Invisalign Update: 2 Months In

I thought after 2 months and 4 tray sets I'd weigh in again and talk about how I'm getting on with my Invisalign treatment. At the moment it's still mostly pretty hard to detect any changes, but I know they're happening. There are some slight gaps visible now between some of my front teeth, so I guess they must be moving.

A Funny Thing

Last month I dyed my hair pink. I must've gotten a trace amount of hair dye in my mouth at some point, because I have definitely managed to dye some of the glue areas around the attachments on my teeth slightly pink. Fantastic. It is very slight and unnoticeable - I didn't notice until several days after it must've happened - and my dentist has reassured me it will come off. Still, it might be good to avoid hair dye if you're planning on getting Invisalign. I wasn't eating the dye, I promise.

A Scary Thing

I went to pick up my fifth and sixth tray sets the other day, and my dentist told me she had to file my teeth. This is a thing with Invisalign, sometimes you need what's called IPR (Interproximal Reduction) to make sure the teeth have enough space to move. This means they take a file to your enamel, and hopefully remove just a fraction of a millimetre. This is perfectly okay, but I was worried about it and hoped I wouldn't have to have any IPR done on my teeth at all. I did, however, need some of the bad and naughty enamel to be filed away. After she did the filing, I had a look at my teeth and I couldn't notice anything. The filing was minimal enough to be very hard to notice when looking at my teeth, so I feel quite happy with it. I hope there won't need to be any more of it, but I trust my dentist and I know she wants to minimise the IPR as much as possible too.

It feels quite weird to have your teeth filed down, but for me I find it much less uncomfortable than those moments when I somehow scrape two of my teeth against each other. What a horrible feeling that is. Filing, at least for me, is a lot nicer.

Regime & Schedule

I am still sticking pretty strictly to the recommended wear of 22 hours a day without any problems, however I have had a couple of days out where I wanted to eat and drink, so I probably had my trays out for an extra hour or so on those days. I don't think this is a problem as long as I'm generally keeping to the recommended schedule (especially as I'm wearing each tray for about 2 weeks when I could theoretically change them more often), but sometimes it just feels really nice to let yourself have more of a break for a special occasion or outing.

Hygiene & Confidence

After 2 months, I'm really used to having the plastic in my mouth all the time, and I'm really used to the whole routine of flossing and brushing my teeth after every meal. It actually has been really beneficial for me in that I feel so much more confident that my teeth are healthy and clean now. I wonder what it will be like for me when I'm finished with treatment, because I feel like I'll want to carry on with most of the current routine. On one night when I went out for dinner and drinks I didn't brush my teeth for a while after eating and drinking, and the feeling of having any kind of residue in my mouth and on my teeth was so alien and strange. My teeth feel so clean all the time and I also no longer have sensitivity in my back teeth. I used to feel quite anxious about my teeth. They were looked after properly, but I worried about them a lot. Now I have completely gotten past that feeling, and I think the brushing and flossing routine I have now has made me feel so much more secure, healthy, and clean.

I love that I'm learning and gaining more from this experience than just the movement of my teeth itself. That's really valuable to me. I'm excited to see how the next months go.