My video....finally!

So my Dr is not 100% satisfied so these are preliminary shots. The bottom isn't completely symmetrical so she made a last minute submittal to have that fixed. But, at this point, I'll only have 13 trays and 7 months of treatment. The attachments are scheduled for the 3rd tray. I'm really happy with the plan, especially with how my front top teeth are going to look. It looks like my smile will be a little bit wider and most importantly, all my teeth will finally be in line with the front two. I can't wait to get my first trays and I'll definitely be updating on my progress!

Before


After


Before


After

Oh and by the way...

Total cost of my treatment is $5,500. This price includes EVERYTHING! I chose to put $2,000 down using my Flexible Spending account and I will make $150 payments every month until the end of the year. Next January, I will pay the balance with my 2010 Flexible Spending account.

In the beginning...

I have decided to get Invisalign because I have a moderately large set of two top front teeth and my bottom front teeth are slightly crowded. I've always fantasized about getting braces and fixing my smile but with two young boys I never thought it would be an option. But, about 6 months ago I took my oldest son to get his teeth cleaned and our dentist asked me to smile for her and she immediately recommended I get Invisalign. I didn't know much about it at this point but she explained the process to me and even showed me the computer software where she was working on another patient's model. At this time I was still working on rehabilitating my gums for the last year and half or so and had one procedure left to do which was a gum graft on my two bottom front teeth. My dentist said that she'd put the referral in that day and once I was done, we could revisit the possibility of Invisalign.

So here I am a few months later, having successfully completed the gum grafting and just went for my impressions last Friday, March 6th. I have to say, for me, it really wasn't as bad as some bloggers have described it. The dentist took lots of pictures, the most memorable being the ones involving these huge steel apparatuses that spread my mouth super wide. Then she took the impressions. First the top. She shot a pinkish goo in the tray and stuck in my mouth and held it there applying pressure to the roof for about 5 minutes. She then took it out and shot another grayish goo and reinserted. This was repeated on the bottom. For me, this was a pretty easy and uneventful procedure and I didn't gag once, contrary to a lot of the experiences I've read about. I too, have a sensitive gag reflex and always gag when getting teeth x-rays but this definitely was a cinch. She took one additional mold where she shot another grayish goo directly into my mouth and I bit down for about 5 minutes on that.

My dentist said that the process of working out my progression would take about a month, depending on how many times she needs to tweak the model since she very rarely agrees with what Invisalign plans at first. Her focus is going to be on my top front teeth where she is going to bring all the teeth surrounding the two in front, out, so that they're more in line with the front. I'm really looking forward to seeing the progression on the video and what my end result will be! I will post my pictures and video as soon as I get them!