The first 6 weeks

Trays 1-3 were honestly pretty unremarkable.  It was fairly easy to get used to them.  Since I've been sleeping with a night guard for 8 years I'm used to the whole plastic in the mouth deal.  Plus I was pretty decent at talking in my night guard so adjusting to the Invisalign wasn't too tough.  Coworkers didn't notice or really say anything.  Most had forgotten I even got them and offered me coffee and treats.  My favorite comment from the significant was "hey you're not lisping nearly as bad as I imagined!"  Thanks.  I'll keep that in mind later punk. 

The hardest thing to get used to was the whole teeth brushing program.  Invisalign has to come out for everything except drinking water.  If you take it out to eat or drink non-water, you have to brush and floss before putting it back.  If you don't the sugar/food will be trapped in your teeth until the next time you take off the trays, hello cavity city.  I really had to use a mirror every time I wanted to take them out for probably the first 3 weeks.  Negotiating around my canine attachments is pretty tough.  The office wasn't too bad the bathroom is fairly close to my desk and people eventually stopped looking at me funny with my electric toothbrush in the office bathroom.  My first lunch outing was with my bestie and honorary sister since junior high.  No one better to have a long Invisalign lunch with.  I was chewing much more slowly because my back teeth stopped touching!  I couldn't quite chew the seaweed in the sushi we ate.  She went through braces in high school, nothing needed to be said.  The bathroom at the sushi restaurant only had one sink and it was super awkward when someone else came in. Pro Tip: Nordstrom Bathroom.  Now if I go out to eat and I'm going straight home, I swish really vigorously with water and put my trays back in and brush at home.

Eating has had a few issues, but no surprises really.  The biggest surprise was my back molars not touching which makes soft vegetables and leafy vegetables hard to eat because they're thinner than the space between my molars to chomp on.  I had a Kind bar from the cafeteria and had sore teeth for the rest of the day after doing that.  The almonds were just too dang hard! I'll probably avoid hard nuts like almonds unless I'm close to the end of the 2 weeks in a tray.  My teeth feel more stable and less likely to get sore in the 2nd week of a tray and things like steak and sesame snaps haven't been a problem. 

I've been experimenting with lots of cleaners for the trays.  Sonicare and toothpaste for most of tray 1.  I didn't get any stinky smells like a lot of people mention, but there were quite a few white spots on the trays.  Tray 2 I tried OAP Cleaner, it was nice, but if it wasn't rinsed off all the way I started getting a canker sore on my tonsil.  I immediately realized it must have sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) in it.  It foams up nicely and kept my tray from turning white in spots so I would keep going with it if it wasn't for the SLS.  At this point I ordered a $40 ultra sonic denture cleaner machine on Amazon.  I used one cycle of that to rinse off the OAP and it seemed to be ok.  By Tray 3 I found something called Kleenite at my local drugstore, it's a powder that you put in water and soak the trays for a little while.  It didn't turn the trays colors or anything but also had SLS so I put it in the ultrasonic too.  I also ordered DentaSoak so that I can sanitize while I'm eating a meal and ultrasonic them while I'm brushing.  I'll probably keep doing some combo of Kleenite and DentaSoak.  Kleenite would be easier for travel, no chance of spilling.

The only snafu I had during tray 1 was the fact that I knocked of two attachments!!  One of them I think came off when I popped a tray on after lunch on the first day I wore them at work.  I felt something in the back of my mouth like I hadn't brushed out a food bit and swipd it out with my finger and wiped it on a napkin.  I didn't think to look to check that it wasn't food.  It was probably my attachment.  Because my dentist is closed Friday's and I didn't notice until 8pm Thursday I was stuck until Monday.  It was fine and they got me in that afternoon.  Until the next Monday, I was getting cocky on day 12 of my first tray thinking I could get it off one handed.  I snapped off half of one of my largest attachments on my canine.  Called the dentist ASAP and they got me in Tuesday afternoon.  Since then I've been pretty careful as I remove them around all my attachments.  I think I've got a system down now and I can almost do it without looking in a mirror or reflection, but I do need to look when it's a fresh tray and it's really snug.

Overall, it hasn't been too bad.  Planning the brushing after eating has been kind of annoying.  I went to Ikea and wanted to have meatballs but when I walked in the women's room to take out my trays it was just too gross and smelly to even want to consider having to brush there after eating.  The store was just too busy.  The other thing I miss is sipping my coffee all morning from my thermal mug and sipping beers on weekend evenings watching movies.  I really like sampling micro brews.  Though I joked with the dentist about drinking a beer through a straw and she said why not! Just rinse good!  So maybe I'll try that out this weekend.