SUMMARY
Just a quick disclaimer before I begin my Invisalign story*: everything I will be talking about further down is my own experience, and, of course, it could look very different from what the other people in the similar circumstances were going through. I also would be trying hard to avoid any graphic details, because I don’t want my audience to feel too much discomfort. So, without further ado, let’s get started.
The actual story began long before 2019: I was about 10, when my Mum noticed for the first time that my teeth started shifting in the wrong direction, and she mentioned it with concern to my Dad and grandparents. Sadly, for obvious reasons, it wasn’t the right moment to do something about that, and the next time the whole thing came up again happened to be in my teens. Like any person of that age, I was living through the normal phase of changing: I was awkward, very shy and with all the standard issues that almost every youngling is going through.
With one, but essential exception: my teeth, just ever so slightly crooked a few years back, now looked visibly uneven. I wasn’t the only one who noticed it: my Babushka, who always was very anxious about my health, decided to take me to the orthodontist in the centre of the city where we lived at the time**. But what I am about to describe, could’ve happened in any city/town/village in the late Soviet era: unfortunately, our dentistry wasn’t exactly the thing that anyone of my age would easily bring up in table talk (yes, it was THAT bad: hashtag “no anaesthesia” etc.).
We arrived to a large dental surgery clinic, and the lady who made my examination and casts from my jaws, told my Babushka: “Well, her teeth do indeed look quite peculiar already, which means that she has developed occlusion abnormality. Hence, we have to extract at least three of her teeth in the upper jawline to form a new bite.” We both, Babushka and I, were stunned.
“But what is she supposed to do while you will be doing all those things? And how long should she wait until you introduce her to braces?” Babushka asked, visibly shaken.
“I don’t know,” the orthodontist shrugged, “a year or two maybe.”
“And all this time she’s supposed to have holes in her smile?!” Babushka asked again, and her voice trembled. “Is there any alternative to this horrible treatment?”
After a short “nope” we run away from that place as quickly as we could.
I was in complete denial, and later accepted the simple fact that I have to deal with my crooked smile until the end and “it is what it is”(sounds like a bad meme, I know). After all, people live with much worse things than that.
I learned how to smile with my lips only: when I felt relaxed and secured, I laughed in the company of my family and close friends, but tried not to in public gatherings or in places when I could be photographed.
Many years passed by, I moved to England, and my first Scottish dentist treated me for many things, saying that I have to think about orthodontic work, because in my case, if left unattended, it could cause lots of trouble in the foreseeable future, right up to losing teeth.
Then he retired, and my new dentist, a gorgeous young lady from Northern Ireland, told me that it’s time to put my teeth in the right places. “But before we start,” she warned me, “we should do a lot of preparatory work with your jaws and gums.” It took another two years for me to be fully prepared for the Invisalign treatment: when my gums were ready, the saga began.
It was June 2019 when the first phase of Invisalign started. It might take 28 weeks, but in complicated cases, like my own, it is usually much longer. Just for you to know, this part of the treatment is the most invasive: all your teeth that need to shift are filed and provided with special “clasps” made from a certain kind of cement: I had 10 of them, but my case was regarded as severe, usually 3–5 clasps are used. Then, you are introduced to the Invisalign retainers—plastic transparent caps made on a 3D printer, following the 3D model of your upper and lower jaws (god only knows how many times I played with the computer model of my whole treatment to make my teeth even at the end—and not believing that it would be possible one day).
The main issue of that period is that you are supposed to wear Invisalign 22 hours per day, and all your meals are shortened to under 30–40 min. each. You can’t eat and drink anything when you are wearing them, but pure cold water (any warm drink could melt the retainers’ plastic; any coloured drink leaves stains on the retainers).
It was brutal at first: your teeth are filed, with cemented clasps, covered with plastic almost all day. You audibly lisp and feel uncomfortable, but all these sensations will be gone within the first week or ten days. Then, you will forget about the retainers and fully embrace your new meal plan: yes, many people out there call it the “Invisalign diet” because it does indeed feel like one.
Phase two: your visits to your dentist become less frequent: 10 days-two weeks-three weeks instead of every week. Filing also doesn’t happen every visit anymore. You know your drill, have got used to your full Invisalign routine (dental floss, electric toothbrush with special toothpaste for your teeth and your retainers, mouth wash: I had no idea how many litres of mouthwash I used during those 16 months; a lot), you always have your box for retainers in your purse when go out. You are fine. You start seeing changes, but they are not that obvious yet. Until the moment when during one of your brief (and VERY enjoyable) dinner intermissions you bite a slice of cheese and spot even teethmarks on the rest.
And that’s how Phase 3 started: your visits to your dentist are getting even more seldom, she removes all the clasps from your teeth, and gives you several syringes with whitening essence, which you use every night on your retainers.
And then, one sunny morning, you visit her, and she says to you that you can take off your retainers and wear them overnight only. It’s all over. And you look at yourself in a mirror and see that you can smile without thinking that you are a weirdo (I mean, of course, you are, but not in this sense anymore).
And you check your teeth every minute, assuming that of course they are shifting back, but they aren’t. And you can’t smile properly for your photographs yet: you look a little bit tense and awkward. But now, you will learn. I will learn. Because it was worth it.
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*I am doing it because some of my friends asked a few questions about the whole thing, which I decided to answer in one place.
** It was Zaporozhye, a big industrial city on the east of Ukraine.
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