To be honest, I completely forgot I had planned to document my teeth straightening journey here. It’s been 4 months!
One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that my teeth are a lot straighter than when I started out. My top row are near enough there. Getting the aligners in and out is pretty easy now because they’re basically straight.
My bottom teeth… Are hell.
Looking at my teeth going into this I’d have said to anyone it’d be my top teeth that would cause me the most trouble, but how wrong I was.
Because the top teeth are generally bigger than the bottom incisors they’re a lot more stable. Since about the 6th aligner (I’m on number 10 now) one of my bottom teeth started to develop a bit of a wobble, a day or two after moving onto a new set of aligners.
I mentioned this at my appointment, and my dentist wasn’t worried, he explained the process and said it’s completely normal and not to worry, this did very little to sooth my anxiety.
For the longest time I’ve had recurring nightmares about my teeth falling out. The fear of losing teeth was what got me to go back to the dentist in the first place. As much as he says my teeth won’t fall out I can’t help but shake the paranoia.
With that in mind imagine my mental distress when, the day after moving onto my 10th set I notice all 4 of my lower 4 incisors are loose. Not loose in the sense they feel a bit funny, loose in that if I were to push on them I’d be able to see them move in a mirror. If I use a dental pick my teeth would move out of the way for it.
Up until the 5th or 6th trays I was comfortable eating as normal. I’d eat apples, pizza, burgers without a thought. I’ve now resorted to cutting everything up into bite sized pieces, I don’t bite anything. The bottom set is also still very difficult to get out and feels like I’m moving my teeth around to do so.
I’ve resorted to eating a big breakfast/lunch first thing in the morning and then not eating again until my evening meal, so I only have to take them out twice a day. I’m hoping that’ll speed my progress up too as I did have to have an extra week on one of my sets because my teeth hadn’t moved fast enough.
This coupled with the inconvenience of not being able to eat ad-hoc when I’m out and about without having to go through the whole cleaning ritual (usually in a public toilet), I’m well and truly sick of this process. I am baffled that anyone would consider this a better option than fixed braces.
With fixed braces you can just carry on with your life. Yes you may have to visit the dentists office more frequently to get them adjusted but I’m still there fairly regularly for check-ups and to pick up more sets of aligners anyway.
I mentioned my feelings towards all of this at my last appointment and I think I’ll be moving over to fixed braces at my next visit. I’ve got 3 more aligners to get through before then (my interval has been shortened to 10 days) and then fingers crossed I can get back to a more normal life!
My memory of having braces may be a little hazy (it was 20 years ago) so I’m hoping I’m not downplaying the negative aspects of them, but I really don’t remember them being that bad. I remember the aches after having them tightened, and mild discomfort from the rubbing on my cheeks, but I certainly didn’t struggle with them like I have these plastic aligners.
The only thing I’ve appreciated with the suresmile aligners is the fact that they act as gum shields. While my bite was uncomfortable these have shielded me from that. If I ever accidentally clenched my jaw these prevented any damage. Fingers crossed that by the time I move over to braces the teeth that were colliding will no longer be doing so.
As I basically forgot this blog existed I won’t be committing to regular updates, but I will write again once my braces are fitted and do a comparison of the two solutions from my perspective.
Until then!
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