Invisalign (Day 34)

Since my teeth straightening is a long journey, I decided to catalog the posts better. I changed a date thing in my second post, so its published date updated too. 

From now on, I will include the total day number on the post title and individual aligner day count in the contents. I'm quite confused about my days counting actually because I am supposed to change it at night before I sleep. But I suppose in the grand scheme of journey, +/- 1 day for each aligner will not matter much, as long as my teeth move into the correct position before I change to the next set.

Set 2

The experience of first putting on the second set was not was dramatic as the first set. There was a tight feeling, which did not hurt as much. By the 5th or 6th day, it was hardly noticeable.

But I uncovered how bad my teeth clenching was. My teeth were sore throughout the day. I had to consciously shift my bite to the front teeth. It was a bad decision. There was a night when I had bitten tightly throughout my sleep and my front teeth hurt very badly for the whole of next day.

I visited the orthodontist on day 30. Her advice for teeth clenching was to massage the jaw muscles to release the tension and if possible, open my jaws slightly so I wouldn't feel the urge to clench. On the same visit, she put attachments on 20 out of the 28 teeth that I have, with one tooth having two attachments. The attachments are tiny triangular stones glued to the teeth to grip the aligners tighter. This was part of the programme, so the aligners have the corresponding dents on them as well. I was given sets 3 to 6.

I left the clinic without aligners in the mouth. The orthodontist wanted the first wear to be at least 8 hours. Hence, I will need to have dinner before I could wear my set 3. The attachments scratched my inner lips quite badly and I thought that the abrasion would leave me with ulcers. 

Set 3 (day 4)

Set 3 was much tighter than the first two sets. I was given a handy hook to remove my aligners. After experimenting in the first two days, I concluded that the hook works better on the inner side than the outer side of teeth. The angle just made more sense. 

By day 3, the tightness feeling was almost unnoticeable. Yay to shifted teeth!

And today, I realised that the abrasion from the attachments was healed. I did not have to eat as carefully and painfully as the first two days. Phew~