Having to wear a retainer after your braces may feel like a punishment, but it is an important part of maintaining your new smile. In fact, you’ve just entered the retention stage of your treatment.. In this week’s article, we are going to explore why enduring a little bit of retainer time is going to give you a lot of benefits.

 

Stabilize Your Teeth and Gums

For at least a year after your primary treatment, your teeth are prone to wiggling right back into their original positions. This is because your braces didn’t just straighten your teeth, they also worked to align your bones and gums. It takes a while to convince soft tissue to stay where you want it to stay. This is a lot of change that occurs in your mouth over a relatively short period of time. As such, your jaw needs time to adjust and stabilize. Wearing your retainer is imperative to keeping your teeth where they need to be during this time.

 

Maintain Stability When Wisdom Teeth Erupt

Many of our patients have their braces removed right around the time that their wisdom teeth decide to crop up. Those pesky little teeth love to shove your molars out of the way with a complete disregard for order. Without proper retainer use, wisdom teeth can wreak havoc in your mouth and ruin months of orthodontic treatment. However, wearing your retainer regularly until the teeth erupt and can be dealt with will ensure the best possible outcome for your smile.

 

Avoid Future Orthodontic Treatment

It doesn’t take long for your teeth to rejig themselves if unsupervised.  As much as we love having you in our office, we understand that you don’t want to undergo orthodontic treatment forever. Retainer use ensures that all the hard work we went through together isn’t lost.

 

Retainers are a tool to help you keep your smile in shape even after the braces come off. If you have any questions regarding retainer use or care, we’d love to hear from you! Contact our office today!