Belated Video Posting- 3rd Set of Braces

Braces Review

Jessica contacted me and asked me to join bracesreview.com Basically, It's a website that invites a lot of users (and potential users) of different types of braces, so you can find a lot of information on the site and ask questions so that more experienced dental patients/professional can help you! I think it's a really good idea! :D So if anyone has any questions on Invisalign, you can either ask me or post a question on the website and you'd get loads of other Invisalign users giving their own advices/opinions (and mine as well!).

3rd Set of Invisalign Aligners

Today is my first day wearing the 3rd set of aligners.  The pain, WHAT PAIN?!, that's right, the 3rd set of aligners are nothing in comparison to the 2nd set in terms of pain.  There was no pain at all, just felt the trays were a bit tighter before.  After a few hours, the trays feel similar to the previous set, but maybe it's just slightly more difficult to take off.

Just comparing the 1st set and 3rd set.  Can you tell any differences? I certainly can spot a few. For my upper teeth, I can see the tooth on the left of my front teeth is more in line with the rest of teeth.  And as for the bottom teeth, the crowding doesn't look as bad. :) So my teeth are DEFINITELY moving! Now I really want to see what the last set of aligners would look like!  I am still lisping a bit though... I reckon it's the way I talk- I don't move my mouth enough so the situation is now worsen by the fact that I have plastic objects in my mouth!

Happy Chinese New Year, everyone!

Can't believe it's Chinese New Year already! Today is quite an eventful day as India is also having their own Republic Day celebration and guess what, it's a public holiday in Australia too!  

Today the weather is unusually nice- pretty sunny but still cold.  I guess it's a good start of Ox year. Hope everyone will have a bullish and prosperous year ahead!  

I got my renewed passport today.  Compare the photos on the new passport to the old one, I have indeed aged a fair bit and I look UGLIER! Sighhh.  It's all the stupid new rules about keeping a stern, unhappy face..  At least I had a small grin in my previous one which brightened up my face a little.  The photo on my new passport looks dreadful and 80% dead. (Excuses, excuses, I just can't face the fact that I am uglier, that's all!!)

I am really hoping my Invisalign will perform some miracle and make me prettier again in 10.5 months time!!

Finally, 2nd Set of the Trays

20th January was an important day for my Invisalign journey. Actually, I feel today is the proper starting point of this journey- coz everything finally arrived: attachments, teeth filed and the PAIN! And it's even MORE painful when taking out the trays.  The first time when I wanted to take out the trays, lower tray was okay, upper tray seemed impossible.  My husband even offered his help to take them off for me! But I was far too scared to let him do that- I just had a picture in my head that my teeth would come out with the tray too! +_=

Now, some closeup pictures of my filed teeth.  I have loads of tiny gaps between my teeth- it's quite strange coz I can feel the 'air' going between my teeth when I breath in and out using my mouth. :)

Looks a bit funny, doesn't it? Oh well, beauty comes with a heavy price tag! Hopefully it's just the right amount of room for my upper teeth to rotate and in a few months time, the gap will disappear!  (Same applies to the gap on my lower front teeth!!)

Now a few more gaps on the side... You can also see my three attachments on my upper teeth.  They are so annoying as they make the tray so much harder to take off! I literally have to yank them out and it hurts so much! Although it's slightly easier to take the tray out now (2nd day of wearing my 2nd set of trays), still painful!  And my finger tips are in pain too- not just my teeth! Wow, I just realised that my lips look super dry!

Cleaning Invisalign Trays... In Search for the Best Way

When I first got the aligners, even after the 1st week, the aligners never smelt much even straight after I took them out.  But on my 10th day, I noticed that it has started to smell a bit. :(  

Although I feel a bit of toothpaste and running icy water is good enough for cleaning the aligners... I just want to try out different methods to see whether they're any better! SO...

Asda Denture Cleaning Tablet

I read a lot of reviews that Efferdent cleans the aligners really well but we don't have that brand in the UK! I am wondering whether Steradent (the leading brand here) works the same? Or even a supermarket's own brand like Asda denture cleaning tablet?  Since the Asda denture tablet was only 30p for 30 tablets, I've decided to give it a try - Plus I'm at the end of my 1st tray anyway)!  On the instruction, it said to leave it for an hour or overnight but I reckon since I don't use my aligners to eat, 10 minutes should be sufficient! (Sometimes you just have to be your own doctor to try out your own prescription!) Anyway, I only soaked the trays in warm water with the tablet while I brushed teeth/washed face.

Result: sparkling trays!  

Verdict: I think the tablet makes the cleaning a lot easier as sometimes with just toothpaste & water, it's a bit tricky to clean off the white tooth scum on the edges of the trays... But the tablet that I have contains bleach, so I had to make sure I really rinsed the trays properly.  

Fairy Liquid

Some people also said to use 'Dawn' dishwashing liquid. Again, we don't have Dawn dishwashing liquid but we do have 'Fairy'!  So- I am going to give that a try tomorrow morning!

Doing new things with my aligners keep me excited about wearing them- I guess this is the only way to make me want to wear them for more than 22 hours a day!  BUT, what other new things are there to keep me entertained for the rest 11 months?!

Cold Running Water with Sonicare Tooth Brush

I think this is the safest (chemical free!) option ever! I just used one of my old sonicare tooth brush head and with a bit of running water and it works!  Although the trays didn't come out as shiny as the previous two methods, they look clean!  I was a bit wary of using my normal tooth brush head coz my head might get damaged and heads are quite expensive to buy!  So just use an old one if you have it! :)

Blood inside my upper tray!

Yes, you've heard it right! There was a tiny blood stain inside my upper tray (just on one of my teeth)!! Maybe it's not blood from my teeth- maybe it's because the bumps on the aligner cut into my lips at night and the blood went inside my tray? Or maybe the tray is putting too much stress onto my tooth? BUT I AM NOT FEELING ANY PAIN?!! I'm well bewildered by the event... So anyway I am going to wear these aligners religiously for at least 22 hours everyday before I see the dentist on Tuesday!!!

19th January Update: Today I went to McD and I saw bits of my Mcflurry turned pink (I didn't have any coloured chocolates if that's what you're thinking!).  Anyway, I discovered the bleeding came from my upper lip (parts that are close to those awful bumps on the tray!).  I'll definitely mentioned that to my dentist that the bumps are (probably) cutting my lip!