Tray Two

I have now had my Invisalign Trays in for two and a half weeks. I switched over to tray two on Sunday night (May 27th). It was, again, shocking how tight they felt. It caused immense pain in my gum line and jaw; the pain went up and resulted in a headache! But it was ok, I planned for this; I had switched the trays over a few hours before bed, and thought I could just sleep through the pain, as I had heard so many other people had done. Not the case. After an extremely restless sleep, tossing and turning much to the dismay of my boyfriend, I was exhausted for Monday morning. It was hard to lay down because even something as soft as the pillow, causing pressure on my jaw line resulted in discomfort. Lesson learned: Change tray on a Saturday night!! (If I have a restless sleep, I will be ok on a Sunday)
For the first day I had an extremely hard time removing the trays to eat or brush, so it resulted in lots of smoothies and protein shakes (fine by me!) and rinsing with mouthwash. I have found brushing the trays with a soft toothbrush and some toothpaste the best method in keeping them clean, and it’s fairly easy. I usually do this twice a day. (I actually soaked them in mouthwash for about 20 minutes while eating one day, went to put them back in and they had turned green, the colour of the mouthwash! After much scrubbing they did return to clear, but I don’t recommend it!)

At the moment I am very vigilant about keeping everything clean as I am a bit of a stickler with clean, white teeth, but as time goes on I may get a lot more lax due to how time consuming it is! I have seen some changes so far, my teeth seem to be moving back, making room for the front teeth to come down and lineup. Also my back bottom molars were slanted inwards (towards my tongue) and I definitely feel them straightening up. I will post some pictures soon because I feel nothing is noticeable at the moment. I filed the new trays, with a soft emery board, before placing them in my mouth, and hurray! No cuts on lips, no rubbing, they feel great. I have completely gotten used to wearing them, no irritation at all! I read one person’s blog and they said “Get through the first two weeks and your home free”. I couldn’t agree more. The first two weeks are quite awful, but now I talk, sleep, relax completely naturally. The pain when changing the trays is expected, as they are extremely new and tight, but it lasts one night, even by the next morning I was a million times better.