I find myself with a quite a few questions...

...for my orthodontist tomorrow.

Some of these being:

• If I average at 20/21 hours a day rather than 22, will that really hinder my progress?  
• If everything is going well and I find that after a few days my tray becomes loose/a bit too comfortable, could I move to the next tray after 10 days rather than wait two weeks?
• Cleaning:  Any particular issues using Steradent to clean my aligners?  (My orthodontist advised me just to clean with water.  I'm thinking that after a while little villages of bacteria must build up which isn't...ideal...so needed to try something and it seems to be working marvellously!  I'll be trying Retainer Brite soon (should I get the go-ahead) so will post on that next week.) 
• How often should I visit the dentist/hygienist during treatment?
• What happens if one of my attachments break off?  I'm not in a job where I can easily get time off so it might be a while before I can get it fixed.  What kind of an effect would this have on treatment time/movement?  
• Alcohol (I know, I know!):  People need to have a social life and in our society, it usually centres around alcohol...FACT!!  Anyhoo, I like a few beers on a night out every once in a while - maybe once every one to two weeks.  If, on a night out, I make sure I clean my teeth and the aligner say every hour, is this really going to be a problem?  (I asked my ortho about alcohol before and he advised against it as it's not good for the aligners but I'm going to ask again and get a greater explanation!) 

Those are just a few..!  There are some debates on various forums re: the right/wrong answers to some of these questions.  Tending to be a logical thinker (good with matters of the head but useless with those of the heart as they say!), I tend to have my own occasionally stubborn (!) opinions on things, but I do believe that when it comes to expert advice, it's probably best to at least try to go with it. Having said that, I doubt I'll be adhering to the only cleaning aligners with water advice unless there's a 'logical' reason to it!   (",)

This time tomorrow I expect I'll be a little uncomfortable with a new aligner combined with attachments, but hopefully a little lighter having had at least some of my questions answered with the answers I want to hear!!  (",)

Watch this space....!