Retainer after braces: how to keep your result

At the end of your treatment your teeth are in their new position, but their surroundings have not caught up. The bone and the fibres around your tooth roots have shaped themselves to the old position for years. They need a longer period to adapt to the new one. Until then everything still pulls back at your teeth a little, and a retainer holds the position while your teeth settle.

It does not move anything. It holds.

That is the whole job, and exactly why it is so easy to underestimate.

Then it slowly shifts back. Not within a week. And usually not in a way you notice, because it happens over months and years.

That is exactly how the story arises that many adults know. Braces as a teenager, the retainer lost somewhere along the way, and years later the front teeth are crooked again. What happens there and how big a second round is you can read in you already had braces and it is crooked again. It is not a punishment and not a sign that something went wrong. That is simply how teeth work.

Broadly speaking three variants.

• A thin wire on the back of your front teeth that stays fixed in place. You do not see it and you do not have to think about it.
• A removable, clear retainer that resembles an aligner and that you wear at night. That is what most people call a night retainer.
• A combination, for instance a fixed wire below and a removable retainer above.

What suits you depends on what has been moved and how your teeth stood before you started. Your practitioner discusses that with you, preferably already during the treatment and not at the last appointment.

Longer than most people expect.

Retention is not a few weeks of settling. You wear a removable retainer most in the beginning, and after that it usually moves to the nights. That shift is not a countdown to the end. Those nights are precisely what keeps your result in place, so you do not simply stop once it feels right. In any case reckon on a longer period, because your teeth need that time to settle. A fixed wire simply stays in place and does its work without you having to do anything for it, apart from brushing carefully around it. What is needed in your case and for how long you hear from your own practitioner, and that depends on your starting situation and on what has been moved.

A removable retainer asks little. Not nothing.

• Rinse it after taking it out and brush it gently. No boiling water, because that can deform it.
• Keep it in its case. A napkin on the table is the fastest way to lose it.
• Put it in and take it out the way you were taught, without wrenching at it.

With a fixed wire you mainly watch for one thing. Does it feel loose or sharp somewhere? Then something may have come away, and at that spot the wire is no longer holding anything.

Do not force it.

If you have to push to get your retainer in, something has already moved, and pushing hard usually makes it worse. In that case contact the practice, and the same goes if your wire comes loose, if your retainer cracks or if you have lost it. The sooner you catch it, the smaller the difference that has to be undone, and waiting until the next check-up often costs you more work than one phone call now.

Retention is one of the points on which providers differ from each other. So before you start a treatment, ask what is and is not included in the price, with us as well:

• Is the retainer included in the treatment, or does it come separately?
• Which variant do you get, and do you have a say in it?
• What happens if your retainer breaks or gets lost later?
• Who checks later on whether your retention is still doing its job?

That way you know beforehand where you stand. More answers to practical questions like these can be found in the frequently asked questions. How a trajectory with clear aligners runs from the first scan through to retention is on the Invisalign page.

Not sure whether your current retention still does what it should? Or have you long since lost your retainer and can you see your teeth shifting? Have it looked at before the difference grows.

You can come and meet us with no strings attached. You will hear how your teeth are doing now and what is needed to hold them in place. Also if you just want to know whether you should be worried.