Once your teeth have settled into place more permanently, you may find that you can go a few days without wearing your retainers and they will still fit. It is a good idea to wear them at least 3 times a week while you sleep to keep them fitting properly.
Generally, a few days or even a week will not allow for severe teeth shifting. Most people will be able to get their retainer in easily and resume their retention period uninterrupted. After a month of not wearing a retainer, teeth may have shifted significantly.
Rule of thumb is: you have to wear your retainers for as long as you want them to be straight. Your teeth begin to shift if you don't wear retainers at night every day. If you go a week without wearing retainers, you may notice a small amount of relapse, small spaces, or rotations.
Can I go 3 days without my retainer? Retainers are designed to keep your teeth in place, so going without wearing it for a long period of time may cause some issues. It's fine to miss a day or two, but if you go without it much longer than that, your teeth will start to shift.
The longer you go without wearing your retainer, the more likely it is that your bone tissue has grown to support the new position of your teeth. Your smile is no longer as straight as it was after your braces, and your bite is likely also off.
Here's the short answer: As long as you want your teeth to remain straight, you should be wearing your retainers. It is recommended you wear your retainer at least 12 hours out of every day for the first eight weeks following the completion of your treatment.
Numerous people think that adult teeth won't change or move over their lifetime because they're permanent. This is false: adult teeth do and can shift over time, whether or not you had braces as a teenager or child. So yes, teeth move overnight, though the change might be imperceptible at first.
During this time, a week without your retainer may cause some minor shifting. Your retainer may feel a bit tighter on your teeth when you place it back in again. Throughout the rest of your retention phase, it's still possible for your teeth to shift a bit if you go without wearing your retainer for a week.
The First 2 Years: After your initial time of full-time wear, you will be able to start wearing your retainers during sleep only. From the Third Year to the Rest of Your Life: Now, you can wear your retainers a little bit less. Skipping an occasional night or two is no big deal.
While everyone's orthodontist may recommend something different, typically, it is recommended that you wear your retainer every night for the first year. After that, you can switch to 3-5 times a week.
The results of the first studies, based on the movement of 30 teeth in 15 subjects over 84 days, have been summarized in a recent publication. 1 These results showed that the overall mean velocity of tooth movement was 3.8 mm/day, or about 1.1 mm/month.
If this only happened once, don't panic. Missing one night with a retainer is unlikely to cause significant teeth movement. However, if it has happened often, give our Sparta or Livingston, NJ office a call to make sure your teeth haven't shifted position.
Forgetting to wear your retainer for a day or two isn't the end of the world. That's not enough time to cause any major tooth movements. You may experience some slight pain when you put your retainer back in, but nothing more serious than the discomfort you experienced after getting your wires tightened.
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.
The consequences of a patient not wearing their retainer(s) tend to compound over time: A Week: Minor relapses (teeth shifting) may occur, and small spaces and slight rotations might reappear.
Ideally, retainers start showing results within 3-4 months, and you can see a slight difference in your smile.
The first three months after you've completed your orthodontic treatment you need to wear your retainers full-time, which means approximately 22 hours a day. That does mean you will need to sleep with them. However, you can remove them when you eat or brush your teeth.
If you neglect to wear your retainer, your teeth may move back into their original position. This is what may happen if you do not wear your retainer after treatment with braces. Your teeth will begin to move back into their initial place as soon as your braces are removed.
It doesn't matter if you've had work done five weeks ago or 10 years ago, your teeth will shift back and they can begin shifting back within as little as three days depending on your genetics and how severe the work of your teeth straightening was.
Your teeth can shift over time, especially while you sleep. Your teeth move around slightly at night. Sometimes it is due to the muscles of your jaw and mouth simply relaxing, and other times it can be due to the pressure of teeth trying to come in, like your wisdom teeth.
Although teeth are strong, as gum tissue, ligaments and bone start to weaken, teeth can shift more easily. Bottom teeth tend to shift earlier than your top teeth do. As your lower teeth shift, they hit your upper front teeth when you're chewing, which can wear away enamel and cause top teeth to push forward.
It's essential to continue wearing your retainer as instructed by your orthodontist If you do not wear your retainer as directed by your orthodontist, your teeth may revert to their original position, thus losing the teeth straightening progress you made during your orthodontic treatment.
Yes, your orthodontist will be able to tell from the alignment of your teeth if you aren't wearing your retainer at night time. Your orthodontist will not force you to wear your retainer if you really don't want to, but they will encourage you to consider this for the success of your treatment.
The optimal possible result for missing time in retainers is that nothing changes and there's no visible effect. Ideally, once you find the missing retainers, putting them on would be smooth and easy, with you placing them over your teeth and them snapping back into position perfectly.