it's dr amanda with straight smile solutions street smile solutions.com and today we're
going to talk about essex retainers in-house assist retainers i have so
much content on essex vivera's retainers matter of fact it has its own playlist that's located on
my page of my youtube and all our 4 000 plus education videos are totally free at this moment
i say that because they may not be someday um but at the moment they are so enjoy them
and if you want to make essex retainers um a lot of people asking what material should you
make it from and remember essex retainers is a category it's a brand essex is owned by um
dentsply i believe it used to be owned by crayon i can't even remember they they've
been bought out so many times raintree i think it was there was all different ones
but um they are now owned by dentsply they own essex it is one brand of clear retainer
material slash clear aligner material depending on the thickness and the biomaterials of how it's
made whether it's a last american nature but a traditional essex retainer in-house
or or even if you're purchasing it from a lab is usually o4o now o4o is in inches i believe
that equals one millimeter in the wonderful metric system which of course makes more sense
that would be your traditional material someone asked me today about oh about um half millimeter
which would be o2o which no that's more like a bleaching tray material and i believe a
liner material is usually o30035 so a retainer is normally thicker within that subcategory there's
all different types of essex you got s6 s60 plus s6a plus so certain ones are better for bruxer
certain ones are more clear certain ones are better for a liner so i have other videos on that
to access all my other asics materials videos or pontif videos for retainers you can go to
my youtube site to get there go to yours put in the search bar street smile solutions they'll take
you to mine which has a green banner um scroll down there's about 10 to 12 playlists on the
home page i believe retainers is more towards the bottom which is fitting because it's at the end
of treatment but from there you can watch all the videos i have on
everything retainers and hopefully it's helpful but yeah nothing wrong with doing in-house essex
but but but you need to have the proper equipment if you are half-assing it and using vacuformers
instead of pressure formers like the biostar or the mini star it will not be as adapted as well
and um the mini star in the biostar is kind of expensive so a lot of people don't have that they
just have the traditional vacuum former i would never ever use that i'm not saying i haven't used
it because we've all made that mistake you know when we first started out but in hindsight now i
would never never never use it because it's just not as well adapted and now that i have kind of
these eyes where i see things you know 10 20 30 years down the road i can see how regular essex
that's not made on a proper biostar or mini star won't adapt as well and it won't keep the teeth
as straight now as a patient you're not going to know what it was made on because you don't have
access to their lab so i think a good question for you to ask if you are a patient listening to
this video is to ask your doctor if you're going through braces treatment or invisalign treatment
good question first of all i'd ask what's included with my treatment do you include retainers with my
treatment if they most orthodontists are pretty upfront you know this is what's included records
this final records retainers one set retainers more than one set retainers holley retainers
essex retainers by their retainers what's included how many retainers am i gonna need
for a lifetime you're gonna need way more than one set for a lifetime so what's going to be
the cost if i need to replace them personally my suggestion is get a couple sets up front because
when it's time they need to replace them it's more of an emergency and it's better to have a backup
set sitting around and i would switch it out after a year or two you know make it be nice and firm
that's why invisalign vivera comes in sets of four that makes sense to me and it's a very affordable
uh product it's okay if your doctor is doing in-house essex but my question is are they made
professionally you're not gonna know by looking at it so you could definitely ask and you could
ask if you could see their lab there's nothing wrong with that you can ask if they're using
biostar or mini star the trim is a little less important than what it's made and how it's made
but i've seen all kinds of junky retainers that are made in-house and a patient wouldn't know
right so why spend two years or a year or two investing your time and money into straightening
your teeth if the retainers are going to be made cheaply and sub-par right so my suggestion is
that patients ask for viveira retainers by name just because the quality is really good you know
it's going to be made right you know the quality is done right you know it's going to fit right
so especially if you're using a scan to do it just ask for that by name if the doctor says no i don't
do viveira then say well can i get them how much is it going to cost me because for me even if i
had to pay an extra 200 or 300 at least i know i'm getting a good quality product in a set of four
for uppers four lowers which should last me should last me for a lifetime as long as i'm not losing
them so it's definitely worth a couple hundred dollar investment for me all right thanks so much