And we’re off…
Good evening!
As you know, I had my first set of Invisalign aligners fitted yesterday morning. My first impressions were that they were much thinner than I was expecting. I suppose due to having braces before followed by a plastic retainer, I imagined the aligners would be similar in thickness but it was certainly a nice surprise that they appear to be a fair bit thinner. My dentist kindly allowed me time to practice placing them in my mouth and removing them myself to get used to them. I found it pretty straight forward and have already found a particular way that I am most comfortable with.
Upon leaving the dentist although it felt slightly strange having a foreign object in my mouth, my teeth felt fine and I felt no discomfort whatsoever. I will have this first set of aligners in for 2 weeks before changing to the second set on Halloween. My next dental appointment will be in 4 weeks time where I will be receiving my third set of aligners and also having attachments fitted to my teeth to help the process along. I will tell you more about them after that appointment.
Yesterday afternoon I noticed that my teeth were starting to ache slightly, I imagine this was because the aligners were beginning to do their job. I kept myself busy so I didn’t focus on it so much, as it did become quite frustrating at one point and I wanted to remove them but managed to refrain.
It eased off by late evening but I was slightly concerned with how well I was going to sleep. It took me a while to nod off as I was so conscious of them in my mouth and ended up focusing on creating and swallowing saliva (sorry probably tmi) as I was worried I’d end up with a dry mouth. I woke a couple of times in the night due to slight discomfort but managed to fall back to sleep fairly quickly.
Today has been a hard day. I’ve found myself struggling and wanting to rip them out my face, but I’ve soldiered on and keep reminding myself of the end product. I think my main issue is my tongue. It’s so sore from constantly catching the edges of the aligners and I’m not quite sure how to avoid that. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to throw them my way!
I’ve done some Googling (as you do) and lots of people have said that the first two days are the hardest so I’m keeping everything crossed that tomorrow will be much easier and hopefully pain-free!
I’m off to treat myself to 10 minutes aligner free time and a coffee before bed, I think I’ve earn’t it today!
Catch you soon with another update.
Naomi x
Hiya!
I’m pleased to let you all know that with the help of my good friend Bonjela, my tongue has healed up nicely and has learnt that it now has to share its home with the aligners… I’m officially 100% pain free and it feels oh so good!!
For the first few days of wearing the aligners my teeth ached and the relief of removing them was almost instant but now almost a week on I barely notice them in my mouth, they don’t even feel tight on my teeth any more. Not sure whether that’s meant to happen so early on in the process, or if my teeth have superpowers and are moving quicker than they’re supposed to!? Either way, I’m pleased that I have got used to them so quickly.
I look forward to Halloween every year as it’s always good fun but this year I am extra eager for it to arrive as I’ll get to change over to my second set of aligners! So exciting!
I probably won’t do another post until then, so will update you once I’ve made the change over. Until then, here’s a picture of my teeth with my aligners in. As you can see they are barely noticeable!
