As soon as your braces were taken off, your dentist gave you a retainer. Your retainer should be worn over a long period of time, as prescribed by your dental professional. You may not be able to straighten your teeth if you stopped wearing your retainer, lost it, or broke it and didn’t replace it when needed.
Orthodontic treatment is most often needed to correct this problem. It’s estimated that 50% of adults who had braces in childhood did not wear retainers as adults. And it could cause dental issues or dental relapse in some cases.
Most people go through teeth straightening treatments and wear orthodontic appliances for a long period of time. And once it is off they think they can enjoy their beautiful smile as it is. But that is not the case because to make that treatment fully successful you need to wear a retainer.
Retainers help keep your teeth in place once the braces are off. And you can easily fall into the dental relapse phase if you don’t do the same. So, to make sure that you do not face these issues here is some information about why you may need a teeth straightening treatment again.
Reasons you may have to wear braces again
There are different reasons why wearing braces again may become necessary for you:
- Incomplete treatment: The treatment you sought could not be completed. It could be for a variety of reasons. It’s possible that you moved to a new location and couldn’t continue seeing your dentist. Perhaps you were unable to afford the orthodontic treatment. It is also possible that you were a teen at that time and had a low pain threshold. It is likely that you will not get satisfactory results if you choose to stop treatment midway and it can result in dental relapse.
- You aren’t wearing your retainers: You may not have worn your retainers adequately after getting your braces taken off. A retainer is designed to prevent teeth from shifting again, and not wearing one could result in unwanted consequences. Teeth generally shift back into their original positions once braces have been removed. Orthodontists call this process orthodontic relapse. It is for this reason that either fixed or removable retainers are given to us by our dentists.
- Lack of regular dental care: Regularly monitoring your orthodontic treatment is key to achieving that absolutely straight smile and pearly whites. If your teeth or gums change in any way, your treatment could be adversely affected, so it is extremely important that you attend every orthodontist appointment. Failure to keep in touch with your dentist or not monitoring your teeth consistently will lead to relapse. Hence, you should visit your dentist at regular intervals to avoid this.
- Consistent bad habits: This is for sweet tooth sufferers and other people who negatively affect their orthodontic treatment by not following the necessary precautions after the treatment. Eating a lot of chocolate, sticky and hard food, gummies, missing dental checkups, and smoking all these habits may not seem like a big deal, but they do affect the treatment in a negative way. In addition to gum problems causing enamel erosion, irresponsible oral hygiene can even lead to the loss of teeth. Thus, to achieve straighter teeth, avoid these bad habits at all costs.
There can be more reasons apart from these that can cause you to suffer from a dental relapse. And if you don’t want to wear your braces again you must follow all these tips and stay away from habits that can hamper the quality and speed of your teeth straightening treatment.