and had to wear rubber bands for about 4 months whenever I wasn't eating.

Do you (general you) not get bars permanently affixed to the backs of your teeth once Invisialign is off? That's what happens when you get metal braces. I only had to wear a retainer for 6 months after getting the braces off, then the metal bars keep everything there. They're a pain in my rear to floss around though.

Boyfriend has terrible gums and some badly-positioned teeth, and may have to look into Invisalign soon as well. He's 32, it's pretty common to get this stuff repaired when you're older!