My Adventure with Invisalign
By: Jason T Me
Tags: Invisalign, Dentistry, Orthodontics, Dental Care

On December 7, 2016 I started wearing Invisalign.

It was not easy.

It was not fun.

Nearly no one knew.

This is my story.

How it started

I cannot believe how this all started. I spend my entire teenage years in orthodontia, jaw surgery at age 20 , and most

of my early adulthood back in orthodontia to only be, at the age of 35 years, going back into this yet again.

I remember the moment I discovered it. Just like every other day of every other human being visiting the restroom during the workday. Upon completing my business I looked in the mirror to check for anything embarrassing on my teeth to realize one of them had gone rogue. Yes, this single tooth had pushed passed the perfect line of soldiers in the bottom of my mouth. I was mortified. After all this time, all those dollars, all the pain, I was standing there looking into a bathroom mirror with a defeating look of disgust on my face, as I realized I was back into it.

It took over a week to talk to my wife about it as I felt my vanity had been affected. Like all other incidences she met it with incredibly rationality. “This is just how it went, all you can do is have a professional look at it,” she said. So I moved forward with the plan and after seeing my dentist eventually got in to see an orthodontist.

Although, I know from experience that moving teeth are bad news to some degree I didn’t expect it to be completely bad, more so just a “this is what we can do” mentality. On the day of the appointment I sat down in the first examination chair where my “case manager” spoke with me about what was going on and my background. I explained the orthodontia I had previously, but more importantly the jaw surgery I wanted everyone to be abundantly aware. She took a panoramic x-ray and put me back to waiting for the doctor to review.

When the orthodontist sat down with me he had a very free look in his eyes. His face said “this is going to be easy” however, as soon as I closed my mouth that expression changed. He looked at the case manager and said “I am going to do a full workup.”

To shorten the details a bit, the rogue tooth was pushing my top teeth forward as my perfect bite was starting to unravel. The progress was too advanced to simply “throw a retainer on it” as the Orthodontist put it and he said he would recommend doing Invisalign for a period of six months.

This conversation led us into the reason I was there, I was unlucky. It was simple biology which drove me to the Orthodontist, although the surgery was done later in my growth period I still managed to grow and this is what killed my bite. The only positive I took away from this consultation was the opinion the Orthodontist thought I would have been here no matter the preventative measure I partook.

I received all the information I needed to know about the process including a procedure called inter-proximal reduction of my bottom front incisors, which means shaving millimeters off those teeth to make room to pull them back more.

I left the office with mixed emotions, but mostly negative ones, all because I was the old man back in Orthodontia…again. I sat in my car in the parking lot and rightly or wrongly had some thoughts.

I felt stupid.

I felt embarrassed.

I felt ashamed.

How I decided

I didn’t like being here again and I feared it greatly. My wife was on board with doing whatever I needed to do to regain my bite. She knew what I went through with jaw surgery, I was not going to give up on my teeth.

In my work life the research I do is grand and the same in my personal life as well. I spent days doing research, consisting of speaking with prior patients, other dental professionals, even reading peer reviewed medical journals. I wish I could say I came to the decision gracefully, but I didn’t, I simply gave into it as the best way I could seek treatment and not end up in steel braces again.

The other decision which was made this day was the need to keep this between my wife and I. I did not intend on telling anyone about this to spare the embarrassment of having to explain why the old man was back in Orthodontia.

The Process

To save some space I will briefly describe the process.

They start out by scanning your teeth, which is exactly as it sounds. They take three dimensional scans of your teeth and bite, the Orthodontist moves your teeth where they need to be, they send the work to Invisalign, and Invisalign “prints” your aligners.

Wearing Invisalign Aligners. You can see the bubble on the left which goes over the attachment on that tooth.

When I came in to get my first aligner I got to find out how long my treatment plan was going to be. I was in luck and it ended up only being 14 weeks long. I was ecstatic I would only have to deal with this for an inconsequential course of time.

On the same day receiving my first aligner they added attachments to my teeth. These attachments are little mounds of glue which create leverage points for your aligner to move your teeth where they need to go. I only had three, which the Ortho tech had never had a patient with so few (not surprising considering we were doing so little moving). They did the inter-proximal reductions, which smelled and sounded horrible, then showed me how to put the aligners on and take them off. I asked them many questions about the rules and there really was only one rule they enforced: they must be worn 22 hours a day.

This one of the attachments on my lower teeth.

I will describe the nuances of living with Invisalign later, but from beginning to end it was a drastic change in routine with much modification and abandonment of habits, both good and bad. I think I did even more research after I got them than before due to the drastic changes needed to make the Invisalign work.

After the treatment they put me into a retainer for 30 days, which then became a nightly process from there on out, which is where I am now. I wish I could say it was easy, but it really was not.