What To Do If Your Teeth Are Shifting After Braces - Orthodontist Raleigh NC | Braces, Aligners, and Perfect Smiles (2024)

Braces effectively move teeth into proper alignment, but teeth don’t necessarily stay where they’re put when braces come off. Most people’s teeth continue to shift over the course of their lifetime, and they frequently leave their proper places if countermeasures aren’t taken.

When teeth shift after braces, whether it’s soon after or decades later, the movement can be exacerbating. Braces themselves are a major procedure, requiring a significant commitment on your part, and no one wants to see all the hard work fully undone. Movement afterward not only changes your carefully created smile, but it also can make all that time spent wearing braces seem like a waste.

At Laster Orthodontics, Dr. Laster and his team have an effective and comparatively easy way to address teeth movement after braces. With Perfect Smile clear aligners, you can keep your beautiful teeth in their proper place — and even realign them if they’ve already moved.

Teeth Can Move After Braces

Teeth commonly move after braces for one simple reason. They’re part of the body, and your body is in constant flux from the time you’re a child through your entire adult life. Children’s and teens bodies, including their mouths, obviously change as they grow, and adults bodies continue to morph as they age. No matter when in your life teeth move, the movement should be addressed before it’s too much.

When teeth move, they can shift in almost any direction, including forward, backward, left, right and even twisting in place. The way they move, however, is always dictated in the same way. Teeth follow the path of least resistance.

Retainers Keep Teeth Stationary Only If Used Continuously

This is why retainers work so well if they’re used regularly after braces are taken off.

Although teeth try to shift via the path of least resistance, a retainer provides resistance to ensure teeth stay where braces put them.

Regardless of whether it’s a fixed removable retainer, any good retainer will provide resistance in every direction so that teeth meet resistance no matter how they try to move.

Retainers are only effective, however, if they’re worn regularly and immediately after braces come off. If a retainer isn’t worn for a period of time, it will no longer properly fit your teeth. Wearing it will be uncomfortable, and shifting teeth back into place isn’t what a retainer is designed to do.

In short, retainers are meant to keep or retain — and not to align — teeth in place. Once teeth get out of place, you need another solution.

New Aligners at Laster Perfect Smile Offer a Solution

If your teeth have shifted post braces, the time commitment of braces and limitations of a retainer makes neither of these a desirable solution. Most people don’t want to wear braces for a second time, and a retainer simply won’t be effective at repositioning your teeth. At Laster Perfect Smile, Dr. Laster offers an alternative aligner system that’s a solution to this dilemma.

Laster Perfect Smile clear aligners are easy-to-use sleeves that can safely and effectively reposition teeth, and they do so without the time commitment or cost of braces.

Each clear aligner slides over your teeth and is nearly invisible, so you can still smile when meeting friends and taking pictures. The aligners are removed for brushing and eating, but they’re still effective like braces. Our Perfect Smile aligners can completely realign smiles, or they can easily make a few tweaks to previously positioned teeth that are starting to shift.

When you don’t need a full treatment of braces, Laster Perfect Smile clear aligners can give you back that ideal smile that you’re looking for.

Perfect Smile Aligners Are Different from Mail-Order Aligners

Should you decide to explore clear aligners and see what they can do for your teeth, be aware that the aligners that Dr. Laster offers are significantly different from mail-order aligners you might order online.

The American Dental Association and North Carolina Dental Association have both spoken out against mail-order aligners, largely because these don’t come with proper orthodontic oversight. With the mail-order system, patients never actually meet with an orthodontist and their case is only given a quick once-over by someone overseas.

Estimates suggest an orthodontist might spend only a couple of minutes before they approve an applicant, sign off and select a pair of aligners that come from a shelf. In some cases, this system can be even more dangerous than it is helpful.

In contrast, Laster Perfect Smile clear aligners come with individualized attention from Dr. Laster and his team. There’s an initial consultation, and each aligner is customized to your teeth and mouth. Throughout the entire process, every patient receives personal oversight to make sure their treatment goes as quickly as possible while remaining completely safe and ultimately producing that perfect smile.

Schedule a Consultation with Dr. Laster

To learn more about Laster Perfect Smile clear aligners, schedule a free consultation with Dr. Laster. He’s helped many people readjust their teeth after they’ve shifted post-braces, and he has the expertise necessary to get your teeth straightened out in a timely, safe and easy way.

At Laster Orthodontics, we help families develop healthy, life-changing smiles using customized treatments, cutting-edge technologies, and caring relationships. Our individualized treatment plans help our patients achieve their perfect smile in the quickest, most painless way possible by utilizing a wide range of options from traditional braces to propel accelerated treatment to Dr. Laster’s in-house aligner program, Laster Perfect Smile. With three locations throughout the Triangle Area, we create life-changing smiles every day.