Retainers are custom-made with high quality materials for maximum comfort, so you’ll hardly notice you’re wearing them!
Retainers help keep your teeth in their new positions, so all the time and effort you’ve put into your straight smile is not wasted.
Wearing a retainer overnight significantly increases the chances of keeping your beautiful new smile straight for life.
By keeping your teeth in the correct place, retainers can help prevent any future problems with crowding, gaps, or your bite.
Once you have achieved your beautiful and confident straight smile, you’re going to want to keep it that way! That’s why retainers are a very important part of every orthodontic treatment, designed to prevent your teeth from drifting back to their original positions. As long as you wear your retainers regularly, typically overnight as you sleep, your teeth will stay straight for the long term.
At Dorchester Orthodontic Clinic, we offer both Essix removable retainers and fixed retainers, depending on your individual needs and preferences. Our retainers are always custom-made to ensure the optimum comfort and accuracy every time.
Retainers are custom-made appliances used to keep your teeth in their new positions following orthodontic treatment. Removable retainers are the most popular option, but fixed retainers are also available.
Retainers are necessary to prevent orthodontic relapse, where your teeth drift back towards their initial positions. They are crucial for stabilising your smile and ensuring your teeth stay straight for as long as possible. Retainers should be worn for at least three nights a week for the rest of your life.
You need to wear retainers for as long as you want to keep your teeth straight – usually for life! Immediately following your treatment, there is a very high risk of relapse, so your retainers should be worn every night for the first year. After this, wear can be reduced to at least three nights a week, based on your orthodontist’s recommendations.
We provide Essix removable retainers and fixed retainers at our orthodontic clinic in Dorchester. We advise all our patients to have removable retainers, which are made of a thin and transparent plastic material, similar to clear aligners.
If you have removable retainers, your ability to eat and drink is completely unaffected, as you can simply take your retainers out of your mouth at mealtimes. Also, most patients with Essix removable retainers wear them overnight, so they do not disrupt your daily life. If you have fixed retainers, you can eat and drink as normal, but be careful with hard or sticky foods that could cause damage.
If you don’t wear your retainers, your teeth are likely to start shifting back towards their original positions. This can lead to crowding, gaps, or other orthodontic problems, potentially requiring further treatment to correct. A lot of adults have braces to correct previous orthodontic relapse, but wearing your teeth retainers properly reduces the risk of this.
Made and marketed with by Dental DesignLast updated in: June 2025
