hey it's dr amanda with straight smile solutions straight smile solutions.com and today we're going
to talk about spring retainers and there's a variety of different types of spring retainers
and they all fall within the classification of spring retainers so i'm going to show you two and
kind of explain to you how they work the pros the cons the benefits and how they compare to aligners
um and what they're generally used for and now and again especially if you if you're treating
patients um who are maybe in their 40s or 50s or 60s this might come up because it is a decent
op you know option for aligning very very very mild mild mild mild inconsistencies in teeth i'm
talking like one to two millimeters max that's all like no more than two so if your patient's
looking for something major one of these no it's a big no it's got to be like almost you
barely see what you need with the eye like it's that minor that kind of very minor relapse like
less than three aligners kind of relapse anyways so there are spring retainers that
so let's let's take you back in a history lesson so way back when before there was invisalign
in 1997. if we had braces case cases and a patient had a little bit of relapse and back then we used
holley retainers for the most part um so relapse it happened you know if we had relapse
and they didn't want to get braces put back on which was a big deal who wants braces put back
on right it's expensive for the doctor it's a pain for the patient we did spring retainers so this
is kind of the most basic of the spring retainer and this is how the spring where it gets its name
this is a helical spring that you can activate by grabbing it with a three prong or a hemostat
it'll sit behind that tooth and push on it of course same thing here there's a more
sophisticated version that i'd still call a spring retainer but you can replace this helices with um
a screw with a little screw that you'll have a key and you'll wind it up almost like you do in
an expander but it's it's just a little segment here and it can push it out like a block it's
a little maybe a little more expensive to make these are very inaccurate and very difficult and
the things pop in and out of the mouth i'm not at all a fan of these i like those screws with
the helixes a little bit better but remember these are only pushing in one plane of space
out that's it out forward they're not controlling any vertical they're not doing any torque
okay so it's not going to quite look right and you have very little control over how much it moves so
if you overdo it in theory you could crimp this back and tighten this bow up and it might go back
but it might not and it's probably not gonna look totally perfect but if someone's really looking
for just a teeny tiny bit of improvement and i've always been like no guarantees
no guarantees i just keep writing that down you know you get what you get no guarantees right
that's all i say you know i'll give you one adjustment if you put them in if you need it
and from then on off that's your retainer or you can make another retainer at cost but you just
need to make sure it's not like a liner aligners i'm going to give a guarantee what you see in the
clinchette is what you're going to get if not i will get you there so labview on these suckers is
somewhere around i don't know 150 to 200 so i mean they're cheaper than doing you know an express
five or an express seven or something like that um certainly a lot cheaper and you can just take
a regular stone impression um or um pbs and send it off to your local lab have it made have it fun
the colors etc etc um this is a more sophisticated version of that when in this situation it's still
working as a spring but what they're doing is they take the front four teeth with a moderate
inconsistency they wax they section them out with a stop with a saw and they wax them up
with sticky wax and then this is the spring action that can be tightened and in theory if your teeth
like if you don't wear it a little bit then it'll push your teeth back and make them straight but it
doesn't control the verticals okay a little more control and torque this is probably a little more
of an expensive two by two spring retainer i would call this where they reset the teeth
a little different than this so now you know the differences between different types of spring
retainers when you use them sure there's still a place for them but it has to be like so crazy
mild that you can barely even see why they need it that's the definition everyone else
needs braces or aligners you know hands down and of course if you're doing really moderate
mild relapse i always recommend the express seven over the five and the ten because seven comes with
one refinement so you basically have 14 aligners i still don't like to give guarantees on those
i mean like i know i just said i do but i'll give a guarantee for a light or a moderate but
for the express seven probably not it would have to be something crazy crazy minor
then i'd give a guarantee so anyways hopefully that was helpful thanks