Progress Weeks 21-22

Images After: Tray 11    (taken on 11/27/2012)

Remaining Trays: 13

Lockjaw: Consistent. No pain
Headaches: None
Pain: Only sore first day of new tray

Wear: 16-20 hours a day
Brushing: Not as much as I should during the day at work
Flossing: Every night

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Progress Weeks 19-20

Images After: Tray 10     (taken on 11/13/2012)

Remaining Trays: 14

Lockjaw: Consistent. No pain
Headaches: None
Pain: Only sore first day of new tray

Wear: 16-20 hours a day
Brushing: Not as much as I should during the day at work
Flossing: Every night

I've had a stain on my front bottom attachment for months. When I went to the dentist in mid-December, they were able to remove it. All I had to do was ask.

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Catch Up and Almost Breaking a Tray

What I've Missed

Happy 2013! I just shoved on my first new trays of the year. With the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays I've missed a few posts so I wanted to make a quick update while trays were on my mind. My last progress post included pictures of my teeth on 10/30/2012.

Here are the posts I've missed since then:

• 11/13/12 Progress after tray 10
• 11/27/12 Progress after tray 11
• 12/12/12 Progress after tray 12 - no picures sorry
• 12/26/12 Progress after tray 13 - no picures sorry
• 1/9/13 Progress after tray 14

On 12/12 I had interproximal reduction (teeth shaving) done for my bottom teeth.  The dentist decided  to wait for a few more trays before doing the top so I have to go back after to have the top areas reduced. I'm going to do a full post detailing the interproximal reduction experience, so stay tuned for details.

Tray Shenanigans

Today's trays were the hardest to get on yet.  I wasn't sure if I was going to get the top tray on without breaking it part of it. The edge over the right K9 tooth folded down a bit while I was trying to get it on...unsuccessfully. I used some tweezers to fix it before trying again. Maybe I just had a bad angle or something, but I did get the tray on about 30 seconds later. They're about as tight as usual. Nothing too out of the ordinary, save for my trimus (lockjaw) on the right jaw seems to have eased up a bit instead of being worse. We'll see if it lasts. The jaw definitely feels different, but I can't yet figure out in what way or if its going to be more or less painful than before. Wish me luck!

Progress Weeks 17-18

Images After: Tray 9

Remaining Trays: 15

Lockjaw: Consistent. No pain
Headaches: None
Pain: Only sore first day of new tray

Wear: 16-20 hours a day
Brushing: Not as much as I should during the day at work
Flossing: Every night

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Progress Weeks 15-16

Below are pictures after tray 8, I'm currently on tray 10 so I'll also be posting pictures after tray 9 soon.
No changes to my tray-wearing experience. It's actually become pretty predictable, so I figured it would be good to just have a standard checklist that gets posted with each picture set to make posts easier and more consistent for me.

Images After: Tray 8
Remaining Trays: 16

Lockjaw: Consistent. No pain
Headaches: None
Pain: Only sore first day of new tray

Wear: 18-20 hours a day
Brushing: Not as much as I should during the day at work
Flossing: Every night

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Progress Weeks 13-14

Tray seven is done, 17 to go! Below are pictures after tray 7. I was in a rush had just eaten. I didn't have time to brush so some of the pictures show just how super stained your teeth are after food and drink. Insane right? I've decided to try to add side shots to the set because this seems to be where things are doing the most movement right now.

The lockjaw and craziness of not really having a matched bite has become more "normal" for me. I think my teeth have gotten used to moving around all loosey goosey so I don't really have as much pain after a new trays. It's kinda of sore after I take of the trays for sure, but no major headaches or tension like I had when I first started Invisalign. Kind of hard to believe that I'll been wearing my trays for almost 4 months now. I'll be moving into tray 9 in just a few days. Kind of exciting to be coming up on the halfway mark (tray 12) before I know it! :)

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Doing pretty good. I haven't been wearing my trays as much as I should - more like 18-20 hours rather than 20-22 but it hasn't been an issue. Things are moving around well, pain isn't constant in any way. I floss every night and have a brushing routine that isn't psycho. Things are good and it's more "routine" now. Not gonna lie though, I'm ready to have these things off. June 2013 can't come soon enough!

Progress Weeks 11-12

Here are my pictures after tray six, with 18 remaining trays.All attachments are still on, though I did get worried one day when I popped my tray on and something came loose. It was food. HA! Where did that come from? : O

Maybe I'm crazy but I feel like my teeth are looking MORE crooked on the bottom than before. I keep inspecting the trays, to make sure things are matching up and they are but who knows LOL. The lockjaw and popping is constant now, can be painful. When I was on tray 6 it was definitely the worst it'd been. I started taking the soma (muscle relaxer) which helped more than I thought it would. I'm behind on these post so I'm trying to get caught up.

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Slacked on wearing my trays enough during tray 6. Hadn't been wearing my trays as much as I should - more like 16-20 hours instead of 20-22. OUCH. I still floss every night and the next tray went on without issue due to me being good about wearing it the few days before the switch! I blame snacking and delicious non-clear liquids. :)