Back at the Dentist
Posted on July 7, 2012 by Ching under Health, Invisalign.
DR. P: You sure did.
Brian’s new crown broke less than 24 hours after they were installed. I’m not sure what happened, but I noticed them while we were eating Marble Slab and walking around the Bradley Fair pond that Sunday. The very next Monday, Brian called the dentist to tell them what happened. Instead of getting an emergency appointment, he figured he would just go the same time that I was scheduled to return for new teeth impressions for my Invisalign (which was yesterday). I’m going to tell you about the Invisalign in a bit, but let me tell you about Brian’s teeth first.
Brian initially thought that they would have to take the crown off and replace it with a new one, which would take a couple of hours. As luck would have it, Dr. P was able to fix the chip by simply reshaping the crown. However, that made the tooth smaller than the one next to it so it didn’t look right. The dentist then than to shape the other tooth to make them even. On the plus side, it didn’t take two hours for them to do all of that work. Brian actually finished before I did. Here’s the end result.
As for me, I originally thought that I was completely done with the Invisalign trays for my top teeth and only had one more month left on my bottom teeth. Unfortunately, I have one stubborn bottom tooth that’s not tracking properly so they had to take new impressions and they’re going to give me new aligning trays. While they’re at it, they’ve decided that they want to tweak one of my top front teeth so it’s even straighter. Meaning, I have to keep my Invisalign braces for a few more months. Instead of being finished with my top braces (which I thought I was several weeks ago), I get new ones of those too. I’m not sure how many more, though.
On the plus side, the dentist had to remove my aligning buttons to get new dental impressions and they won’t put buttons back on until I get the new trays. That’s nice because then the trays aren’t as tight making them easier to put on and take off; and, I won’t have weird buttons on my teeth for a while. The down side is that it may be a while before I’m done with my braces.
Although, from the sounds of it, it doesn’t look like I’ll ever be completely free of these trays. The appointment before the one yesterday, when I thought I was almost done, the dentist said that I would have to wear my retainers every night for the next five years even after I’m done with my braces. This is to keep the teeth from shifting back to where they were. Just as Brian and I don’t ever want to be fat again, I don’t want my teeth to ever be crooked again, so I’m certain that I will be heeding the dentist’s advice and strictly following their instructions.
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