The day has come!

My Invisalign trays finally came in, and I went to get them. The visit went like this:

First, they took molds again. I'm not sure why, but whatever. They were the kind that set in just 30 seconds, so it was no big deal. One of them ended up with a bubble in it though, and we had to redo it.

Next, they put some polish on my teeth. Kind of the same deal that happens at a regular cleaning. They also did some scraping with dental tools. This was to prepare the surface of my teeth for the attachments.

Then the orthodontist used and instrument to grind a space between my upper front two teeth, and one other place on my upper teeth. This did not hurt, even though it did get into my gums just a touch in one spot. This process is to ease the crowding, and the orthodontist said we would be doing it in many more places along the way, but just the two places were needed to start.

Next comes the attachments. This is the moment I have been waiting for. How many would I get? EIGHTEEN! They said that's an office record. Hurray for me! To apply them, they simply put some glue in a tray, and had me wear it until it sets. We used that tray earlier to practice taking in and out a bit, but after the attachments were fixed, it was much harder to remove them. They also used some kind of UV light rod to help the glue set, moving it from place to place around my mouth.

Then they gave me first set of actual trays to try. They were surprisingly difficult to put in. They felt very strange in my mouth. With the trays in, they attached two metal buttons to my upper teeth near the back. These are to attach the rubber bands to. WAIT WHAT? Rubber bands? Ya. No one told me about this. I will have two rubber bands that attach to these buttons, and to hooks on the front of my lower trays to attempt to correct my mild underbite. I don't have to wear them right away, and in fact they cut the hooks off my first set of lower trays so that they wouldn't jab my gums and bother me too much while I'm getting used to wearing them. One of the buttons popped off right away and had to be redone. (The other one actually came off the first time I ate, and I have an appt to have it replaced as well.)

They gave me my Acceledent device, fitted me with a mouthpiece for it, and gave me some simple instructions on how to use it.

Then they showed me the computer model of what the process will look like. This was super cool to see my teeth move around and eventually morph into perfect placement. It made me excited about the process again.

Overall, I have 44 trays. So this means roughly just under a year and I'll be done. A lady that works at the office is also using Invisalign and told me she has 90 trays, so I guess I'm lucky. The whole visit took about an hour and fifteen minutes.