If you don’t wear your retainers, your teeth can shift. And the longer you go skipping your retainer wear, the likelier you are for a relapse. This time immediately following having your braces removed is the most important to wear your retainer regularly. Your teeth can begin to shift out of their new locations very quickly if you don’t wear your retainer.
What are the Results of Not Wearing Your Retainer?
Ahh, your braces are finally off! You can now reap the benefits of the long months of wearing braces and attending regular orthodontic visits. Finally, the perfect smile you always wanted is yours!
However, while we dislike being the bearers of bad news, your orthodontic treatment is not quite yet over. Yes, you do get to enjoy a beautiful, straight smile, but you still have a little bit of work to do to maintain your hard-won grin.
A retainer is a tool utilized after braces are removed to stabilize the teeth and bite as they adjust to your desired position. Because of their solid long-term memory, teeth have the uncanny tendency to return to their original positions once the brace support is removed. Retainers take the place of braces as temporary support to keep everything in its treated place until the bone and ligaments reform. If you don’t wear your retainer as directed, your teeth and bite will regress to their original states, rendering your previous orthodontic treatment useless. So, let’s examine the consequences of improperly wearing your retainer.
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WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO MY NEWLY STRAIGHTENED TEETH IF I DON’T WEAR MY RETAINER?
You may be asking, What happens if I do not wear my retainer? You may be surprised to know that braces are only half of the tooth-straightening process. The other half of orthodontic treatment occurs while wearing your retainer after you get your braces removed.
To keep your teeth straight, it is critical that you use your retainer as prescribed by your orthodontist. Neglecting to wear your retainer as instructed poses the risk of losing the smile you worked so hard to achieve as it may shift back to its original, crooked position.
#1: YOUR TEETH WILL UNDERGO AN ORTHODONTIC RELAPSE PROCESS
By misplacing your retainer or simply no longer using it as prescribed, you will begin to undergo a relapse process. After only a month or so of misusing a retainer, a patient’s mouth will begin to return to its original state. Whatever orthodontic misalignment was treated before the lengthy orthodontic care will return. For example, if you were treated for an overbite, your jaw may return to its pre-treatment alignment with your teeth pushing forward.
Once the relapse process has begun, a retainer will most likely fail to fit properly. An improperly fitting retainer may cause pain as it sits oddly on your teeth, pulling them in different directions. Eventually, your retainer will not be able to fit around your teeth anymore. Once this occurs, you will have to return to your orthodontist to get fitted for a new retainer.
WILL MY TEETH SHIFT AFTER NOT WEARING MY RETAINER FOR A WEEK?
Unfortunately, your teeth will begin shifting back to their initial place right after the removal of your brace treatment. While the speed and severity of the shift differ for everyone, even the slightest shift can impact the fit of your retainer. As such, you must wear retainers at night during the first week after removing your braces to prevent the teeth from immediately relapsing.
I HAVEN’T WORN MY RETAINER CONSISTENTLY FOR A MONTH: WHAT TO DO?
After a month of not wearing your retainer, you will probably notice a change in your bite and experience movement in your teeth toward their original state. Your best option is to schedule another appointment with your orthodontist to get fitted for a new retainer. You might also need to wear your new retainer throughout the day and at night to make up for the regression in your orthodontic treatment.
#2: YOUR BITE WILL ALSO CHANGE
While the job of braces and aligners is to adjust your teeth, wearing your retainer is an essential step to holding oral adjustments. If you fail to use your retainers as directed, the entire work performed by the braces and aligners may fall apart.
After the removal of your braces, the soft tissue and bone in your mouth need adequate time to adapt to their new alignment. Retainers help to slowly stabilize the new oral arrangement, preventing them from shifting out of their newly established positions. Without the integral stabilization of a retainer, your bite will regress, and any previous overbites or underbites will remerge.
#3: YOU MIGHT HAVE TO REPEAT YOUR ORTHODONTIC TREATMENT ALTOGETHER!
You must wear retainers consistently if you wish to maintain your perfectly straight teeth after braces. Neglecting your retainer for a month or so might require you to repeat your orthodontic treatment altogether! Once your teeth shift, it is too late to return to your beautiful smile without visiting an orthodontist and reapplying braces. This is certainly a worst-case scenario that you should try your best to avoid. While wearing your retainers may be a difficult habit to establish at first, it is definitely worth it in the long run!
How Quickly Will My Teeth Shift if I Don’t Wear My Retainer?
Dr. Sam Polan Mar 29, 2023 Retainer 1407 0 Comments
Tuckahoe, NY – Every orthodontic patient looks forward to the day their braces or aligner treatment comes to an end. It’s an exciting day, and one to be celebrated for sure. But, that day doesn’t put an end to your orthodontic treatment.
Maintaining Your Smile: The Role of Retainers
“While braces removal days are always a time to celebrate, we also want our patients to know that their work isn’t finished yet,” says Dr. Sam Polan of Tuckahoe Family Orthodontics. “To keep their smiles straight, it’s important to wear your retainers as directed.”
Immediate Post-Treatment Phase
If you don’t wear your retainers, your teeth can shift. And the longer you go skipping your retainer wear, the likelier you are for a relapse. This time immediately following having your braces removed is the most important to wear your retainer regularly. Your teeth can begin to shift out of their new locations very quickly if you don’t wear your retainer.
Your mouth needs time to adjust to your teeth’s new locations. Your braces guided the teeth through the jaw bone, after all. The bone that holds your teeth in place will need time to remodel and rebuild around the new locations. The periodontal ligament will also need to settle into place. It’s elastic, and without your retainer to hold everything, the ligament will have a tendency to pull everything back to where it was.
Recognizing Early Signs of Shifting
Everyone’s teeth are different and some people will experience shifting faster than others. For most people, after a few days or a week of forgetting to wear your retainer, you may start to notice that your teeth have already begun to shift. But it’s not too late – as soon as you remember, put your retainer in so it can go back to work. It will feel tight but will usually still do it’s job if you get back into a good routine of wearing it consistently again.
A Month Without Retainers
After a month of not wearing your retainer, more shifting is likely to occur and your bite may have changed, and you may notice your old smile creeping back. You’ll need to schedule an appointment with your orthodontist to be fitted for a new retainer. Your orthodontist may recommend around the clock retainer wear to get your smile back on track, or in some cases you may even need braces or clear aligners like Invisalign again.
Few Months to Years Without Retainers
After several months or a year of not wearing your retainer, your smile may very well have relapsed completely. If this happens, you may need to revisit braces or Invisalign treatment again to correct your smile.
It’s important to remember that some people will experience relapse much faster than others, so it is recommended to take a better safe than sorry approach with your retainers, which means always being consistent with them and wearing them as prescribed.
The Key to Success: Consistency and Compliance
“Preventing relapse is easy if you wear your retainer as instructed by your orthodontist,” says Dr. Polan. “We know you are excited about your new smile, but we want to ensure that smile lasts. We’ll give you specific instructions for your retainer wear that is unique to your smile. While many of our patients enjoy similar retainer-wearing schedules, every treatment plan is individualized. Some patients have a higher chance of relapse, so their retainer wear may be more involved than others.”
Seeking Assistance and Advice
IF you ever have questions about your retainer wear, or your retainer is lost, damaged, or no longer fits properly, call Tuckahoe Family Orthodontics right away.
