The need to wear a retainer for life after orthodontic treatment is determined by the type of malocclusion. Some complicated and easy to relapse cases need to wear retainers for life; while some cases only need to wear retainers for 1 to 2 years.
1. Lifelong wear of retainer: clinically, it is often necessary to wear a retainer for life to prevent recurrence in cases of arch expansion, especially in mandibular arch expansion cases, some cases with more scattered gaps, adult severe lip-lingual misalignment cases, and maxillary mesiodistal gap closure cases.
2. Need to wear retainers for 1 to 2 years: For most patients with malocclusion, it is often necessary to wear retainers for 1 to 2 years after orthodontic treatment, insisting on wearing them all day long in the first year, and then transitioning to wearing them only at night or wearing them overnight every other day and wearing them for 1 to 2 nights every week in the second year, and finally stopping wearing them altogether when the tooth position is kept stable.
Whether the teeth need to wear retainers for life after orthodontic treatment should be determined by professional orthodontists according to the patient’s specific orthodontic condition, avoiding arbitrary removal, so as to avoid the recurrence of deformity after orthodontic treatment.