{God, I've abandoned this blog for far too long- over 3 months - there is a story behind this! I did see my Clincheck in November, which was amazing and the final result looked pretty impressive. Shame that I couldn't get the clincheck file to share with all of you. I'll try to persuade the dental clinic again to see whether I can get hold of the file. From the Clincheck, I learnt that my treatment process would take 11 months for my lower arch and 7/8 months for my upper arch. I have to say that I was a bit surprised because I thought my upper teeth looked worse than lower!

So, the reason of a 2 month gap is because I had to leave the country for almost a month in December (my big holiday of the year!) and my trays didn't arrive at the end of November (apparently they missed me out by just 1 or 2 days!). So, after a long, long wait til the events ended on 3th Jan (practice only started to operate from the 5th), I have finally got my trays today! I was so excited that my heart was racing faster than the speed of the light rail into Memorial!

So my dentist fitted the trays for me initially and asked me to take them off myself in front of the mirror with help of his instructions. The trays were not as soft as I had thought- they're quite rigid and durable. (I don't know WHY I thought they would be similar to the home teeth whitening trays- how would they move my teeth into right places in just 11 months?) It's not difficult to take down and put up the trays, actually, but you really have to open wide your mouth!

Oh, and one tip for you guys, before doing Invisalign, you should really have all your teeth looked at. Because I've been brushing my teeth a bit too hard, bits of my gum has recessed and revealed sensitive root. And now, every time I take off the trays, my fingers/nails are touching the sensitive parts and it hurts a little (okay, maybe quite a lot, but I wanted to put up a brave face). And because the molds are made already, I probably can't go back to my normal dentist and ask them to put composite to cover the sensitive areas as it might affect how the trays fit on my teeth! I'll just have to live with it for the next 11 months I suppose! =_=

So my feeling after the 1st day is quite good- the trays are easy to manage, they are indeed pretty much invisible (I am going to have 'attachments' on my teeth so the trays have 'bubbles' on them already, so if you look really closely and when i smile too wide, then people can notice the 'bubbles'), AND, strangely enough, I am not in that much pain, just a bit sore... And into the negatives... I met up with friends after my appointment at Starbucks and watching everyone enjoying their cafe latte and me with my bottled water was not a good feeling! It did lure me to take off the trays but the sensible side of me stopped myself as I didn't have my toothbrush or toothpaste!}