Set # 11 - Yowza!

I decided to wait a couple of days before attempting taking any pics 'cause this set is making my top anteriors just a wee bit sensitive. OK - more like a LOT sensitive! I've been trying to leave my trays in as long as possible to speed up the movements & get past this tenderness as soon as I can - meaning, I skipped lunch entirely yesterday & will try to again today.

Taking the progress pics just now was a little challenging (it always is when aiming the camera at your own mouth, but...) since my upper lip kept doing this twitchy thing whenever I opened my mouth wide. Then when I attempted to hold my front top & bottom teeth together, they began to chatter - like I was shivering. Must be 'cause of the hypersensitivity right now. I'm having to avoid biting down on my fronts for the very first time when eating - they're just too tender. Must say this is the most discomfort I've had yet. And this too shall pass...

So - first, front teeth bared & together
(not at all natural a position for teeth):









Here are my current trays in:



Just had to search for that upper left (viewer's right side) button to find it myself. The four on my lower bicuspids are out of view entirely in this shot. I've read where folks insist Orthoclear is smoother/clearer than Invisalign. Do these appear bumpby or less than clear to you?

The only thing that catches my eye in this pic are some air bubbles - they accumulate at the ends soon after insertion, but I find they dissipate fairly quickly.

My natural bite as is now - "au natural" that is:


The angle's a bit off to compare well to my pic from 5 weeks ago below - & there's that twitchy upper lip doin' it's thang...
lousy pic - sorry.







Can't really see much difference here except some closure of the gap between my front upper incisors here. I'll try to get some better ones another day with side views to compare. My chops just aren't cooperating today. Must say that I'm just now really starting to SEE changes up front myself. I've heard others say visible changes seem to come much more quickly after halfway through treatment. Am almost there...

One thing noticeable even to me is that my teeth are getting whiter with the better care & attention they now get. Wonder how it will feel to eat a meal & NOT brush immediately after when this treatment is over? Probably pretty yucky...I'll be doomed to carrying around a toothbrush in my pocket forevermore.

Compared notes with 2 of my nieces a few days ago at a family picnic - both are teenagers & both are in conventional braces. The elder one has had hers for over a year now & guesses she has another 2 to go...the younger one began her treatment 6 months ago (just a few weeks before I did). In that fairly short time span, her overbite has become an underbite & she cannot hold her front teeth together at this point at all - & it hurts! I know it's all part of getting where she needs her teeth to be, but...at one point she had to wear some sort of wire expander that ended up slicing her tongue wide open - resulting in a tongue bandage (didn't know there was such a thing).

The other young lady has comparatively small teeth overall & after most of the gaps in between were closed, her midlines were way off in matching up, so now she's wearing elastics to pull all her top teeth in one direction, while the lowers are simultaneously being shifted in the opposite direction. Listening to their experiences & looking at all those ceramic & metal brackets, power chains & elastics made me envision it all as teeny, tiny torture devices. Ay carumba! And the things they can't eat...& the stuff that gets stuck in all that hardware...& the difficulty in cleaning...& the canker sores...& the pain...it's a wonder any teen (any anybody for that matter) gets through that treatment at all.

Give me invisable aligners any day - please!