Smilelign - Getting the moulds taken & going for a fitting of mypre-aligners.

After the 10 minute chat with my dentist i decided to go ahead with the treatment and he booked me in for a half hour appointment to have the moulds taken of my teeth. These moulds would then be sent off to the Smilelign laboratory and 3D images are produced. These 3D images are very important as they help make up a treatment plan that is suited to your teeth. It helps determined how serve your case is, how many aligners you will need and it is a nice touch to see these 3D images of how your teeth are going to move over the next few months.

I was slightly nervous about getting the moulds done at first because i wasn't sure what to expect but my dentist is fantastic and explained to me what to expect and the process before he started. Firstly he took a mould of my upper teeth, he made this paste which felt a bit like chewing gum been placed on my teeth, i had to keep my mouth open for about 5 minutes until the paste became hard and the dentist then popped this mould out of my teeth. He then repeated this process on my bottom teeth and then made up some more paste and placed this in the moulds he had just taken and then placed the moulds back in my mouth to make a more precise mould. He then made another paste and placed this on my bottom teeth and made me bite my teeth together which gave him a mould of my bite. I then left him with the moulds and he sent them away and i went back in two weeks time to get a fitting of my pre-alligners. I had to pay £250 for this appointment as it covered the cost of the moulds but it  was a commitment that i wanted to go ahead with the treatment before they made all the aligners and i said i didn't want to go ahead with the treatment.

I went back excited to this appointment to see what he had to say and try my pre-aligners. He explained that my case wasn't severe and that i would need 5 aligners for my upper teeth and 8 aligners for my bottom teeth, each aligner should be worn for a minimum of three weeks before moving onto the next aligner. Smilelign believe that before they make all the aligners and realise that they don't fit that it best to make a pre- aligner, you go for a fitting to make sure that it fits correctly and then your dentist lets them know if there are any changes that need to be made before they make the full set.  It also gives you time to get use to wearing the actual aligners before you get the aligners that start moving your teeth.

When i went for the fitting he put them in my mouth and they fitted fine but were very tight on my teeth even though the pre-aligners are just moulds of your teeth as they are already. I didn't quite expect them to feel like they did when he first put them in for me. My mouth felt really big and i started to think what had i done! I then spoke and discovered i had a slight lisp, which defiantly shocked me as i wasn't expecting that. He told me that it was perfectly normal as it was where my tongue was hitting the plastic aligner, he told me to talk all the time, when i was driving on my own, having a shower or just in my bedroom. He told me that my lisp would get better the more i spoke and that i would hardly notice it in my voice when i was talking. The first few days of my pre- aligners were hard, i took paracetamol to help cope with the tightness and pain which helped. My teeth became very sensitive so i went to Boots and got some sensodyne toothpaste which really helped with the sensitivity. I have to wear my pre-alligners for about two weeks until my real aligners arrive and then i will go back for a fitting of my first aligner.

I'm going to insert a few pictures below of what the pre-aligners look like and what my teeth looked like before the treatment.

I will update you on how i'm getting on with my first aligners once i have had them in for a few days.