Confidence In My Smile

My first surgery on my teeth was at age eight. There was all this extra space and an excess of gums. At that time, dentists could put patients under anesthesia in the office so I don’t remember much about it. My second mouth surgery was in 6th grade and the doctor had received a letter just the week from insurance telling him no more in-office operations, which caused complete panic at the idea of being awake while they had another go at making my teeth grow in more normally. That was my first experience with nitrous oxide and my mom still talks about how hilarious I was while high.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work, either. I ended up with years of braces, retainers, bonding and my smile was still messed up. I had a huge gap between my two front teeth, which in retrospect is really unbelievable, given all the pain I went through. I finally got veneers to fix my smile, but I wish I had access to something like Invisalign because I would have been their perfect patient.

You know what is really irritating?

My 12 year old son has the most perfect smile ever and probably will not need any sort of orthodontia, at all. I am so happy for him, because I know first hand how much improving my smile improved my confidence.

People with good teeth don’t get it. I felt so insecure, I covered my mouth when I smiled. Literally. It took me years to get out of the habit.

Now I am pretty sure I am that obnoxious chick –  smiling and laughing a bit too hard in people’s faces, but whatever. It’s was a hard road to get here.

When I was in Costa Rica, I was lucky enough to meet the folks from Invisalign and hear more about their services, past what I just generally knew about them from being someone with past teeth issues. The cool thing: Invisalign is just as effective in treating complex teeth issues as it is with minor, more cosmetic problems. So again, I would have been lined up at their door back in the day. Even cooler: advancements to technology continue to increase the complexity of issues that can be treated — like underbite, crossbite, deepbite, overbite as well as the more typical overly-crowded to widely-spaced teeth. More issues may be corrected using the Invisalign Express option. (Like how my bottom teeth are starting to crowd with age? What is THAT about.)

Check out Invisalign’s Smile Assessment, Doctor Locator and Cost Calculator to see if they can help you build a better smile. I love the idea of discreetly fixing teeth problems, without all those wires, while still being able to live an active life.

And until November 13th, they have a great “Countdown to Confidence” sweepstakes going where you could win $100 instantly just for entering, plus $1,000 cash *and* Invisalign treatment. GOOD LUCK!