What if I wear rubber bands part time instead of full time, as recommended?
Treatment can be slowed tremendously by compromising with rubber bands! Some patients have a hard time committing to full time wear of rubber bands, sometimes because they forget or they hurt. If they hurt, it’s usually because of lack of consistency, like not committing to wearing new shoes that are a little tight. For rubber bands to work at all, they need to be worn a minimum of 16-18 hours per day. Anything less than this will, unfortunately, not be productive because teeth will not begin to move until 14 hours have gone by in a day, which seems illogical, but its true. The hours don’t have to be continuous, just total at least 16-18 hours per day, 20 or more being best.
