Smilelign update: Finishing my lowers

It's been a few weeks since i've written an update on how i've been getting on with my Smilelign treatment. In my last post i mentioned how I had to have further moulds taken as my upper aligners kept snapping in half. I went back to my dentist to collect the new upper aligners which would finish my treatment off. These aligners were a better fit and i'm now on my second aligner out of five and they haven't snapped yet - success! I've also noticed that these aligners have been moving my uppers better and my two upper canine are now starting to tuck in nicely. 

When i went to collect my new upper aligners my dentist was happy with the whitening of my lowers and talked me through the next stage of the treatment. My front two lower teeth were smaller than the others so he decided to do some work to build them up; after about a hour in the dentist chair he showed me the final results! I was SO pleased! I couldn't stop looking at them in the mirror! They are perfect, he's done such an amazing job and the build up work he done on my front teeth look very natural which i wanted. We also discussed the best way to keep my teeth in their new alignment and i decided to have the small metal wire glued permanently onto the back of my lower front six teeth. I have to admit I was very nervous about this; I was worried that I would hate having the wire behind my teeth and that it would annoy me! I will be honest it took a few days to get use to it been there but now it's been a few weeks I really don't notice it there at all! As my lowers have been finished I no longer have to wear my aligners during the day as I have the mental wire but i still have to wear my final aligner at night which really doesn't bother me. 

Now that my lowers have been completely finished I can honestly say that having the Smilelign treatment is the best thing i've ever done! I have a few weeks left until my uppers are finished but i could not be more pleased with my lowers. 

Below i've put a few pictures of before and after which i still can't stop looking at! If you have any questions just leave me a comment and i'm more than happy to answer! 

Smilelign UPDATE!

Sorry i haven't posted in a while, things have been very hectic with work, going to see family in Dublin and taking a long weekend break in the Lake District.

I've been getting on very well with Smilelign and the results i am seeing with my upper teeth is amazing! I'm on aligner number three and i am due to swap to my final upper aligner tomorrow. I still have a few more aligners to go on my lower set as they are worse than my uppers.

I am so happy with my uppers, they have moved along well and I can really notice the results especially with the one tooth that slightly overlapped, there is just a little bit of moving left which should happen when I put my last aligner in tomorrow. It's strange to think that my upper set will all be finished in the next three weeks! I can't believe it!

However things haven't progressed as much as I wanted them to with my lower set. They haven't moved much even though the aligners seem to be going in fine and after three weeks become loose they just haven't moved. I did visit my dentist three weeks ago and he advised me to carry on with the next two lower aligners and then when I go back for my next visit that he may need to do some filling on my two front teeth as they may not have enough room to move. I will keep you posted on that. 

Aligner number three went in ok, I put this aligner in during an appointment with my dentist, at first it felt like I didn't fit quite compared to the other aligner previously, my dentist knew exactly what to do and trimmed some of the edges at the back off and the aligners went in much better. About two weeks of wearing the aligner i started to notice that they were starting to show wear which i discovered was due to grinding my teeth every night! A few days before i was due to move onto aligner number four my brace actually spilt where the wear was, i called up my dentist and he said that as i'm only a few days away from moving onto the next aligner that i should be ok, he said i could move onto the next aligner a few days early if it broke completely but i was very delicate when taking it out and managed to get it to last till the Friday.

I've just moved onto aligner number four which is my final aligner for my upper set and have worn it two days and it has cracked already! It still feels tight on my teeth but i'm still not completely happy that it's broken so quickly. I'm going to see how i get on and if it cracks more than i'm going to have to book in to see my dentist. I'm slightly concerned that when i get my final aligners to put in every night when i go to sleep they are just going to crack after a few days or weeks then what am i going to do? That is one questions i need to ask my dentist and will fill you in on what he says.

So far i'm happy with how the treatment is progessing i just wish that my lower set were moving too as i feel like once he makes some room between my two lower teeth that i'm going to be a few weeks behind with my treatment plan, i will update in three weeks time and let you know how i got on when i go and see him again. 

Smilelign - Three weeks with aligners one.

I've just finished my first three weeks with aligner number one. The first few days were hard, my teeth felt very sensitive and the aligner felt very tight. The pain wasn't a painful pain ( if that makes sense ) it was just a dull ache. I knew the pain was good in a strange way as I knew that the pain meant that the aligners were moving my teeth.

My treatment plan meant that i would move onto the next aligner every third Thursday but I decided that I would move onto the next aligner every third Friday as it would give me the weekend off of work to get use to the new aligners & a few days for the soreness to subside before I go back to work on the Monday. 

Wearing the aligners for 23 hours a day was harder than I thought, I didn't even realise how much I snack during the day and a lot of the time especially at work! I just can't be bothered to go to the toilet, take my aligners out go back to my desk, eat and then go back to the toilet to brush my teeth and put my aligners back in so I've definitely cut down on my snacking which is a good thing! 

I've also found it difficult to brush my teeth when I'm out in public places like restaurants which has put me off of eating out which is a shame but it means I'm saving my pennies! 

I haven't noticed that much of a change with my teeth yet. I guess I won't notice that much of a difference as I look at my teeth daily. Everyone around me said they've noticed a difference already especially with my upper front teeth which is nice to hear! 

I've just finished aligner one and have just had a weekend of aligner two. I will update in three weeks time to let you all know how I'm getting on and the progress my teeth are making! 

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.