dr amanda with straight smile solutions straightsmilesolutions.com and today
we're going to talk a little bit more about bond retainers again this is one of these
frequently asked questions that i get i have a lot of content already made on retainers if
you want to check out my retainer playlist you on the home page of your of my youtube channel
you can find them all the playlists are there to get there go to your youtube channel put in
the search bar straight smile solutions that'll take you to my youtube channel
from there that has a green banner if you scroll down you'll see playlists you can also
go to my website straightsmilesolutions.com click on education or classes and i believe
the second or third option down um is our free orthodontic educational playlist
so we have almost i think 5 000 videos on like pretty much every topic you can think and like
every week we're adding new content so um you just give us suggestions and we'll make content around
it if we think it's a good idea so today we're going to talk a little bit more about different
types of wires that you can use for permanent retainers bonded retainers fixed retainers
and what we use in our practices so the one i really really don't use would be a braided wire
your normal three strand twist braided wire why well i mean it's really cheap i get it and we
used to use those in residency all the time it just came on a spool but what tends to happen is
anything that is bendable like that you could bend with your hand or your fingers the patient
can also bend even if it's contoured to the teeth all it takes is for them to bite down on a bagel
or an apple or something that it's gonna bend and then in doing so it's gonna move the teeth okay
so if you put if you can put a bend in it it can move teeth and i've seen all kind of crazy
things happen with those wires i'm not saying you couldn't put one as a temporary wire like
basically in our wire in our office we always send all of our body retainers out to be custom made we
do the six mesh pads so it looks like this you can order these from pretty much any ortholab that's
out there i'll just name a few that we use we use great lakes we use olendorf we use the specialty
appliances we use the orthodontic laboratory all good they all have all this good stuff so this is
the one we do it has the six composite mesh pads um it's a cast wire that they actually like cast
and contour to the teeth super flat super flesh um impossible to bend break i mean well patients
can break but if when it's pretty low profile like this it's unlikely it's going to sheer off i mean
they would really have to eat something nuts like rocks in order to get it off and it keeps things
really really really really straight now of course you can do mesh pads that only anchor on the sixes
i'm sorry on the threes the canines and that's fine too i mean these could still potentially
move a little bit labelly but they're unlikely to especially if it's a nice cast of steel bar
that's nice too i mean the main goal here is to make sure that you're keeping the inner canine
width that is the goal of the bonded retainer usually everything stays straight as long as you
keep the inner canine width right so no you can't do the retainer just on the front four teeth you
have to do it from canine to canine in order to keep the inter canine width on the bottom
so that's like the basically the structure it's the foundation of the house right so this is
what we use we get them custom made it comes in a jig or like a matrix literally all you do is put
six little etched dots you know isolate with a few cotton rolls and remember if if the fabrication
was approved by the doctor usually the assistant can go ahead and put it on it comes with a matrix
it's super easy it's basically idiot proof so slap it on peel it off light cure um sorry slap it on
light here peel it off um boom it's on right as long as you isolated and stayed nice and dry so
this is what we use okay but i have been known to either do the flat um ribbon wire or way back
when i did do the braided wire for temporary temporary like we keep them in our office just
in case there is a situation where the patient needed stop for whatever reason we needed to put
an emergency retainer on for whatever reason it happens um i don't like the braided one i got to
because it can be bent easily by the patient and also i've seen crazy scary things happen
where it becomes unraveled and one tooth goes nuts and they lose a tooth so no i don't like
the braided wire but if you that's all you have all you have to do is make sure that you custom
bend it so it's flush against the teeth so you need to contour it first don't just
you know take it off the spool and throw it on because that's not good plus you also need to lay
with a lighter or a bunsen burner the ends and a nail them so that way they don't unravel that
is the once you've trimmed it and contoured it that is the key to success with a braided wire so
that's my tip for that as for for the flat ribbon wire that's better than the braided wire i mean
again same thing anything that can be bent um can also the patient can bend which can move teeth so
you really need to like flatten it against the teeth contoured against the teeth
and then if you try to cinch it in really tight with the floss when you hold it against it you can
actually create a moment or a bend or a movement potential and the teeth will bend so it's all in
how you put it on which is part of the reason why i like the jig and the super passive wire anyways
hopefully that was helpful um you know what we use in our offices you know what i've done before and
yes i have been doing these make sure you anneal this one first this one for me is just like a
really temporary short term situation maybe i leave it on because i needed something last minute
and i didn't have a have time to make an essex in-house in office or i was waiting for the bike
to settle in the back i'm gonna throw this on for like six weeks and then i'm gonna take it off when
i deliver the essex that would be the other option so all right hopefully that was helpful thanks