Will I Have To Wear The Invisalign Retainer During the Day Forever?

Orthodontic retainers, whether after Invisalign or normal braces are meant to hold the teeth in the new position.  The retainers are sometimes bonded metal wires or appliances, like an Invisalign retainer, that are meant to be worn usually at night.

If your tooth grinding problem is very severe and you wear a night guard that fits over ALL upper or lower teeth, then the teeth will not move and that is in fact your retainer.  A good choice may be the old style acrylic retainer in the arch that does not have the night guard or also you can wear the Invisalign retainer on the arch that does not have the night guard.

Wearing anything during the day is really a short term solution, life just happens and it becomes unrealistic to wear a retainer during the day long term.

Hope this helps,
 

Short answer: NO

Long answer: All orthodontist have different Retainers protocols, but most include a period of full time wear them moving to night time wear only. The bottom line is once you are in retainers you retainer is your best friend, as far as protecting your investment and all your discipline. MY retainers rules for LIFE are: If you have a set of retainers that fit, they are stored properly and when they are put in your mouth they feel like they did when you were wearing the 20 hrs a day your good. If they don't you need to increase you frequencies of wear until they do, continue the increased frequency of wear for about a month then slowly decrease again. You should never go a week without putting in your retainers. Ideally once you are out of your full time wear, you should wear every night to bed. The older you are when you had treatment the more dependent you are on your retainers.

You do not have to wear it during the day.

However,you are supposed to wear the invisalign retainer every single night.

Invisalign is done through a tipping movement and as you are well aware, teeth are held with periodontal ligaments that have an extensive memory. once the movement is achieved, the wearing of a retainer is very essential otherwise the adult ligaments memory will bring them back to where they started from.  It is a safe regimen to wear the retainer at night and if you skip couple of nights you will feel the tightness once the retainer is in place just to show you how powerful these ligaments memory is.

 

Edgard El Chaar, DDS, MS