Retainers Are For Life

So you’ve spent a good amount of money and time to get your teeth straightened.  Now What?   Orthodontists don’t seem to express the importance of life after braces.   In most cases removable retainers are given to the client and told to wear 24/7 until the next appointment.   What the orthodontist fails convey is how important it is to actually wear them at all times.

When people get their braces off, the last thing they want to do is wear retainers.   They would like to show off their teeth and enjoy those new pearly whites.   Well all too many times a relapse occurs and the patient is left with their teeth moving back into position they were pre-braces.  While this is more common than one may think, it is often not spoken about.

Retainers are actually part of the orthodontic treatment.  The first several months are the most crucial to wear your retainers 24/7 and then at the orthodontists discretion you may begin to wear them at nights only and such.

Wearing retainers at night while you are sleeping is cake.   Just put them in before you go to sleep and out when you wake up.  Not hard right?   Well after year or so you may be told you can slack and go to just wearing them at night a couple times a week.   We believe since it is so easy, why not just wear them each night?

If you are active in the Braces Forum, you will see many people have had braces on twice or a third time.   In most cases it is from not wearing retainers at all or a case in which a person has the braces on as a teen and their teeth shifted as an adult.   Teeth are always shifting so the latter is easily explainable.  

It does seem that patients with quite a bit of movement in which an underbite or overbite was corrected; major spacing or crowding, etc. are a bit more likely to have a relapse when not wearing retainers.  This is why we would like to promote the retainers for life plan!   We don’t actually mean for your entire life, but at least several years and years after you’re debanded.

Our point is that wearing retainers are easy so why not keep up on them.   And orthodontists need to drill the importance of wearing them post braces to all patients, especially teens.