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TOO MANY PEOPLE know what it’s like to accidentally throw a retainer away after lunch. Retainers can be expensive, so losing one is never fun. Fortunately, removable retainers aren’t the only option for keeping your teeth aligned after the braces come off!

What Are Fixed Retainers?

A fixed retainer, also known as a permanent or bonded retainer, is a wire that is glued to the lingual (tongue side) of the teeth. These retainers are typically made of stainless steel. The orthodontist fits it to the patient’s teeth, placing it just right so it’s not visible when smiling or talking, and attaches it with a form of cement. Some are cemented to each tooth, while others are only cemented to the teeth at the ends of the retainer.

Most often, fixed retainers are only placed on the backs of the front six lower teeth, though sometimes they go on the backs of the upper teeth, and some people even have them just for the two front teeth to keep a gap from reappearing. Fixed retainers are intended to stay in place indefinitely. If they break or come loose, it’s important to go back to the orthodontist to get them repaired.

How Fixed Retainers Compare

Now that you know what fixed retainers are, let’s look at some of the things that set them apart from removable retainers. The most obvious benefit to fixed retainers is that they stay in your mouth 24/7, which means you can’t lose them during lunch! It also means they’re continuously keeping your teeth in perfect position. Because they are so small, they tend to be much more comfortable than removable retainers. The best part is that nobody will see that you have one!

Cleaning And Maintenance

For all their advantages, fixed retainers can be tricky to keep clean. Food can get stuck in them and plaque can build up around them very easily and calcify into tartar, but they’re not so easy to clean out because the wire gets in the way of flossing. You can solve this problem with floss threaders or a water flosser. Make sure to get all those crevices!

Check out this video for tips on flossing around a fixed retainer:

You also might want to be careful when eating hard, crunchy foods, because they could break the wire or pop the cement loose from your teeth. If this happens, make sure to come see us!

Bring Us Your Questions!

If you have any questions about fixed retainers, don’t hesitate to ask us! Whether you’re in braces now and thinking ahead to retainers or you already have a fixed retainer, we can fill in any blanks you might have. In the meantime, keep up your brushing and flossing!

We love our patients!

Top image used under CC0 Public Domain license. Image cropped and modified from original.

The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.

CLEAR ALIGNERS HAVE been a popular means of correcting crooked teeth for the last 20 years. But did you know that clear aligners can also correct your occlusion, front to back tooth relationship, and bite just like braces can?

Simply attach your rubber bands to your aligners. With Class II cutouts or Class III cutouts and front to back rubber bands, your clear aligners can correct you bite just like braces.

Additional tooth movements prescribed by your orthodontist into the aligner setup will also help you acheive your ideal bite.

Every bite correction needs an orthodontist's diagnosis and treatment plan. You will need to see your orthodontist to receive this personalized sequence of tooth movement care.

Here at Gorczyca Orthodontics in Antioch, California, we have been using clear aligners since 1999 and have created hundreds of beautiful smiles. Call us at 925-757-9000 is you have questions about clear aligners and would like to schedule a free exam. Find us at www.clubbraces.com.

Whether Clear Correct or Invisalign, you can correct your smile today quickly, easily, and comfortably with clear aligners.

Here’s to your beautiful smile.

WHEN I WAS A girl in Massachusetts, halfway between New Bedford and Boston, my family and I would often drive by The Toll House, a restaurant in Whitman, Mass. The original Toll House was built in 1709. Here passersby could stop for home cooked meals. In this house had lived Mrs. Ruth Wakefield, dietitian and food lecturer who in 1930, accidentally invented the Toll House Cookie.

The First Chocolate Chip Cookie: A Delicious Accident

One day, Mrs. Wakefield was cooking Butter Drop Do Cookies, a favorite New England recipe dating back to Colonial days. She ran out of baker’s chocolate for the recipe, so she decided to use a cut up bar of semi-sweet chocolate instead. She expected the semi sweet chocolate bits to melt. But they didn't. Instead, she had a cookie with lumpy chocolate bits and viola! Chocolate chip cookies had been invented.

Ruth published her recipe in a Boston newspaper and sales of Nestle’s semisweet chocolate spiked. Soon Nestle company started producing Real Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels especially for baking these special cookies. Then in 1939, Andrew Nestle decided to print the cookie recipe on the semi-sweet chocolate morsels package cover.

In return for her serendipitous invention and use of semi-sweet chocolate, Mrs. Wakefield was given a lifetime supply of Nestle’s chocolate.

Ruth Wakefield’s Legacy

Moms and children throughout the world still love the chocolate chip cookie. Mrs. Wakefield’s famous Toll House chocolate chip cookie went on to become the most popular cookie in American, a distinction it still holds today.

Dr. Ann Marie Gorczyca is an orthodontist in Antioch, California. She is originally from East Freetown, Massachusetts.

Top image by Flickr user slgckgc used under Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 4.0 license. Image cropped and modified from original.

MANY PATIENTS TODAY are choosing aligner treatment for orthodontic tooth movement. There are many reasons influencing this choice, including appearance, ability to eat all foods, and comfort.

Aligner therapy also eliminates the possibility of broken braces brackets or poking wires. For the busy professional or college student away at school, traveling, or living abroad, aligner comfort is a big factor for orthodontic treatment comfort consideration. There is however one tool you should include in your aligner emergency kit. That is a nail file or emory board.

How Does An Emory Board Help?

Just as with braces, your initial aligners may irritate your cheeks and tongue for a short time and will take some time to get used to. Aligner edges may slightly stick out due to the shape of your gums when they are originally scanned or captured in the initial impressions for your aligner tray fabrication. You can smooth any slight protrusion in your aligner with your sandpaper nail file to immediately increase comfort without making an emergency trip to the orthodontist.

Come See Us!

If you have questions about aligners, Invisalign, or overlay clear retainers, call us at Gorczyca Orthodontics in Antioch, California 925-757-9000. If you are interested in aligner orthodontic treatment, call us for a free exam or visit our website at www.clubbraces.com.

Gorczyca Orthodontics has been providing aligner orthodontic treatment with Invisalign since 1999 and we have several hundred very happy aligner patients.

Here’s to your aligner orthodontic treatment and comfort! Your smile is our inspiration.