Today begins my journey with Invisalign and I’ve decided to write this blog to help educate others about what the Invisalign process actually consists of.  Even though I am a dental hygienist I don’t have much experience with the details of the Invisalign process, so this is a completely new adventure for me and hopefully I can enlighten and inform some future patients.  I’m excited to begin my treatment but before I go into my treatment details  I want to tell you about how I got to this decision to do Invisalign and why I wish I had made this decision sooner.

Most of my life my teeth were pretty straight and I never thought I needed braces. I thought I was blessed with naturally straight teeth but as I got older and my wisdom teeth began coming in all of that changed. I got my wisdom teeth out but it was too late I already had some crowding in my front teeth.  Not only that, but around this same time I had to get a crown done on my upper front tooth due to an old filling from chipping my tooth as a child.  A few years after all of this I started to dislike the way my top front teeth looked because they weren’t straight anymore. My bottom front teeth were also crowded but that didn’t bother me as much because you couldn’t see them when I smiled. I brought this up to my dentist and we talked about doing lumineers on 2 of my upper front teeth that were crooked. This would be a quick fix and easy to do. She also mentioned my other option was Invisalign.  Of course being 22 I wanted a quick fix so I chose the lumineers. For those that don’t know a lumineer is thin piece of porcelain that goes over your natural tooth and the way they shape it will make my teeth appear straight even though they really aren’t. In order to get the lumineer to fit they prep your tooth and bond the porcelain to the altered tooth.

Now here I am almost 8 years later, in the dental profession and wishing I would have chosen Invisalign instead of a cosmetic quick fix.  One reason I wish I would have chosen Invisalign is because it’s a permanent fix (yes, you have to always wear a retainer), but lumineers, veneers, etc have upkeep. You have to have them re done every 10-20 years, which cost wise adds up, and what happens when one falls off and then you have an odd shaped tooth til you can get to your dentist and get it fixed.  Another reason I wish I had chosen Invisalign is because my natural teeth, besides the one crown in front, were virgin, beautiful teeth that had never been drilled on. The only thing wrong with them was that they just weren’t straight. I regret messing with my perfectly good teeth because now I’m always going to have to maintain those 2 lumineers. I was hoping to get the lumineers removed and do Invisialign but now I have a chip on my real tooth under the porcelain lumineer so its best I keep them on and just have them redone in the future.  The last reason I wish I would have chosen Invisalign is because the cosmetic fix just makes my teeth look good/straight but actually straightening the teeth has so many other  benefits like, easier cleaning, proper occlusion(bite), and  improvements to face shape and contour.

So now that I know I have to keep the lumineers, I’m ready to start my Invisalign and perfect my smile! My main goals with Invisalign are to correct my deep bite and to get my bottom teeth straighter. One reason I’m most excited for this treatment is that I know I am in the best hands at my office, Smiles R Forever. We are a preferred Invisalign provider and between the 3 doctors they have over a century of experience! I know I’m going to get exactly the smile I’ve always wanted.

Today we started on my dream smile and I had my first appointment to begin my Invisalign. The appointment consisted of an exam, x-rays and getting digitally scanned. It took about an hour for everything and seeing the model of my teeth on the scanning machine made me even more excited to get my teeth straightened. Talking with Dr. Blattner about my treatment was easy. He gave me his expert advice and told me his goals for my treatment but he also asked me what I wanted out of the treatment and listened to what I had to say. I definitely feel like we are a team and together we are going to get my teeth exactly where I want them!

I hope you all will follow me on my journey through my Invisalign treatment. I’ll be posting again when my trays come in.