All The Cool Kids Are Doing It

*If you don’t want to see weird pictures of my teeth, skip this post and go read about my wedding plans or Justin's new(ish) job :)

As I mentioned, I started going through the Invisalign process in January of this year. I wasn’t happy with how much my teeth, especially my bottom teeth, had moved since I started neglecting to wear my retainers from my first set of braces.

I spent A LOT of time online researching Invisalign and decided that if it was good enough for Oprah and Gisele, it was good enough for me. 

 My online search led me to King Orthodontics in Pittsburgh. They are an Elite (Top 1%) Provider of Invisalign. After my first consultation, I knew I could trust the team at King to get the job done (job being straighten and whiten and teeth before the wedding!). 

Invisalign is pretty cool. Basically, you have removable, clear trays that you wear at least 20 hours a day. I have 23 sets of trays and I wear each set for 2 weeks. My total treatment plan is 46 weeks (not counting refinements). My orthodontist gave me 4 sets of trays at a time meaning that I only have to stop in for an appointment every 8 weeks. Invisalign is a “work at your own pace” project. This means that if I need to take my trays out for a meeting, an event, or when I’m sick, I just tack that time onto the end of the treatment. This has worked out really well for me. I’m over 3/4 finished with my treatment as I write this and I have only added about 10 days to my treatment time. I don’t mind the extra days because it is so convenient to not wear my trays when I don’t want to.

SO…for full disclosure…this is what my teeth looked like in January 2014 when I had my x-rays taken.

Top Teeth (I know...gross)

Bottom Teeth (Let's ignore all of those cavities...)

I didn’t plan ahead so I don’t have any close-up pictures of myself wearing the trays at the beginning of my treatment. My orthodontist did recommend that I keep all of my trays so I did pull out the trays from Week 1 and Week 7 to show you a comparison. My top teeth didn’t move much during the first 7 weeks, but I saw a ton of movement in my bottom teeth. Check it out:

 

Top Image: Week 1 Bottom Image: Week 7

I was pretty pumped to see my bottom teeth moving so quickly because that is what bothered my most. I’ll be back soon with some details on my daily Invisalign routine, answers to some FAQs, and some more awesome pictures of my teeth :)

Who out there has had braces/Invisalign trays?

What do you want to know about Invisalign?