Cleaning Your Retainer

The day you get your braces off is a day that is awesome for our patients and fun for our team! We love seeing the first time our patients look in the mirror and see their beautiful, straight smile.

However, this is also a day where patients receive great responsibility with understanding the importance of wearing their retainer. Your bones (including teeth) like to settle in where they see fit and over time, your teeth can move back to their "before braces" positions. Wearing your retainer keeps your teeth in their new "after braces" positions.

Due to wearing your retainer, you will find that you will want to clean it to remove the bacteria from your mouth. So, what is the best way to clean a retainer?

First of all, it is best to clean your appliance as soon as you remove it from your mouth. This helps remove debris before it hardens. You can use a small amount of mild hand soap or dish soap on an old toothbrush to clean the retainer. Make sure to never boil your retainer. If you happen to start noticing white spots on your retainer, these are more than likely calcium deposits. You can try using a denture cleaning tablet that is purchased from any store that sells toothpaste (they make retainer cleaning tablets as well but they tend to be harder to find and more expensive for the same ingredients, obviously denture cleaning tablets are more embracing to buy however). If you are unable to remove them with these cleaning techniques, give us a call and bring your retainer by to be cleaned with our in office solutions.

Last, make sure to always put your retainer in its case when you are not wearing it. Pets love to chew on retainers and retainers can easily become lost or thrown away.

Make sure to call us with any questions!