After months of adjustments and discomfort, Dr. Michael Chung said it’s time to take off your braces. You now have a beautiful, even smile that functions much better than it used to. Now you need a retainer to make sure your smile doesn’t pull back to where it was before.
After the braces have realigned your teeth, the periodontal ligaments holding your teeth in your mouth will want to pull your teeth back to where they were before. The retainer our orthodontist will make for you will help to counteract that pull. Wearing the retainer until the tension is gone will help you smile stay straight for years to come.
As the retainer helps the ligaments anchoring your teeth relax, it might become necessary to change how long you wear your braces each day and what time of day you wear them. Most patients need to wear their retainers about the same length of time they had their braces for.
For the first few days after you start wearing a retainer, your mouth might salivate more. This is natural and to be expected. After a while, your mouth will adapt and your saliva production will return to normal.
If your braces are about to be removed, and you have questions about retainers, you can call Advanced Center for Orthodontics’s office in Freehold, New Jersey at 732-308-0022 for a consultation.
