How To Floss With Permanent Retainer Reddit. What exactly is a retainer? When you smile at yourself in the mirror, a gleaming row of pearly whites smile back, and you couldn’t be happier with how your orthodontic work turned out.
At the end of the treatment (10+ years ago now), my orthodontist put a permanent retainer on the back of my lower teeth. The answer is simple — you have to wear a retainer. Just clean these the same way you kept your braces clean:
Now that you’ve invested so much time and care into your teeth, you want to ensure they retain their perfect alignment for as long.
To maintain the retainer and to protect the teeth around the area, it needs to be cleaned every day. I didn't anticipate how time consuming flossing would be after getting a permanent retainer for my bottom teeth. Any downsides, like using the same piece of dirty floss each time, are way better than not flossing at all. The retainer is adhered to the back of the teeth with cement similar to how braces are fixed to the front of your teeth.