What Happens to your Teeth if you forget to wear your retainer for a week or month or years!

Orthodontic tooth movement is first and foremost a biological process. Any type of pressure can move teeth. This is why thumb sucking, finger nail chewing, gum disease and tongue swallowing patterns can move teeth and jaws into undesirable positions.

Fortunately orthodontic treatment can straighten your teeth! Your orthodontist can move your teeth gently by exerting light force on the tooth which travels to the correct portion of your tooths root and ligament thus causing bone around your tooth to remodel and overtime straighten your teeth.

As we age our hormones, lifestyle and bone levels are always changing. This is natural and why our eyes, skin, hair and teeth can change and shift. This means that teeth can move throughout life!

Retainers are fit onto patients whom have had orthodontic treatment to maintain their optimum tooth positions. The first three months are critical to wear your retainers as instructed because your bone around your teeth are hardening to the new positions and can move easily without retainers.

Shift happens, if you don’t wear your retainers at night for life. Person to person based in biology speed at which teeth shift is different person to person. So after a week it’s possible to have some small amount of relapse, small spaces or rotations are most common. After a month your bite may start to change overbite and overjet tend to increase and rotations worsen. Over years and with age teeth tend to crowd and collapse towards your tongue.

If you misplace your retainer and then find it a week later of a month later or years later and it still fits then you are lucky! If it is tight but still fitting onto the teeth then wearing it more may improve the positions of your teeth relative to the relapse that has occurred. If your retainer does not fit at all or you are unsure then you need to visit your friendly local orthodontist for a new retainer to maintain the current positions of your teeth.

Retainers are much like apparel and need to be replaced. Most people will be able to care for them over a two year period then need new retainers. Make sure your visit your orthodontist if you lose or distort your retainer.

Since shift happens are office Dr Susan Podray at Serenity Orthodontics in Cumming GA offers our patients a smile guarantee and a lifetime retainer program. Please contact our office for program details.