Crooked Teeth – See an Orthodontist

When I was a teenager I had braces (upper teeth only) yet my dentist told me that he “spaced out my teeth” so that I could one day get veneers in order to not have gapped teeth. My bottom teeth, still a bit crooked, weren’t worked on at all. And given I wasn’t satisfied with my upper teeth’s result, and I was just lazy like many teens, I failed to wear my retainer.

It turns out I’m a classic case for Invisalign. Most of their patients are adults who “forgot” to wear their retainers and have messed up teeth as a result, but not quite as messed up as they were before they had braces to begin with.

My dentist tried to give me a sales pitch on Invisalign and as soon as she got to the price tag ($6000, not covered by insurance) I wasn’t that interested. Plus, aren’t orthodontists supposed to do this sort of thing? Even though my dentist assured me that she was well qualified to move my teeth around, I wanted at least a second opinion.

I found a really good online deal (but not one that was scarily low cost like some of the ones I had seen in the $2500-$3000 range) at an actual orthodontist office nearby. So I went in for a consultation and they told me that treatment would be about 18 months give or take. Even though the office wasn’t 100% to my tastes (it is literally an open room with lots of dentist chairs which were at the time filled with squirming pre-teens) and the orthodontist seemed a bit rushed, I just had this gut decision to go for it. Aftertall, both dentist and orthodontist told me I have this god awful overbite which needs to be fixed for my own dental health. THIS IS A HEALTH ISSUE PEOPLE (I’m not superficial-at-all-whatsoever-and-I-am-also-a-big-fat-liar.)

So I signed the paperwork then and there and was brought into another room to have my face scanned. That part was easy. The good part about going to a fancy platinum provider ortho who basically is a direct rep of Invisalign (with their offices not to far away) is that they have all the fancy technology to make the process simpler. That meant instead of having to sit with goopey molds in my mouth I just got the quick scan and within minutes I was done.

After leaving the office (Los Altos Orthodontics) I had a moment of panic — WHAT HAVE I DONEEEEE — but then I relaxed and told myself that other than completely destroying my mouth and wasting thousands of dollars it can’t be that bad, right? And if all works out I could have straight teeth in time for my wedding. So long gaps.

It takes a few weeks for your first “trays” to come back when the scans are taken. Mine showed up in 3-4 weeks. I’ll write about my first appointment in my next post. Oooh, the suspense. more information on this website