Retainers are an aspect of orthodontic treatment that patients are always curious about at Humphrey Orthodontics, and for good reason! They often play a bigger role than people initially realize for their long-term smile. Let’s take a look at how long you’ll need to wear a retainer after braces and what makes them work.
About Retainers
Retainers are the ultimate tool for ensuring all of your hard work with braces stays intact for the rest of your life. Here are three primary factors to know about retainers:
- Maintaining Alignment: After your teeth have been straightened, they naturally tend to shift back to their original positions over time. Wearing a retainer prevents this by holding them in place
- Protecting Your Investment: Orthodontic treatment is a substantial investment in terms of time and effort for every patient. Your retainer helps protect your investment by reducing the need for additional adjustments in the future.
- A Custom Fit: Much like traditional braces or clear aligners, retainers are custom-fabricated to fit your teeth perfectly, making them both highly functional and comfortable to wear.
Based on your needs, Dr. Humphrey will determine if you will benefit more from a removable retainer or a fixed one (attached to the back of your teeth).
Best Practices with Retainers
There are some right and wrong ways to use your retainer. Our team wants to highlight behaviors that will help make your experience better and more effective. If you have any challenges along the way, please let us know.
- Follow Your Wear Schedule: Your wear schedule with your retainer can vary from the beginning of the retention phase to a few years into it. We’ll explain this in further detail in the next section—but it’s important to stick closely to the schedule you’ve been given.
- Handle with Care: Retainers can be damaged pretty easily since they’re so delicate. Damage and loss are two of the biggest hurdles for patients. So, handle your retainer carefully and make sure to keep up with it when it’s not in use. A retainer case is helpful for this purpose.
- Avoid Eating or Drinking with Your Retainer: You should always remove your retainer when you’re eating or drinking anything other than water. Like braces, a retainer is susceptible to capturing food particles. You can also run into issues with bacteria from sugar being trapped against your teeth if you consume it with your retainer in.
- Clean Your Retainer Each Day: Like any removable oral appliance, retainers can attract bacteria if you don’t clean them carefully on a routine basis. Always rinse your retainer with lukewarm water after each use and gently brush it with a soft, non-abrasive toothbrush. Soaking it in a specialized cleaning solution every now and then can help you ensure it stays hygienic.
- Regular Check-Ups: Your routine appointments with us after the conclusion of active treatment are very important to your long-term orthodontic health. We can ensure your results are staying in place and address any fit issues with your retainer. Be sure not to skip these visits.
- Age Considerations: If you’re a parent of a child or teenager who struggles with compliance, please partner with our team to help give you additional guidance on the proper usage of retainers.
Wear time Guidelines
As we said, every patient is different. Your specific orthodontic condition and treatment plan will be considered to determine how often you’ll wear a retainer. However, these are some timeframes we commonly prescribe for patients:
- Full-Time Use (Six Months to One Year): Full-time wear can span several months to a year after your braces are removed. This is an excellent initial measure for stabilizing your treatment results.
- Nighttime Use: Generally, there will be a transition to strictly nighttime wear for most of our patients after the full-time stage. Nighttime wear is especially important for adolescents whose teeth are still stabilizing into adulthood. We might recommend you wear your retainer a few nights a week if not every single night.
- Permanent for Some: For many people, retainer use will continue indefinitely in some capacity. Certain patients are genetically predisposed to be at a higher risk for their teeth shifting back into place.
Retaining Remarkable Results
We hope this has provided you with some insight into how retainers factor into your treatment plan. The important thing to remember is that retainers aren’t optional if you want to keep your lovely new smile the same. Our team wants to encourage you that even if there’s a learning curve for you with retainer usage, practice makes perfect! Please reach out to our Wentzville or St. Peters offices with any further questions.