Progress Weeks 7-8

Tray four is done. It was the first tray with attachments and I can say with pride that none of them have come off yet. Hopefully the glue holds for the rest of the treatment. :) Only 20 trays to go! Apparently people still can't see my trays. I like it.

Below are pictures after tray 4. No new developments; the headaches and tension are around consistently  for the first 4 days of the tray. The lockjaw chooses to be better/worse at random, but sticks around day in and day out. It's not affecting my health or life so I let it be. I did get a prescription for muscle relaxers just in case, but I haven't needed to fill it yet. We'll see.

Front View

Top View

Bottom View

Still on a roll. Consistent wear (hitting my 20-22 hours every day) and flossing every night. Routine is good - time consuming but definitely worth it.

I Got My Attachments

I didn't know attachments existed and I almost let them be a deal breaker. After seeing videos on youtube I  was not excited about having them put on my teeth. It seemed to take away the "invisible" element of Invisalign to a large extent.

By the time I found out they'd be necessary, I was 3/4ths the way through the process and had paid in full. LOL. The options were either suck it up or lose the invested time and figure out how to get my money back. I'm not saying it was an easy choice. The attachments are on for almost a year, but the already having paid part did help encourage me to proceed. Ultimately the attachments were far less noticeable than any braces would be and I was in it to get my teeth straightened.

The attachment appointment:

• The whole process took no more than 30 minutes for 11 attachments.
• They started by slipping on a retainer tray to make sure my teeth were where they needed to be at.
• The retainer came off loose and they were happy with my progress so far.
• The dentist mentioned at this point that all new trays would be more aggressive in terms of movement. FUN.
• To get the attachments on she primed each tooth that required an attachment with a little wash to make the surface less smooth where the attachment would go.
• Each attachment placement got a coating of glue and a UV light treatment to help cure the bond.
• They popped on my new trays (now with bumps for the attachments) and cured  with the UV light again.

After the attachments were seated:

• My teeth felt pretty rough. Lots of excess glue, but the dentist assured me this would come off over a course of weeks as I brushed my teeth.
• The new trays were HARD to get off. Given I was trying to be careful not to pop the attachments off, but she wasn't lying about the movement being more aggressive.
• No pain from the attachments, but the suggested wear time before removal was 3 hours to let the glue set for a while. I went for 5. She kept telling me she expected me to pop one off so I want to try my damnedest not to!

How they look:

I can definitely say that I'm shocked how invisible they are when the trays off. Impressed even. With the trays on...not so much, but I'll let you be the judge.

Attachments front view

Attachments side view

Attachments with trays front view

Attachments with trays side view

All my trays after this have attachment bubbles. I can't loose break or lose trays because none of the old ones will fit!

Progress Weeks 5-6

Tray three is done, this week I got my attachments and new trays! Three down, 21 to go. Below are the pictures while I was wearing tray 3. I had to wear the tray a couple extra days due to the timing of my attachment appointment. Nothing new with tray 3, it was about the same as tray 2 from start to finish with headaches, tension, and jaw getting locked when I first started wearing it, but significant reduction after 3-5 days.

Front View

Top View

Bottom View

Still on a roll, no slip ups. I've consistently worn my trays for between 20-22 hours every day and have flossed every night. Getting into a good routine and being less psycho about brushing every time after I eat something small or drink something sugary during the day. Just making sure not to leave anything sitting for more than a few hours really.

Oh the Lockjaw!

Lockjaw you say? But isn't that something that happens if you've got tetanus. True enough, it does happen with tetanus, but it can also be associated with a bunch of other stuff. A more general term you might see used online is "trismus" or inability to normally open the mouth. What happens is you start to open your mouth and then BOOM, you realize it's locked and can only open so far. Thus the term lockjaw.

As the weeks have gone on, my jaw has been locked more and more frequently. It happens randomly, but usually is more common 1) right when I wake up in the morning or 2) when I've been laying on my side (putting pressure on my jaw).

It's not usually that painful. Just depends on how hard I have to work to force my mouth open.

When I do get my jaw unlocked there's a massive 'click' sound coming from the jaw itself. As far as I know, there really isn't any other thing you can do than just force your jaw open. After you get it open, just work it out over and over again. This gives you back the range of motion and releases the tension. My jaw clicks most of time now but how loud it is (audible only to me vs. audible to people near me) depends on how recently my last "lock incident" was. It kind of sucks and gets more painful over time, but luckily only one side of my jaw is locking.

I've been unsuccessful in getting the jaw unlocked more than a few times, without either removing the trays and massaging the muscles in my cheek. Once the jaw is unlocked, the trays go right back in. No harm, no foul. It doesn't seem to instigate more locking. I'm going to see what the dentist says about this the next time I go in. Not sure what they'll suggest or prescribe. Just haven't found a lot of useful information about this online when it comes to Invisalign-related lockjaw.


JAN 2013 UPDATE: I'm over halfway through my treatment. Something cool happened temporarily during the first couple days of my current tray.

If I had to rate my usual lockjaw tension from 1 to 10 - with 1 being not much tension, and 10 being so tense I can't get my jaw open without multiple attempts - I'm usually anywhere between 6 and 8. When I shoved my current trays on, the lockjaw loosened up for a couple days! It was around a 3 or 4 on days 1 and 2; the usual amount of tension (without pain) returned on day 3. Like I said, it was temporary, but what is cool is that it's a good indicator my bite is starting to get matched up again! Very cool. I can definitely see a lot of good progress since I started with Invisalign now in lots of places.