My mouth has always been too small for the size of my teeth. This has
led to crowding and made cleaning difficult if not impossible in certain
places. This overlapping of lower teeth contributed to a huge cavity
below the gum line in tooth #26, the tooth on the bottom right. That
tooth couldn't be saved so it became decision time. The choices were
to extract the tooth and do nothing, get an implant, do Invisalign.
Getting an implant would not improve the crowding situation and the
same problem could happen on another tooth. Doing nothing would result
in things moving around and an ugly smile. Doing Invisalign would
solve the crowding problem and make for a healthier situation. So, I
decided to do Invisalign. I hate spending the money, but something
had to be done. An implant would have been close to the same amount
of money. The dentist made a short video of how my teeth would move over time. There are a total of 26 sets of aligners. They are changed every 2 weeks. The video had 202 frames. I used Kdenlive video editor to go in and extract the frames corresponding to the time each aligner change would occur. I'm assuming that time is linear in the video. I've named each frame with the aligner number and the date when it should occur. At my last appointment (Mar 21st) I got another movie made that shows five different views. I extracted the frames from that one as well. The top view of the lower jaw is very revealing in how much movement will take place. As with most things, there are delays. Below is when I actually switched aligners: 6: 4 April 2014 - Friday 7: 19 April 2014 - Saturday |