It is SO gratifying to look back at old pictures and see how much progress my teeth have made after my Invisalign treatment ended.
If you have been following my blog for over the past year and a half, you know that I’ve been receiving complimentary Invisalign treatment in exchange for sharing my experience. (Scroll to bottom of this post to read all of my past posts.) My doctor was Dr. Mark Gray of Gray Orthodontics who helped correct my progressive overlapping front teeth.
Well I finally completed my treatment – YIPEE! It only took a year and a couple months to finish wearing my clear aligners which I was thrilled with that timing. (At my age, one year goes by a LOT quicker than they did in my younger years:)
So instead of just showing you my before and after photos, I’ve gone a step further.
I have created A VIDEO of my experience.
(Okay, my husband of JaWaVi Films created it for me!)
Feel free to watch if you’re interested in hearing how this whole treatment went down for me from start to finish. It’s not a short one – 14 minutes to be exact – but there’s a lot I tried to cover and inform you on! (My fave part is the reenactment segment that includes Taco around the 8.45 minute mark:))
Click the arrow below to watch and listen…
Good teeth are kinda my thing.
They were the first thing that attracted me to my husband when I met him back in college. He had the prettiest teeth and smile, and I was hooked! #truestory
Now some might look at my before pics and think that my overlapping front teeth aren’t a big deal. But for me, I was very self conscious. Ever since I started blogging, my smiling pics became less and less and I took more pics with my mouth shut because I was unhappy with my front teeth. The shadows it usually created when I took pics made me appear to have one and a half tooth in the very front. I wanted to look like I have two front teeth…not too much to ask right??
I did have braces as a teenager, but as I got older, the permanent retainer on the backs of my teeth got removed one time at the dentist and were not put back on after cleaning (why??) and I also quit wearing my retainers once I went to college. So this shift was inevitable due to these factors.
The Pros of Invisalign for me.
After chatting with Dr. Gray, we landed on me trying Invisalign as opposed to braces because of these reasons :
- They’re basically invisible and no one can tell you’ve got something on your teeth. The biggie for me. Especially in pictures, no one would ever know you had them on.
- They’re removable, so you can eat and drink when you want without getting stuff stuck in braces. (That was one part about having braces I truly disliked was getting stuff stuck in them after eating.)
- My teeth needed minor correcting and nothing major. If they had been super bad, braces probably would have been the way to go.
- The fact there are no metal + wires typically means you spend less time at the doctors office getting adjustments – which was a HUGE plus for me! I loved my Ortho and his staff, but lets be real…no one likes spending time in a doc office if they don’t have to. I think my appointments were less than 20 minutes each time. (Except for the initial trays being made and the final appointment where the retainers were made of course.)
- Being the responsible adult that I am, we knew that I would be vigilant with wearing the trays the necessary 22-21 hours a day it takes to work in a timely manner. He said he doesn’t put a lot of children in them for this reason because it’s hard to get them to consistently keep the trays in. But if I figured if I was gonna do this, I’m gonna do it right and get it done!
- Painless. Sure it’s a lot of pressure when you first start to wear them and when you pop in your new trays every 2 weeks but it’s no big deal and the pressure subsides pretty quickly over a couple days.
The Cons of Invisalign for me.
- The initial affect it has on your speech. I def had a small lisp while speaking when I first got my trays. But luckily, after continued wear you figure out how to get around this and it’s not nearly as noticeable.
- Constant brushing of your teeth after eating and snacking. Now like I said in this video, you could turn this into pro because it’s never a bad thing to brush your teeth constantly!! But I did floss more than ever because you don’t want to pop those trays back in on a dirty mouth and trap food in there. And I am a big snacker throughout the day.
- Keeping up with the trays. Also in the video I showed how my dog Taco got a hold of one of my trays as used it as a chew toy. I also threw away my trays one day at a restaurant because I had put it in a napkin while eating then tossed the napkin (but I figured it out immediately and dug it out of the trash. Gross, I know.) Because they’re clear, sometimes they get lost in the shuffle when you take them out and don’t put them in the handy trays they give you to keep them in.
- Having to wear two retainers at night for the rest of my life. One top and one bottom one. But I mean, on the flip side, at least it’s only at night and no one sees me wearing them except for my fam! And in my opinion this is totally worth it for the results I got.
Of course the big elephant in the room can be COST. It’s definitely not cheap. On average the entire treatment can be anywhere between $3,500 and $5,000+. But it all depends on your level of correctness needed I believe. I know Dr. Gray gives people who are interested in potentially getting Invisalign a free quote and evaluation so you know what is ahead in terms of cost and how long the treatment could take.
Overall thoughts.
If I had known how easy this process would be, I probably would have looked into it a long time ago. Not only did it fix my overlapping teeth, but once they straightened out, my normally narrow smile appeared much wider!
And of course even though I felt this Invisalign treatment flew by, I was really excited when it was done and I could just smile and eat whenever I wanted to!!
I’m sure you can see the difference between my before and afters and the color of my tooth surface. I ended up getting professional whitening trays made at the orthodontist with whitening gel that I use about once a week. I think keeping your teeth whiter (no matter what their shape!) is a more youthful look than dark yellow teeth for sure.**
If there were questions I didn’t answer in the video or this post feel free to ask away in the comments below, I’m happy to answer them of course!
If you want to go back and read my previous update posts on Invisalign you can read all 5 of them HERE.
A big heartfelt thanks to Dr. Mark Gray and his staff for all of their help in making this experience so enjoyable and the outcome just what I was hoping for.
Gray Orthodontics has two locations in Georgia, in Monroe & Snellville.
