Hello everyone from Ruth in Essex

[ruthy1957]

Hello to you all, I have just completed 7 months of my Invisalign experience. I have a total treatment time of one year for my top teeth and two years for the bottom ones. I am going through this in later life aged 50, as I have been so desperately unhappy with my awful crooked and overcrowded teeth for far too long. It is very expensive, but I am more than happy to give up ALL luxuries and non essentials to pay for it.
I am not going to pretend that it has been easy to go through, because it is not. My orthodontist told me that I have had the worst time out of all his patients. He did not know if I would be able to continue as I had a nightmare start with all the stress and pain of it. I know it will all be worth it in the end, and I am seeing fantastic results already. I had to have two upper and two lower teeth removed to make room for the straightening process.
My ongoing problems are having a permanent lisp, which has not stopped as normally expected. Is there anything I can do to help stop this, as it makes me so self conscious? I don't have a large tongue, or anything else I can think of to cause it. My orthodontist said that all his other patients only lisped for a short time, until they get used to wearing their Invisalign
braces.

Regards from Ruth

[Popadoopus]

Dear Ruth Welcome to the site and thankyou for sharing your story with us, we are interested in creating a online community to help people like yourself and also for other people to learn from your experiences. If you have the time we would appreciate it if you would like to start a online diary in the "Your dental Journey forum" where you can have a record of your account of events from the early days of making the decision to go ahead with such treatment late on in life to what it was like to get your first set of aligners - how it has affected your every day life and the changes that you have noticed. You could write a post for each step of the journery and document your thoughts. We have some invisalign doctors on board that can help answer any questions you have.

Welcome on board

[Dr Pav Khaira]

Dear Ruth,

all of my Invisalign patients stop lisping within 2 weeks. Reflecting on comments already made, thanks for sharing your story. I would say that if you lisp has not gone by now it will probably last throughout treatment. It may get better once you are wearing one brace instead of both, remember you are 7 months into a 12 month treatment for you top teeth. Keep the end in mind!

I'm sure you will be happy with the end results

Hope this helps, feel free to contact me if you have any further questions