How To Clean Your Retainer, Nightguard, Mouthguard, or Dentures
My Retainer’s Journey
I had braces as a teenager and following treatment got a shiny, new retainer that I was supposed to wear every night. After wearing it for a while, my shiny new retainer was no longer so nice or shiny. It was dull, stinky, crusty. Eventually I stopped wearing my retainer (don’t be like me… keep wearing your retainer!). Several years later, I opened a Christmas present from my mom and inside was my disgusting old retainer! Sending it back and forth every year became a running gag.
Even though we knew the retainer was coming, it was still always a shock to open the present and find it! It was so disgusting that it was impossible not to be surprised. I know a lot of people with retainers and other dental appliances such as nightguards or dentures eventually find themselves in this same situation. Once shiny, new appliances now are crusty, stinky, and dull. They get like that even though you may have tried to keep them clean. Who wants to wear something that looks and smells like this! Most people don’t think about their dental appliance needing regular cleaning just like the rest of their mouth.
Your mouth is a tough place for an appliance to hang out. It gets beat up by your teeth, there is constant moisture, food particles floating around, and bacteria looking for a place to settle in. It is no wonder that retainers and other appliances eventually turn disgusting.
There is hope for your retainer, nightguard, mouthguard, or dentures! The secret? You’ve got to clean it!… I would say you need to clean it just like you need to clean your teeth but there is a really big difference here that you need to understand.
Teeth get cleaned with toothpaste and floss. Dental appliances NEVER get cleaned with toothpaste.
If it is good enough for your teeth then why is it bad for your dental appliances? To understand this, you need to know what teeth are made of vs what dental appliances are made of. The outer portion of teeth are made up of the hardest substance in the body, enamel. Enamel is the hardest material found in any biological system by far, much harder than bone. It is harder than steel (but much more brittle and can chip somewhat easily). Dental appliances are usually some combination of metal parts and an acrylic or plastic material. These materials are not nearly as hard as enamel and scratch much more easily. Toothpaste, because it is made to clean teeth, is highly abrasive (like sandpaper) and will scratch most materials other than enamel. Imagine if you took fine sandpaper and rubbed it all over your dental appliance. You’ll end up with a lot of micro-scratches and a dull surface.
On a microscopic level, you’ve taken something that is highly polished and smooth and then put all sorts of nooks and crannys in it. Not only does this dull the surface but it also creates areas that bacteria can easily attach to. As this biofilm builds up, it creates a hard accumulation similar to what builds up on your teeth (tartar or calculus). Once this builds up on your appliance, it makes it much harder to clean. We’ll go over how to fix this in the Nuclear Cleaning Method.
Dental Appliance Cleaning Methods
I’m going to go through the methods in order from least effective to most. In general, the further on we go, the more effective it will be but you’ll end up spending a bit more money on supplies or equipment.
#1: Soap and Water Method / Routine Cleaning
Yes, this is as easy as it sounds. You need soap, water, and a soft bristled toothbrush. Get some nice suds going and brush your dental appliance all over until it looks and feels clean. This method works best if used consistently each week to keep your dental appliance clean from the start. It doesn’t work as well once your appliance has already gotten scratched, dirty, and covered in build-up.
#2: Soak Method
My hygienist came to me a couple of weeks ago and said “I finally did it! My retainer is clean again!” She has an Invisalign retainer that had turned a beautiful shade of orange (different people turn their appliances different colors… some colors we’re not sure how they show up). She’d tried soap and water, she’d tried putting it in an ultrasonic cleaner in mouthwash. None of these things had worked.
She soaked it overnight in denture cleaner. The staining was finally gone and it looked like new. For appliances that have a lot of staining, this can be a really good option to remove the staining and make it smell like new. Denture cleaner isn’t just for dentures, it is also great for any dental appliance including retainers, nightguards, mouthguards, or snoring/sleep apnea appliances.
I personally like Efferdent tablets but most brands of denture cleaner will work just as well. Click the picture below for a link to this product on Amazon.
#3: The Ultrasonic Method
If you’ve tried the last couple of methods and are still having problems, it is time to bring in the big guns. You need an ultrasonic cleaner.
Ultrasonic cleaners work by vibrating at an extremely high frequency. This vibration is highly effective at removing debris on appliances. It also works great to clean jewelry or coins.
To work the ultrasonic cleaner most effectively there are a couple of steps you’ll need to take. Fill the tank on the cleaner with distilled water (or whatever the manufacturer recommends). Then place your dental appliance in a ziplock baggie and fill it with Listerine or other dental mouthwash. Place the ziplock baggie in the cleaner and turn it on. A good 10 minutes or so is usually required for adequate cleaning. Sometimes after cleaning you’ll still need to brush the appliance off to remove the residual debris. It should be a lot easier to remove after running through the ultrasonic cleaner.
#4: The NUCLEAR Method
If you’ve used all the previous methods are are still struggling to get all the build-up off, there is one last thing you can try at home. It is the secret ingredient that many high volume denture offices know about but don’t generally tell you. That secret ingredient is CLR (Calcium Lime Rust). It is a high strength cleaner that is typically used to clean, you guessed it, calcium, lime, and rust that has built up in bathrooms and other household areas. Most people wouldn’t ever think to use this on their dental appliance.
The reason why this works so well? That heavy white or yellow build-up you get on many dental appliances is generally a calcium heavy type of build-up. You need something that attacks this directly.
You’ll need to have an ultrasonic cleaner as recommended in the previous post and instead of using mouthwash in the ziplock baggie, use the CLR instead. Run it for about 10 minutes and the build-up will dissolve and fall off.
Once your appliance is clean, it is really important that you clean off the CLR really well. Rinse the appliance for at least a minute and then soak in mouthwash for another minute. This will make sure that you’ve cleaned all the harsh chemicals off your appliance. Almost all dental appliances are non-porous, meaning they don’t soak up any type of liquids. As long as you make sure all the residue is off the outer surface, you don’t have to worry about any harmful exposure as a result of using it as a cleaner.
#5: The Professional Method
Finally, if nothing else has worked, it means that the surface of your appliance is beyond any type of regular cleaning. Nothing you do is going to help this. It is time to take it to your dentist to see if the appliance can be professionally cleaned and polished (by removing a small portion of the outer surface with abrasive polishers) or if you need to have a new appliance made.
