Retention

Once it is determined that your braces will be coming off, the next step is to wear a retainer to assure your teeth don't move. The most common type of retainers are Hawley retainers. The retainer’s purpose is to keep teeth in place as they were the day the braces were taken off. By taking molds of your teeth that retainers are custom fit to your teeth.

Orthodontic retainers are often used before or after braces in order to hold teeth in a certain position while allowing surrounding gums and bone to adjust. Often a patient will be required to wear the retainer at all times except when eating for a period determined by Dr. Weiss and then after this period it may only be necessary to wear it at night.

The Hawley retainer, which is made of a metal wire that surrounds the teeth and keeps them in place. It is anchored in a specially-molded, brightly colored acrylic form that sits in the palate or floor of the mouth. Top and bottom retainers are made as necessary.

These removable retainers come with a retainer case to protect them. During the first few days of retainer use, many people will have extra saliva in their mouth. This is natural and is due to the presence of a new object inside the mouth and consequent stimulation of the saliva glands. It may be difficult to speak for a while after getting a retainer, but this speech difficulty should go away over time as one gets used to wearing it.

An entirely different category of orthodontic retainers, by definition not removable, are fixed retainers. A fixed retainer typically consists of a passive wire bonded to the tongue-side of the lower incisors. Sometimes it is necessary to prescribe fixed retainers, especially where active orthodontic treatment effected great changes in the bite and there is a high risk for reversal of these changes.