NAD. I had an expander in later elementary school, braces in middle school, had wisdom teeth removed right before starting my freshman year of high school, then a retainer after that. They tried a wire behind my upper front four teeth and lower front four teeth in addition to a clear plastic cover for all the teeth. The wires kept breaking, so eventually they stopped trying to replace them. Kept the removable plastic cover, though. I’m in my early 20s now.
(Also, first post, so if the flair should be experience/story, I’ll try to edit it.)
TL;DR: Look at the x-ray of my bottom front four teeth (which confusingly are the right four teeth in this x-ray, sorry), especially the roots (or whatever the ends in the whitest part are called). To my very non-dentist eyes, they look like they’re growing out of each other. Is wearing a retainer possibly going to correct the resulting crookedness or not?
Long:
Anyway, probably at least partially my fault, but I never knew that 1. You were supposed to wear your retainer for at least a few years, even into your young adult years, and 2. Some people have to wear them for life. I guess I could have looked this up earlier, but I really wished my dentist/ortho would have told me. (I remember them telling me to wear it at night for a few months? But I might be misremembering since this was almost 10 years ago when I was about to start high school.)
I was glad it seemed to be keeping my lower four front teeth straight, but my teeth just seemed to move so easily through the day. And over the years as I got super depressed, it became much harder to consistently wear my retainer. And honestly, outside of my lower four front teeth, my bite feels more comfortable now. Sure, my teeth aren’t movie star perfect, but they’re comfortable, which is more important to me.
That said, I feel like I *should* be wearing my retainer, but learning I might have to basically wear this thing as much as I can all day for the rest of my life is really demoralizing. I managed to snap this picture when the tech wasn’t looking, and it looks like some of the front four teeth (which are the four teeth to the right in this image) are growing out of each other? And pardon my very non-dentist instincts, but I don’t think wearing a retainer is going to fix something *that* deep. I might not be thrilled, but my teeth don’t cause me pain now, so I can live with some crooked front teeth.
Is wearing a retainer even worth it?