planet-nifty.co.uk

Well, what a revealing week.

At the suggestion of my dentist, invisalign have produced an alternative treatment simulation. This time we’re considering the possibility of removing one premolar on each side of the lower jaw.

The new simulation (Simulation 2 video) – the end result is basically the same. If you look closely you can see the two premolars vanish about halfway through the simulation, although they will actually be extracted before the first aligner and are shown in the simulation only to illustrate where they were.

If you look at the side view though, you can appreciate the difference; thanks to the space created by extracting the prmeolars, all the lower teeth can move forward rather than back. Moving my wisdom teeth into a functional position.You can compare this to the side view from the first treatment and you’ll see that the wisdom teeth are pushed so far back that they no longer serve any useful function.

Of course this transition is considerably faster, shaving nearly a year off the total treatment time, but I do have to sacrifice two healthy teeth to do it and that’s gonna hurt in more than just an emotional way, I think.

Both treatments require some ’stripping’ of teeth which, as I now understand, is a painless procedure of simply shaving down a little material from the sides of individual teeth to enable them to move closer together. This second plan requires much less of this, although that doesn’t really worry me anymore.

So, which approach do I choose?

I’m leaning more towards this second plan, including the extraction of the two premolars. Even though I am scared about the whole extraction process. “Feel the fear and do it anyway” right?