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Thursday, July 20, 2006 (last ortho appointment date)
Sorry I haven't taken the time to post. I've been kind of discouraged with my treatment. As far as Tray 3 goes, I continued to use the cotton rolls and one of the stubborn buttons finally went into the hole a few days before I was due to switch trays. The other button never made it in.
I went in for my Tray 4 fitting and once again, the SAME stubborn buttons didn't fit into the holes. This time, the hole for the button that never went in on Tray 3 was even lower on this tray. I thought that they would surely mention contacting the OrthoClear people to address this problem. They didn't. They gave me my next two sets of trays, and told me to change them at the designated three week intervals.
I am actually due to start Tray 5 tomorrow, but to be honest, I am very apprehensive about continuing with new trays while this button issue remains. Neither of the two "stubborn" buttons have made it into the holes this time around, and I just don't want to call the ortho to have them tell me to wear this set another three weeks after they do MORE shaving.
Over the past few weeks, I have contemplated just asking my ortho to discontinue this OrthoClear treatment and start me with traditional ceramic braces. This whole experience has been disappointing from the very beginning. I still feel very self-conscious about how obvious the aligners are - they are far from invisible, due to the buttons on my front teeth - and my lisp has never fully disappeared. They make eating and drinking extremely inconvenient, and because of the ill-fitting buttons, there have been delays in my supposed "six-month treatment." Yes, if I had it to do over again, I would have definitely chosen braces, since they offer the ortho the ultimate control for moving teeth. I have posted pictures of what my trays look like as of today (August 9th) - the last day before I make the switch to Tray 5. If you click on the photo above, you can see a closeup shot - the front buttons aren't in the holes.
If any of you guys have had similar discouraging experiences, please let me know. We'll all get through this together. Thanks!
posted by Southerngal08 at 4:59 PM
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2 Comments:
I understand part of what you're going through. I have Orthoclear on my top teeth and conventional braces on my bottom teeth. I tried Orthoclear because I thought it would be less visible. But I, too, have buttons on my front teeth so it's pretty obvious that something's going on. Trays 1 - 5 kept breaking around the buttons so my ortho shaved off the buttons from my two front teeth, but did not fix the subsequent trays, so I have windows but no buttons. It's even more obvious! But I have never had a problem with the buttons not fitting. One of yours looks way off. I'm very surprised they have not shaved it off and replaced it. I have noticed considerable change in my bottom teeth, which have conventional braces, but not much movement with Orthoclear. But it's too expensive now to change. I hope things get better for you soon!
As we discussed a weeks ago, I too had a problem with the holes not fitting over my top teeth buttons...but my next set of trays was fine and we wrote it off to badly drilled holes.
My advice is to get pushy with your dentist. You've paid for these things, and it's your dentist's responsibility to make the procedure work for you. I would demand that he/she contacts Orthoclear with your complaints. They may need to do a refitting or something. After all, that's supposed to be one of the advantages of Orthoclear over Invisalign...that adjustments can be made along the way.
Get Tough! :)
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