I had a patient come in this afternoon for an appointment that was marked in the diary as “retainer review”.
When I opened up his notes, it turned out that his orthodontic treatment finished over 3 years ago and we hadn’t seen him in almost 3 years. At that stage we had made him a spare retainer and he never came back to us to have it fitted.
When he came in, I said “so we haven’t seen you in nearly 3 years.”
“Yeah, I know. Sorry about that. Really busy with the leaving cert and that sort of thing,” he said. He explained that his retainer was worn and cracked now and he needed a new one.
I asked if he’d worn his original retainer that we gave him back in 2022, and he said he had, and when I looked at his teeth they seemed pretty straight, so I took a chance and we dug out the 2022 spare retainers and I pushed them on to the teeth.
They slipped on to the teeth without effort.
Top and bottom retainers.
Fitting exactly.
I was very surprised, as plenty of people tell you they’re wearing their retainers but the truth might be a little bit at odds with that.
Or a lot.
This guy was in the age group for a high chance of crowding in the lower front teeth after orthodontic treatment.But he wore his retainers and got the benefit of that – no need to wait for us to make him a new retainer, he walked out with his teeth under the control of a retainer that was made for him 3 years ago and sat in a cupboard waiting for its chance to serve.
I gave him his “discharge instructions” and, 3 years later than expected, he finally completed his last review appointment and returned to the continuing care of his own dentist.
