My BS-I-Don’t-Have-A-Homestead-YET blog is somehow turning into a blog about my janky teeth. Lovely.
In my list AlignerCo update post, from early July 2025, I went over my experience with my first five treatment aligners. This post is going to continue that trend, documenting my experience with trays 6 through 10. Here’s some of my older AlignerCo posts if you want to go back and check any of them out…
My star rating for AlignerCo represents my current feelings on my experience. I may (or may not) go back and update my rating as my treatment progresses.
For anyone keeping track, or just generally interested, here’s my (long) AlignerCo timeline so far…
- January 7th: Purchased AlignerCo’s ‘SmileAdvantage’ plan
- January 13th: Received my impression kit
- January 15th: Completed trial impression, emailed photos to AlignerCo
- January 21st: Completed the rest of my impressions (after receiving confirmation that my trial impressions were acceptable), emailed photos to AlignerCo
- January 23rd: Mailed my original set of impressions back to AlignerCo
- January 25th: AlignerCo confirmed receipt of my impressions
- February 13th: AlignerCo contacted me for photos of my teeth (although I had already uploaded them via the app)
- February 18th: Received and approved my 3D smile projection
- February 21st: AlignerCo notified me that my original impressions were “slightly compromised”, so they were sending me a trial set of aligners to check the fit
- March 20th: Received trail aligners and sent photos wearing them to AlignerCo
- March 22nd: AlignerCo responded back that the trail aligners did not fit properly and I’d have to redo my impressions
- March 30th: I received new impression material
- April 8th: I emailed photos of my new impressions
- April 9th: Received confirmation that my impressions looked ‘workable’, and to send them in
- April 10th: I mailed back my 2nd set of impressions
- April 18th: Received confirmation that they had my new impressions in their lab
- April 23rd: Received an email stating that my aligners were being produced and would ship in around 3 weeks
- May 13th: Received a tracking number for my aligners
- May 16th: My entire set of 15 top and bottom aligners, plus a complimentary teeth whitening kit, and one set of retainers arrived
- May 18th: Started wearing set one of my aligners!
- May 28th: Started aligner set two.
- June 7th: Started aligner set three.
- June 18th: Started aligner set four.
- June 30th: Started aligner set five.
- July 10th: Started aligner set six!
- July 21st: Started aligner set seven.
- July 31st: Started aligner set eight.
- August 11th: Started aligner set nine.
- August 21st: Started aligner set ten.
And without further ado, my (probably so boring) experience with my next 5 sets of aligner trays.
Aligners #6
Oh we’re starting off strong, my lazy butt actually got a picture of my teeth in aligner tray six!
Out of all my trays so far, which has only been a whopping grand total of 6, this tray was probably the hardest one to get on at first. I had to use the chewies quite a bit to seat my top tray, but after the first night they seemed to go on okay.
Aligners #7
I’m not gunna lie, aligners #7 sucked. Out of all my sets so far, I’d say this one hurt the most and for the longest amount of time before they stopped hurting. I’d say my teeth were sore for a good 3 days with this set. By the end of the 10 days, though, I was whipping them in and out like a pro without any pain.
I don’t love how my teeth look after this set. I feel like this one especially created some spacing between my front teeth and left lateral incisor (my left, right in the photos) that wasn’t there before. Fingers crossed that space closes again soon and doesn’t get too much worse before it (hopefully) gets better.
Also I’m aware that there’s been some spacing at the bottom of the trays on my top front teeth. I’m keeping an eye on it.
Aligners #8
Ok so…I swear I had a photo and write up about aligner set 8 and for some reason it didn’t seem to save? And I’m working on this weeks after the fact so, sorry, I don’t specifically remember the details of this set. I wish I could figure out what happened to the photo but alas, it seems to have disappeared into the void. I don’t remember set 8 being anything special, pretty status quo.
Aligners #9
This has to be getting boring, right? Aligner set 9 was fine. A lot of the spacing at the bottom seemed to be eliminated again by this set, although there is still some.
Aligners #10
Sorry, the pic for set 10 sucks. I took it half asleep late at night and…yeah, just didn’t get a super clear photo unfortunately. Again this set was fine. I experience the normal, tolerable, amount of pain the first twoish days.
Progress Update
I have to admit, I don’t know how people who have to be in braces/aligners for a super long time do it because I’m…however many weeks/months in and I’m kind of feeling over this whole experience. I don’t actually mind wearing the aligners day to day but I don’t enjoy switching trays and have found myself putting off switching them on time for stupid reasons. Like if we’re having company, or any fun plans, I’ll put off switching aligners for a few days just to avoid having sore teeth when it’s inconvenient.
The trays are not excruciatingly painful or anything, but each time I switch trays my teeth will be sore for a day or two and it’s annoying.
I do find it hard to believe that I’m already 10 trays into my 15-tray plan, and I honestly find myself a bit worried that my teeth are actually not going to look as good as I’d hoped by the end of all this. It just seems crazy to think that the amount of spacing I still have can be closed up in just 5 more trays. But I guess time will tell, and if I have too, I’ll be asking AlignerCo about refinements after my initial 15 trays. We’ll see.
For anyone keeping score here’s an update of my current before/afters. The first photo in each section is what I started with and the second is where I am now…
Front View…
One Side…
And The Other…
Kindly ignore the little spot of…something…that’s on my front tooth on some of the most recent photos. I didn’t notice it was there until after, when I had already switched into my 11th tray and it was too late to go back and take new pics.
So there’s definitely a noticeable change between my befores/afters but do they look nicer? Maybe? I’m not sure.
Only 1 More Update!?
My next update will, in theory, be my last. Since I was originally given a 15 tray plan, and my next update will cover trays 11 – 15. I’m still not fully convinced, like I said, that I won’t need some type of further treatment after the initial 15 but I’m still hoping that isn’t the case! Either way, I’ll be sure to update again and let you all know.
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