#18 + Refinements

I'll start off by saying, #18, yeah, it wouldn't even go into my mouth. Therefore, I'm in #17's until my refinements come in (in about 3-4 weeks). I saw Dr. V today, did a couple impressions and pictures and a little gossiping about the "new" me. She was highly impressed with my teeth, particularly my minimized overjet. She predicts only about 4 refinements and removed 2 attachments from my fangs. Score! She said I could start whitening all of my front teeth now but we wont really "formally" do it until the end of treatment. I don't care either way. I only want straight teeth!

I'm almost done!!!!!!!

#17

Ahh, number 17. Should be painless, right? Shouldn't be too much of a difference between the last few, right? By outward appearance, sure, that's what it would seem... but NO. I could barely get the things in. I was looking forward to switching to these since I started grinding my teeth like crazy again as I do the longer I have on a set of aligners. Weeeellllll, at first the bottoms wouldn't snap on the left side (my left) and the top were SO tight I thought I wouldn't be able to get them on either. After some manipulating, I did get both aligners on and could feel the pain and pressure as if I was back on set #1. Fabulous!

Today, they have hurt taking them out and replacing, and I've even had bleeding! What the...?? I resorted to eating tortilla soup and queso all day. Darn the luck! Moral of the story: Just because you're toward the end of treatment and the aligners don't appear to be any different from the last, doesn't mean they'll be easy. You know what they say about assuming things!

Thursday, I will go in to have new impressions made for refinements and that "C Chain" she was talking about, I assume. *ahem* The following Monday I will switch to #18 of 18. I'd imagine I will have several refinements. As you'll see in the following photos, an upper tooth is still slanted while the same tooth on the opposite side is straight. I didn't take any more photos of the bottom but I can assure you, they're not Hollywood perfect. None overlap anymore, but they are still uneven and crooked... but perhaps the most wonderful thing of all, there's already a great improvement in my overjet! It's getting better all the time! I used to be able to fit my thumb behind my front teeth - no can do anymore!!

Second tooth from the left is straight:

second tooth from the right is slanted: