Zero.
Well, it happened. After months and months – actually a couple of years. My countdown has hit zero and I’ve reached the end of my invisalign treatment… Or so I thought.
Right now, I’m at the end of my first round of ‘refinements’ and I’m allowed a few more if I want to make further changes. I’m actually pretty happy with the result. Looking back at how my teeth were at the start of this thing, I can definitely see a real improvement.
Am I finished?
I’m not sure, to be honest. I’m very interested in not having to wear these things in my mouth anymore and the idea of saying “Yes, that’s it. They’re done.” is very appealing. But I’m still not 100% sure that one final tooth has positioned itself perfectly or not. I’ve discussed it with my dentist and he’s pretty confident that it’s as good as it is going to get. He even showed me the arch of my teeth from above with a clever little camera and, if you happen to be inside of my mouth, you’ll agree the alignment is perfect. From the front, on the other hand, it does look just a little bit out of alignment. My dentist thinks it is because the tops of the teeth are now a little zig-zagged because they’ve all been repositioned. Which he will fix when we’re done with aligners by levelling them all off for me.
You know what?! I’m going to call them done. If I stop now, I’ll still have a smile two million percent better than it was and that is a massive improvement. If I go through another load of refinements, I will still be wearing aligners in the New Year and there’s no guarantee that they will actually make any difference whatsoever. I’ll see if I can get a lovely smiley face picture that matches the one from my original starting post, to show you some before and after shots. You’ll be shocked at how far I’ve come. In the meantime here’s a crappy webcam picture to tide you over:
