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Yesterday marked my first appointment with my new orthodontist since my old one has retired. I was definitely nervous because I knew NOTHING about this orthodontist and had no choice in him dealing with my case.
It was definitely a different experience than my previous appointments. First of all, no reminder. My old orthodontist would send an email a week before reminding patients of their appointment time. When I did call to double check my appointment they couldn't even find me on their system! They just said to turn up when I THOUGHT my appointment was and they'd fit me in. Luckily I found my appointment card and knew for sure when my appointment was actually scheduled.
So I turned up on time for my 8:40 am appointment. Same office, same furniture, totally different environment. While the rooms used to be a quite little place with only 3 staff members and never seeing another patient there before or after my appointment (including 3 years ago when I first went there and every time since), this time was completely different. First there were 2 receptionists with 3 laptops in front of them trying to figure out what was going on, there were two people waiting, one person standing with the receptionist trying to figure out their account, me waiting to check in, and then two more people walked in. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind that there's other people there, but when there are 5 chairs in a space smaller than my tiny bathroom and 6 patients it's a little claustrophobic feeling. It was also noticeably louder. Instead of having one orthodontist that only does Invisalign, there are now two orthodontists that do both fixed braces and Invisalign. Rather than 1 dental assistant and one receptionist, there are now 4 dental assistants and 2 receptionists.
After waiting until 9am and hearing the receptionists whisper to each other that I was still waiting, I finally got called in for my appointment. My new orthodontist seems really nice but didn't really go through a whole lot with me other than asking which aligner I was up to and asking a few questions about me that he'd read on my file. He then did just a little filing between my lower front teeth to remove any calcium build up. I did mention that I was having a lot of sensitivity with one of my lower teeth where it presses against other teeth which apparently that small amount of filing will help with.
I also mentioned that I was finding that within the 14 day cycle of wearing my aligners by day 3/4 they were fitting really well and were no longer tight, and that by day 8 they were really, really loose. I have two rectangular shaped attachments on my premolars which basically cause a ledge that make it nearly impossible to get the aligners off in the first day or so. Usually I have to pinch the aligners and wiggle them from the inside and push them out/over the attachments to get them off, but by day 8 I can pop them off from the outside with one finger.
So great news, my orthodontist said I can go down to switching every 10 days instead of every 2 weeks!
I worked it out and it now looks like I'll finish my initial round of 23 lower/26 upper aligners in December/January instead of May/June 2015. So I've now cut my treatment time down from 12 months to 9 months which is nice. It also means that any refinements will most likely be finished by June 2015 rather than December 2015.
The only other things I'm noticing is that my lower teeth are definitely standing up straighter, the upper right lateral incisor is no longer overlapping my front tooth and is definitely starting to rotate, my lower canines are rotating, and the gap being created between my premolars and molars.....yeah that's not so comfortable in the first day or so. It's like having a popcorn kernel being forcibly inserted between my teeth. That being said it's totally fine within 18-36 hours of wearing the aligners.
Photos to follow next time!
