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!