Hi! So If you guys follow me on Instagram, you’ll have seen that on Monday of this week I got my Invisalign aligners fitted. Super exciting!

I decided to get some of my teeth realigned to help with my confidence and make it a bit easier to clean my lower front teeth. Twenty + years ago (can’t even) I was first fitted with a brace, upper and lower fixed brackets which I wore for about 14 months. When my braces were removed I was given a removable retainer - which I wore for like, a day - sorry mum and dad. In my defence this wasn’t a sexy little slim line essix retainer, more like a bulky thick old school retainer with metal clasps and a plastic bit that covered nearly all of my palate, no way as a 13 year old you were getting me wearing that long term. At that time either bonded retainers weren’t a thing or they weren’t available on the NHS so homeward bound style some of teeth relapsed back not quite to the position they started in, but not really straight anymore.

Because I work in dental I do, rightly or wrongly feel a certain amount of pressure, mostly from myself, to have a perfect smile. In photographs my teeth always looked fairly straight but at certain angles and when I started filming Instagram stories for my hygienist account I started feeling unhappy with my teeth, especially the crowding at the front of my lower teeth. I thought about it for about 6 months, backwards and forwards then I just thought, there’s never going to be a perfect time to do this and had an initial consultation with Dr Murray Smith at Moira Cosmetic Dental. We needed to go over a few things first and if you’re thinking of getting Invisalign you will need…

A Dental Health Check - we don’t want any surprises in the middle of you treatment
Some X-rays to make doubly sure we aren’t going to have any surprises during your treatment
A 3D scan or some impressions of your teeth
A clini-check so your Dentist can explain the treatment involved how many aligners you need and where and how many attachments you’ll need (if any) - attachments are bits of tooth coloured filling material temporarily attached to your teeth to help them move
To go over a written copy of what will be expected throughout your treatment

My teeth need to move in, out, down and up. For someone who just wanted to fix a bit of crowding on their lower teeth this was a bit of a surprise, but once I saw what my dream smile could look like I was in for a penny in for a pound. Also to my surprise I was told that I could have my dream smile in 10 weeks, a-mazing, so I thought it would be fun to update this blog weekly to let you know how I’m getting on. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me here or via my Instagram account.

Week 1

So the first week was a little tough, and I expected it to be but today as I’m writing this I am over it, happy and smiling.

I had my Invisalign fitted at the start of this week, the first part (which if you follow me on Instagram was an absolute doddle) involved tooth coloured filling material being added to the front of my teeth. Some people who have Invisalign don’t need this step, and yes there was a treatment option for me not to have this but under the advice of Dr Murray, I went for the attachments to pull my teeth down a bit so we need to do less bonding (adding tooth coloured material to the edges of the teeth) later to make my teeth straight along the edges. These do look a bit..bulky and they’ve taken me a while to get used to but as we approach the end of the week I’m owning it a bit more. Some people’s Invisalign is basically invisible, mine is not, we pick our battles.

The next stage was the IPR which I did NOT enjoy. IPR basically creates space for the teeth to move, so completely necessary especially if like me you have crowding. We needed to create a fairly small in the grand scheme of things but in the dental world a fairly large amount of space around my lower teeth about 0.3mm in between a lot of the teeth on the bottom. This process happens with a polishing strip and the tooth shape is modified by filing on each side. For me this took about an hour, I wouldn’t be massively keen to get this done again but look its a week later and I’m over it, I wouldn’t say it was sore, just gave me the heebie jeebies.

After this I had my aligners fitted and they were feeling t-i-g-h-t. I actually left them out after I got home until I went to bed that evening because I was complaining about them so much, maybe I’m a drama queen, I don’t know but I popped them in that night took two paracetamol and went to bed. I slept fine, woke up things felt fine, took out the aligners had my breakfast smoothie, brushed my teeth for 2 mins with my electric toothbrush, waterflossed and put the aligners back in. This was not my favourite part of the day and to be honest this is when I have found the aligners most uncomfortable when they’ve had to be removed and put back in but generally it took about 3 days to start to feel back to normal.

As well as this tightness the aligner also made me lisp. A lot. You can see this on my Instagram story highlights if you follow me. A couple of times, especially on the first full day of work with the aligner I wanted to take it out. You have no idea how many times I say words beginning with S as part of my job and neither did I. I felt pretty self conscious about this at the beginning, but again I just owned it told patients I had just been fitted with a brace and I made be a bit lispy, everyone was completely fine with it, no one laughed at me (to my face) and on day 3 my speech was so much better - with the odd lisp still here and there.

Elastics hook on to the lower tray and over a little button fixed to my top teeth

Generally wearing the aligners most of the time has been absolutely fine, in an ideal world you should be wearing them for a minimum of 22 hours a day only really taking them out to eat and clean your teeth. Today is my birthday and I’ve been a bit naughty and I’ve had them out a bit more than usual but I’m going to put this down to special circumstances. I was a bit nervous about wearing them through the night as I’m not great at this when I wear whitening trays but they were completely comfortable, I do however have to attach some elastic bands at night, my lower tray is attached to my upper arch, so right now as I’m writing this I feel a bit like Kanye West but overall probably one of the least negative parts of my first week.

So I know this first week does sound a bit negative, and I’ve been a bit grumpy but as we’re moving to the end of the weekend I’m feeling much more positive. I think when I start to see some tooth movement I’ll be really excited and it’ll spur me on, I wear this aligner for 2 weeks and then change it every week after this so I have 9 aligners in total. Lets see what week 2 brings.

Week 2

So week two was a very different week in life, but I felt like I really settled in with the Invisalign this week. I had to wear the same aligner this week as last week, but my speech has been so much better and generally they were much more comfortable throughout the day and on putting the aligner in after cleaning. I also realised a lot of things that I was doing subconsciously without realising, mostly opening packets with my teeth and biting my nails (eek) which I can’t do any more now that I’m wearing the Invisalign saving the edges of my teeth and my nails to boot. So I will be treating myself to a lovely at home manicure now I will be off clinic over the next few weeks <3. Also the aligner has helped prevent any further tooth wear through clenching my teeth which I’ve been doing a lot of over the past week, so every cloud has a silver lining.

*for those reading this blog post a little later or on another planet, most people have been facing a lot of disruption over the past few days and weeks due to the Corona Virus.

What I have noticed is that over the time the aligner did seem to get a bit….. grubby. I did find the Invisalign cleaning crystals helped and if you would like a little ‘how to’ video you can have a look at my Invisalign highlight on my Instagram. My only issue with this was that only 3 sachets were included with my aligners and I feel like this is something I would like to do very regularly. I tried to order some more on amazon but had no luck so instead I’ll be using retainer bright which you can get pretty easily and I’ll probably use this once a week or per aligner but I would recommend doing this just as much as you think you need to. Also, after brushing my teeth I’m brushing the aligner too with a soft toothbrush, for me the best is a Curaprox 5460.

Mostly at this point I’m just super excited about moving on to week 3 and getting my new aligners tomorrow! Excited and a little nervous but excited none the less, hopefully at the end of next week we’ll have started to see some movement.

Week 3

So I think my teeth are starting to move!!! I am so excited! Maybe I’m looking into it too much, but I definitely think my second incisor on the right and my crowded teeth on my lower arch are starting to come into line. Yeeeesssssss. Also my aligners are getting more and more comfortable as the days are going on which I’m super happy about. The only thing I’ve had a little bit of trouble with is compliance. Since I’ve been at home, I was going to say a lot more but actually ALL I’ve been doing these days is be at home, I have been wanting to maybe eat or snack a bit more than usual. I actually thought the aligners would help with this and they absolutely do, but at work I am distracted and some days I’m lucky to get a lunch break whereas all I have is time at home so my life is revolving around meals so I’ve had my aligners out a bit more than I usually would on a work day. Having said that I am really trying to stick to the 22 hours a day where possible. I have just moved on to week 4’s aligner and they are feeling pretty tight, so hopefully this upcoming week we will see even more movement.

Week 4

So week 4 is done and my teeth are looking and feeling great!!! Definitely there has been so much movement on my lower teeth this week, I’ve actually ordered some cheek retractors from amazon so I can take some proper pictures of my half way point so we can do a little compare and contrast moment. I have had some bleeding of my gums on the lower right which has been unusual for me but I was feeling a bit run down towards the end of last week. I just cleaned the area twice a day with my water flosser and inter dental brushes and wore my aligner as normal. Now the bleeding has completely cleared up and my gums are feeling a-ok. I had a WhatsApp review with Dr Murray today and he thinks I’m progressing well but we’ll have a proper consultation hopefully via Zoom next week. The only drawback is that because of Covid-19 all non emergency dental procedures have been indefinitely postponed, so in 5 aligners time when I should be done I might be left wearing my last aligner for aggeesss. To help prevent this Dr Murray has suggested wearing each aligner for 2 weeks rather than 1. Not ideal because I wont get to the end point just as quickly, but lets face it I’ve nowhere to go and nobody to see, and I would have to keep wearing the last aligner anyway until its safe to have a dental appointment so its not so bad. So my plan is to wear my aligners for 2 weeks from now on, which will be good for my overall progress too.

Weeks 5 & 6

So since I’m changing my aligner every 2 weeks now rather than weekly I thought I would update my diary every couple of weeks too as I don’t think things will change too much between aligners. Now I’m at the end of aligner 4 I’m halfway through my treatment and I’m absolutely delighted! I had my aligner review over zoom with Dr Murray on Saturday and he was really happy with my progress so far. It was really important to check how the teeth are ‘tracking’ in my aligner and if they’re not tracking you may need to stay in your existing aligner for longer or even move back an aligner so reviews are so important even during lockdown. I’ll leave some photos of what this looks like here if you want to have a little check or have any concerns about your aligners. Its also great to make sure that all of your attachments are still in place as these are helping your teeth move. I sent a few images through to Murray so he could have a closer look, the pictures weren’t just as good as they would be with a professional camera, but I think my long suffering husband did a pretty good job :). Murray was happy with how my teeth are progressing and was happy for me to move on to the second half of my treatment. Keep in touch with your dental practice, my zoom consultation was great and really easy to do on your mobile if you don’t have a computer at home.

Weeks 7 & 8

So as I started getting ready to write this Invisalign diary instalment, I was at a bit of loss as to what to write about but then I was sent through my before photographs which i’ll attach in here ad I was so thankful that I started my treatment plan (I’m usually super OCD about photos being taken on the same camera, but we we just have to work with the equipment we have at the minute, I promise you both sets of these teeth are the same and are mine). My teeth have been moving really well and I have been absolutely loving my aligners!! I’ve also started to get lots of lovely compliments about my teeth too, which has surprised me as I haven’t actually been ‘seeing’ anyone, but then I realised I’ve been seeing SO MUCH of everyone, up close and personal and in unflattering angles during all these zoom calls and FaceTimes. I’ve been seeing friends weekly that I usually only get to see a couple of times a year and talking to a phone or laptop puts so much more focus on your teeth I think because there are less background distractions than when you’re meeting in person. Put it this way I know that if I hadn’t started my treatment plan before all of this happened I would be super keen to get everything started just as soon as I could. I’ve also been filming more content for my social media accounts so even though I’m at home I still feel very connected with my friends and patients. I’ve also filmed a little video on looking after your aligners during lockdown and beyond which I’ll link here too and I’ve added a separate blog post on this if you would like a little recap on things in terms of your oral hygiene routine or if you would like some advice on cleaning your aligners during lockdown.

Weeks 9 & 10

crowded teeth.jpg — Here are my teeth filming for Toothpaste Tuesday 31st March, pretty crowded on the lower arch.

crowded teeth no crowding.jpg — Here are my teeth 15th May perfectly straight, no crowding.

So week 9 started, as all good paragraphs do, with a little drama. What I mean by this is when I was changing to aligner 6 (I assume this is when this happened I didn’t actually notice until much later) the little toggle or hook that I fix my elastic to at night time pinged off on the left hand side. I’ve never found it, I’ve accepted that I’ve probably swallowed it. Queue frantic text to Dr Murray to see if this would be ok, if this happens to you I would call your practice, most Dentist although lovely aren’t keen on you having their personal number.. I have been really bad at wearing the elastics at night, to say I did it 50% of the time would be generous - do as I say, not as I do kids. I knew this wouldn’t effect things for ME too much as I hadn’t been really playing the game with them which was bad to start with , Murray thankfully agreed, advised me not to put in the other elastic and to keep wearing my aligners as normal. Phew. If this does happen to you though, particularly with some of the actual attachments that are on your teeth I would contact you practice asap. I’m so precious taking the aligners in and out know because I know first hand that these things can come off. Other than that everything with my aligners over the past fortnight has been smooth sailing and lovely. I had another zoom consultation with Murray and he’s happy for me to move on to aligner 7 so I’ll be doing that in the morning. I am beyond happy with my progress myself, I’ll let you into a little secret, I film for a feature on my Instagram account called toothpaste Tuesday, which if you’re in any way intrigued about you can check that out here, in advance. Shhhhhh don’t tell anyone. This week I actually vetoed one of my videos which I had filmed at the start of lockdown because my lower teeth looked so different from the previous week that I just could not post it. I’ll have to refilm it but I’m not too worried, I would rather have my teeth now compared to then :).

Weeks 11 & 12 & 13

chipped central marked up.jpg — Not a great picture, but hopefully you can see what I mean…

So guys, things got a bit crazy in the world of Rachael and in the world generally last week and I COMPLETELY forgot about my Invisalign diary, so I’ll update you now, hopefully no one was waiting with baited breath and apologies if you were. In the words of the honey’s we are coming to the end of the line now. I was looking at some old pictures of me the other day and I can’t believe how different my teeth are looking! Even people who thought I was mad to have a second orthodontic treatment have been noticing the difference, thankyou so much for all the lovely messages and compliments, I hope this has inspired you guys to think about Invisalign too. To be honest I wasn’t expecting this much of a transformation, especially with my top teeth because I was making more subtle tweaks to areas that had relapsed the first time I had had a brace than massive corrections to alignment but I am so happy that I am seeing positive changes in areas that I thought wouldn’t really change. Also now that my upper teeth are back in line I have a chipped area on one of my upper central teeth that I am now dying to have some cosmetic bonding on, I’m feeling like a less extreme version of Jim Carey in Dumb and Dumber! Cosmetic bonding is a process where you add tooth coloured filling material to edges of your teeth that are not quite even to make teeth more symmetrical. I’m obsessed with Teeth by Teki’s Instagram page at the moment, if you haven’t checked it out yet I’ll link it here, its absolutely amazing what some composite bonding can do and I’m really excited to move on to this stage of my treatment plan once dentistry is a bit more back to normal. So, I have already changed my aligner now that I’m writing this so I’ll be moving on to my last aligner on Monday of next week!! Hooray!

Week 14 & 15

Last Monday I finally moved on to my last aligner!!! Hooray! Honestly I could not be more excited, I have been wearing it for about a week now and I’m starting to get a real feel for what my teeth will be like at the end of my treatment, I’m completely blown away. So weird to see my diastema (space between two teeth) closed in between my upper from teeth, I think this area relapsed really quickly after my first brace. To be honest when I had my initial brace consultation I didn’t mind this area too much, I actually asked if it would be possible to keep it as I was more bothered by my lower teeth, but now that we are coming towards the end of my treatment I actually really love that it has been closed now. I’m fairly reluctant to say this will be my last aligner as I think my second tooth from the middle on the right is being a bit stubborn, so we’ll see what Dr Murray thinks when I have my review, could be that I may need a few more aligners or maybe this could be corrected with some composite bonding, to be honest I’ve come so far I maybe wouldn’t mind couple of extra aligners to make sure everything is perfect but I’ll keep you all posted.

Weeks 16 - 21

So over the past month or so I’ve been quiet on here and I haven’t updated you guys since my last aligner as there really hasn’t been much going on and although I’ve been back at work the restriction on AGP’s within dentistry and the fact the there were many many more people needing dental appointments than usual that were far more urgent than mine, I wasn’t able to have my Invisalign review right away. My review was a bit last minute and I was completely expecting to need more aligners as I mentioned the last time as although I had a couple of zoom reviews, Dr Murray couldn’t actually see what was going on to asses how my treatment was progressing. This meant that I was REALLY surprised when I found out my treatment plan was actually finished and my attachments were coming off! Halleluiah! I would’ve loved to film the removal process for you but due to all the restrictions in place I didn’t think this would be wise, but I did make a little video of my reaction to my braces removal which I’ll link somewhere here. I also have some before and after pictures which I’m actually nearly embarrassed to show you because honestly I didn’t think my teeth were too bad to begin with but it really highlights how effective Invisalign is. My plan now is to have bonded retainers fitted (even though it was a complete doddle there’s no way I’m doing it all again to correct any relapse) and I’m going to have some composite bonding where some tooth coloured filling material added to the edges of some of my teeth to give them a more symmetrical look so I’ll keep you posted with that too. If you’ve followed me the whole way with this thankyou so much <3 if you’re having Invisalign too let me know how you’re getting on either below or on my Instagram page. Thanks so much for reading.