Belated entry: weekend training

Wow this is super late. After a bajillion weeks on the road, and a few rescheduled sessions, I finally made it back to the gym to train with Jason!

We did a rare and elusive weekend session, which means free range of the gym. But we stuck to basics this time, and mostly arms

Regular walking warmup, and a few passes with the lobster band to warm up

It's been a few days so I already forget exactly what we did but I know there were two shiny new kettlebells, and I played with both of them

So we did swings, clean and presses, heavier clean and presses, and snatches

And on the floor I had vups and backbridge extensions, and twists with a medicine ball.

I only have two more sessions before my money runs out. :(  i'll be looking for cheaper ways to get back in shape, and I have a few things lined up that might be fun AND bring back my flexibility. I'll keep you posted

Invisalign - first fitting

Finally after months and months ( and even more months) of anticipation, the day finally arrived to get my first set of Invisalign.

During all those months of waiting, I did quite a bit of googling to make sure I was fully prepared for what I'm getting myself into.  For the most part the blogs and forums were pretty spot on about the overall experience so there wasn't too much that came as a surprise by the time I popped in the first tray

The first fitting appointment took about an hour since there is quite a lot to do.  They have you try on the first trays and practice taking them out a few times to get the hang of it.

Then, if you're an unlucky soul (like me), they will have to install little buttons on some of your teeth to help the retainers grip and do their job.  I ended up with 7 buttons total.  To get them to stick to your teeth they scrub off the teeth in question then, using a template tray, inject some clear goo into preset crevices and snap the tray in your mouth to make sure they are in the right place. They set the goo with a UV device, that hardens it into clear buttons that makes them look like tiny extensions of your teeth.

Most people said that the buttons can be sharp and irritate your gums. I don't really notice them at all.  The most concerning part of that process is when they had to snap the template tray out, and then use that dentist pick tool to scrape off the excess button adhesive (that has now been cured into a rock hard tooth colored enamel). Yikes

After the buttons are finally on and cleaned out, they had me try on the real trays again to make sure I could still get them on and off.  After the buttons go on, it was really scary getting the trays off because it really seemed like I was going to snap the tray in half while prying it off my teeth.  The tray that will cost almost $200 to replace if it breaks.

But eventually I got the hang of it, trays in-tact. And all was well with the world.  After that I was pretty much all done, I just had to wait a while for the orthodontist to stop by and check that everything looked good (oh yeah, all that fitting and button installation was done with a tech, not the actual Ortho...)

The Dr. gave his stamp of approval, I scheduled the follow-up appointment for 8 weeks later, and they sent me off with an Invisalign goodie bag that included:

-Two retainer cases (one that I carry around with me, and one that lives at home)

-six sets of trays that I'll change every 2 weeks

-a pamphlet of instructions in about ten different languages (in case I forget how to take out my teeth, or if I want to brush up on my French, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese, Mandarin, and a bunch of other languages)

- a set of 'chewies' that are little plastic tubes that I chew on to make sure the trays stay nice and snug

We'll see how this goes!

Fixin' my teeth

So, to branch off from the drudgeries of weekly workouts, I'm going to talk about a different aspect of my quest for overall health and positive body image - my teeth

I had terrible teeth growing up, chock full of cavities and these massive buck teeth jutting out of my upper jaw. It mostly stemmed from that time in grade school when the kid down the street kicked out my two front teeth (this is 100% true)

Fortunately they were my baby teeth. Unfortunately they weren't even remotely loose.  So my big adult front teeth had full range of my jaw to grow in since there wasn't anything restricting them from pushing all my other weakling baby teeth out of the way

And thus began my lifelong orthodontic journey. I had braces for a few years in high school and despite the pain and agony, they came out pretty nice. But somehow in the blip of other life events, I never got a retainer and in the 10+ years since then, my teeth have almost completely reverted back to their buck tooth glory days. One tooth in particular seems to be going out of its way to tuck itself behind its neighbor and I've lost track of how many procedures I've gotten to fix the inevitable cavities that gravitate in that area

Anytime I've complained about my teeth, most people's reactions are to politely say 'oh your teeth look fine'. But they don't see my dental bills. And I know what angles hide my freak tooth from public view.

So, after years of wishing and hoping, I finally was able to afford orthodontic work (thanks to actually decent dental insurance). And like most vain adults, I decided on Invisalign. So back in November - about 7 months ago - my dentist referred me to his orthodontist buddy. What I wish I had known back then was how frustrating this whole process would be. And I haven't even gotten the first tray yet (did I mention it's been SEVEN months)

Every stage of this process has been one surprise after another, with hefty price tags to go along with it. "Oh no, that cheaper price we gave you is for some other thing that you're not doing, you're getting this thing which is more expensive" ....so why did you tell me that price in the first place?!??? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!!!!...

So I finally do the scan, get a call that it's ready, show up and find out they haven't even started MAKING the trays yet!! So why am I here!??!! Oh, because you want to charge more money but won't tell me exactly how much the total cost is gonna me. Great, because I can totally afford to 'wing it' for a few extra thousand dollars. Yeah, no.

It could just be that this particular office is just not very good at explaining the process and doesn't know how to set expectations. Although I would imagine I'm not the only person in the world who doesn't spent every hour of the day becoming an expert on dental procedures. I just want to show up, know what's going to happen, get my teeth fixed, and know exactly how much it's going to cost me. Is that too much to ask?

Eventually they are going to give me the damn trays so I can get this started already, and then I'll be able to give feedback on the actual invisaligns. And by eventually I mean they better have them ready next week because I'm traveling for almost three weeks and was expecting to have already started the first set by now.

But at this rate, I have no idea what to expect. I do expect I'm going to have to 'pull some teeth' to find out.

Pun obviously intended