| Service | 🇺🇦 Ukraine | 🇨🇿 Czech Republic | 🇹🇷 Turkey |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retainer bonding | from USD 49 | from USD 95 | from USD 128 |
| Retainer removal | from USD 22 | — | — |
| Braces removal | from USD 38 | from USD 26 | from USD 16 |
| Orthodontist consultation | from USD 16 | — | — |
Prices in the “Ukraine” column come from MediUkraine’s partner clinics. The Czech Republic and Turkey columns show the lower bounds of prices published by clinics there (for Turkey, also the Turkish Dental Association’s recommended 2026 tariff), collected in August 2026 and converted to US dollars at the rate on the day of collection. A dash means we could not find a comparable published price. In any country, the final cost is set by the clinic after an examination.
A retainer is an appliance that holds the teeth in their new position after the active phase of orthodontic treatment. Braces move a tooth by remodelling the bone around its root, but the periodontal ligaments and gum fibres that held the tooth in its old position change much more slowly than the bone. It is these fibres that pull the tooth back as soon as the braces are removed.
The pace of this remodelling explains the timelines. The principal periodontal fibres regain their orientation in about 3–4 months, and the supracrestal elastic gum fibres in 7–8 months or longer, with some of them staying under tension for years. That is why the first months after the braces come off carry the highest risk, and retention continues even once the teeth look stable.
When teeth move back towards their original position, this is called relapse, and it is the main reason patients lose the results of years of treatment. Relapse is most noticeable on the lower incisors: they crowd and rotate again, and the typical overlap of one tooth over another reappears. Age also plays a part: the lower incisors gradually crowd over the years even in people who have never worn braces.
Retention is needed by everyone who has finished treatment with braces or aligners, regardless of age or the complexity of the case. An especially strict regime is needed after correcting marked rotations of individual teeth, closing gaps between the incisors, expanding the dental arch, and after treatment completed in adolescence, while the jaws are still growing.
A fixed wire is not suitable for everyone. It is ruled out, or bonding is postponed, if there is active caries or unfinished dental treatment, bleeding gums, hard tartar on the tongue side, or if the upper and lower teeth meet in a way that would knock the wire off. In these cases the underlying problem is treated first, and a removable retainer is provided in the meantime. MediUkraine is a treatment search and coordination service, not a clinic: we choose the orthodontist and arrange the visits, and the type of retainer is decided by the dentist after an examination.
Travel. Ukrainian airspace is closed, so there are no commercial flights. Patients reach Lviv overland, most often from Poland: Rzeszów and Kraków airports are the usual entry points, with a train, bus or private transfer onward to the border and on to the city. Lviv is roughly 70 km from the Polish border, the shortest crossing of any Ukrainian city.
Visas. Citizens of the EU, the United Kingdom and the United States do not need a visa for short stays in Ukraine. Rules depend on your citizenship, so check your own before booking.
Safety, plainly. Ukraine is at war. Air raid alerts occur in Lviv, and an appointment can be interrupted by one. Several governments advise against travel to Ukraine, and while that advice stands, ordinary travel and medical insurance is often void — confirm your cover with your insurer before you commit to anything.
Language. MediUkraine handles correspondence, scheduling, the written treatment plan and the quote in English. The clinic's team communicates with international patients in English.
Payment. You pay the clinic directly. Our coordination service is free of charge for you.
More on travel, safety and insurance: Safety and travel.
A fixed retainer is a thin metal wire bonded with composite to the inner surface of the teeth. In the lower jaw it is usually placed from canine to canine, covering six teeth; in the upper jaw from canine to canine or on the four incisors only, depending on the bite. It is invisible from the outside and does not need to be taken out, which makes it the practical choice for the lower incisors, the area with the highest risk of relapse.
The wire is not solid but multi-strand, twisted from several fine strands of stainless steel, about 0.4–0.55 mm thick. This is flexible enough to let the teeth keep their natural slight mobility during chewing while still preventing rotation. Another option is custom nickel-titanium retainers laser-cut from a digital model of your teeth: they follow the anatomy of the tongue-side surface more precisely and collect less plaque, but cost more.
The wire can be bonded in two ways, and the difference matters. The classic option is bonding to every tooth in the segment: the retainer is more rigid and holds previously rotated teeth better. The alternative is bonding only to the end teeth, leaving the wire free in between; this means fewer surfaces for plaque to collect on, but less control over the teeth in between. The choice depends on which problem was corrected and how far particular teeth had to be moved.
A removable clear retainer is a thermoplastic tray about 0.75–1 mm thick, formed on a model of the jaw with a vacuum machine. It covers all the teeth in the arch, is almost invisible and does not interfere with speech after the first few days. Its weak point is the material: the retainer wears where the cusps meet, cracks and deforms with heat, so it must not be washed in hot water, put in a dishwasher or left in a car in summer.
The Hawley plate is an older but still widely used design: an acrylic base resting against the palate or the floor of the mouth, with a metal bow across the front teeth. It is sturdier than a clear retainer, lasts longer and the dentist can adjust the bow if needed, but it is visible when you talk and noticeably affects speech for the first few weeks. It is often chosen to hold the result of upper jaw expansion.
The wearing regime for a removable appliance changes over time. For the first 3–6 months the retainer is usually worn full time and removed only for eating and brushing, after which you switch to night-time wear. The number of nights is then gradually reduced, from every night to several times a week, but stopping altogether is not recommended: recent evidence reviews agree that retention should be indefinite, and for most patients this means wearing it several nights a week for life.
A fixed wire works differently: it is not worn for a set period but simply left in place for as long as it is intact and causes no problems. In many patients the lower retainer stays for decades, and this is normal practice, not an oversight by the dentist. It is removed for specific reasons: repeated debonding, persistent gum inflammation under the wire, or the need for prosthetic work on those teeth or for repeat orthodontic treatment.
In practice the two types are more often combined than chosen between. A typical set-up is a fixed wire on the lower incisors plus a removable retainer for the upper jaw at night. The combination is also chosen when the wire covers only the front group of teeth but there is a risk of the side teeth shifting: the removable retainer covers the whole arch and backs up the wire.
Retention in complex cases is planned individually. After correcting a marked rotation of a single tooth, the gum fibres around it stay under tension the longest, and in such situations some orthodontists perform a supracrestal fibrotomy, a minor procedure under local anaesthesia at the end of active treatment that reduces the pull of the tissues. After a gap (diastema) between the upper incisors has been closed, a fixed wire is almost always placed, because the gap tends to reopen, sometimes after several years.
After treatment with aligners, retention is needed just as it is after braces: moving the teeth with clear aligners does not change how the tissues behave. Care matters too: under a fixed wire, clean with floss that has a stiffened threader end or with superfloss, and use interdental brushes and a water flosser; a removable retainer is washed in cool water with a soft brush and no toothpaste, and kept in a ventilated case rather than wrapped in a napkin.
For the first few days after bonding things feel unusual: your tongue keeps going back to the wire, your speech may change slightly, and the tip of the tongue can get mildly irritated by the edge of the composite. This passes within 3–7 days. If a rough edge can still be felt after a week, it is polished at a short visit; there is no need to put up with it.
The removable retainer is ready the same day or within a few working days, depending on whether the clinic has its own laboratory. At first it fits tightly and you may feel pressure; this is expected. But if, after a break in wearing it, the retainer no longer goes fully into place, do not force it in: the teeth have already shifted, and an examination is needed.
The first check-up is usually scheduled 1–3 months after the braces come off, then every six months for the first two years, and once a year after that. At each check-up the dentist checks that the wire and every bonding point are intact, as well as the condition of the gum under the wire and the fit of the removable retainer.
The stability of the result can be judged a year or two after the braces come off at the earliest, and properly only after 5 years or more. Long-term studies show that the position of the teeth goes on changing throughout life and that this process cannot be stopped completely; the task of retention is to keep the changes within limits that do not spoil the result of treatment.
The most common problem during retention is the wire coming unstuck from one of the teeth. Patients often do not notice: the wire still holds at the other points, nothing is loose and nothing hurts. That is exactly where the risk lies: the tooth with the debonded section gradually shifts while the neighbouring ones stay in place, so within a few months a noticeable step appears. So it is worth running your tongue along the inner surface of your front teeth once a week and noting any change in how it feels.
If a removable retainer is lost or cracked, do not delay: in the first weeks without retention the teeth move fastest. Contact the clinic within a few days; a new retainer can be made quickly from the stored digital scan. Only a dentist can predict how stable the result will be for an individual patient, after an examination, and that prediction is reviewed at every check-up.
Step 1. Examination and choice of retainer. The dentist assesses the result of treatment, the condition of the enamel and gums and the bite, and chooses the retainer accordingly: a fixed wire, a removable retainer or a combination of the two. The wearing regime and the timing of check-ups are discussed at the same time.
Step 2. Removing the braces. The brackets are removed with special pliers, then residual adhesive is cleaned off the enamel with a bur and the surface is polished. This is the longest and most delicate part of the visit: careless removal leaves scratches, while overly aggressive removal strips away some of the surface enamel.
In total, the visit takes 30–60 minutes per jaw: after the examination and removal of the braces, the dentist cleans and prepares the tongue side of the teeth, fits and bonds the wire, checks the bite and, if needed, scans the jaws for a removable retainer. No anaesthesia is needed, and there is no hospital stay or recovery period: straight after the appointment you can eat and return to your usual activities, and you are given an information sheet on how to wear your retainer.
Retention is not a one-off procedure but a phase of treatment with its own schedule, and it begins on the same day the braces come off. Even a few days between removing the braces and bonding the retainer is enough for the teeth to start shifting, so both are done at the same appointment.
The first year is the most intensive. The removable retainer is worn strictly as instructed, check-ups are more frequent, and if a tooth feels as if it has moved, this is checked straight away. The tissues are still remodelling during this period, so a month without retention costs the most now.
In the second and third years the regime is relaxed. Night-time wear of the removable retainer is reduced to several times a week, and check-ups to one or two a year. The fixed wire stays in place and keeps doing its job without any effort on your part.
Then comes long-term monitoring, which lasts for as long as you want to keep the result. Once a year the dentist checks the retainer and the gums, and a professional clean every six months is worthwhile: plaque builds up faster under the wire than on an exposed tooth surface.
The cycle can be interrupted and restarted. If the wire breaks, comes unstuck or has to be removed for prosthetic work, the dentist decides what to replace it with: a new fixed wire or a removable retainer. If the teeth have already shifted noticeably, a short stage of realignment with aligners is sometimes needed, after which the retention period starts again from the beginning.
The most common complication with a fixed retainer is debonding from one or more teeth. In the first few years this happens to a significant proportion of patients, and it is not in itself the dentist's fault: the composite is working in a moist environment under constant chewing forces. The problem arises when debonding goes unnoticed.
A different scenario is when a partly debonded wire, or one bent during chewing, starts moving a tooth on its own. From the outside this looks like a single tooth rotating or tilting a few months after treatment, and correcting it requires repeat orthodontic treatment. That is why any change in how the wire area feels is worth showing to the dentist without waiting for a scheduled check-up.
The second group of risks concerns the gums and hygiene. The wire and composite make it harder to clean the tongue side of the teeth: plaque builds up there faster, followed by tartar, which leads to bleeding gums and, with long neglect, to recession of the gum margin at individual teeth. Prevention is simple but takes discipline: daily cleaning with superfloss or an interdental brush, a water flosser, and a professional clean every six months.
Removable retainers have their own problems. A clear retainer cracks, deforms in hot water and gets lost while travelling; with poor care, plaque builds up on it and it starts to smell, and the soft tissue underneath becomes irritated. An acrylic plate occasionally causes a contact reaction, and the metal bow a reaction to the nickel in the alloy, so tell the dentist about any known nickel allergy before the retainer is made.
Contraindications to a fixed wire are mostly temporary. Active caries, unfinished dental treatment in the bonding area, gum inflammation and tartar are dealt with first, and only then is the appliance bonded. Permanent limitations are rarer: a deep overbite in which the lower teeth hit the wire on closing, fixed prosthetic work planned on those teeth in the near future, and situations where the patient genuinely cannot keep the area clean, in which case a removable retainer is the wiser choice.
The biggest risk at this stage is not a complication but stopping retention. Relapse after giving up the retainer happens gradually and unnoticed, and getting the teeth back into position takes longer and costs more than wearing a retainer at night. No medical procedure is risk-free: the dentist must explain everything listed here before bonding, and you are entitled to a second opinion; the X-rays, scans and report can be shown to another orthodontist, and MediUkraine arranges such a consultation if needed.
📍 Lviv, Ukraine
A dental clinic in Lviv with a separate doctor for each field: oral surgery and implants, prosthodontics, restorative dentistry, endodontics under a microscope, periodontics, orthodontics and paediatric dentistry.
The old rule of thumb was as long as the braces were worn, but today retention is regarded as indefinite. For the first 3–6 months a removable retainer is worn almost round the clock, then only at night, and later several nights a week. A fixed wire on the lower incisors is often left for decades and removed only for specific indications. The exact regime for your case is set by the orthodontist at check-ups.
Bonding a fixed retainer at the Vidnova Dental Clinic costs from USD 62 per jaw; the sum includes preparing the tooth surfaces, fitting and bonding the wire, and polishing. Removal of the braces is charged separately, from USD 38 removal of the retainer from USD 22 and an orthodontist consultation from USD 16. A removable retainer is paid for as a separate item, because it is made by a dental laboratory. The final cost is set by the clinic after an examination.
Book an appointment within a few days, even if nothing hurts and the wire is still holding on the other teeth. A debonded section means that one tooth is left without retention and will start shifting relative to its neighbours. Until then, do not try to glue the wire back or bend it into place yourself: a deformed section will have to be replaced completely. If the end sticks out and hurts your tongue, you can cover it temporarily with orthodontic wax from a pharmacy.
They are not rivals but different tools. A wire does not rely on your discipline and holds the front teeth all the time, but it makes hygiene harder and can come unstuck unnoticed. A removable retainer covers the whole arch and comes out easily for cleaning, but it only works when it is actually worn and needs replacing from time to time. Most often the dentist recommends both: a wire on the lower incisors and a removable retainer for the upper jaw at night.
Teeth that are still straight after several years mean that retention is working, not that it is no longer needed. Long-term studies show that teeth change position throughout life. So the regime is relaxed gradually and only on the dentist's decision, for example from every night to two or three nights a week. Stopping abruptly will most likely lead to gradual relapse that becomes noticeable months later.
A fixed wire hardly affects speech: for the first 3–7 days the tongue gets used to the new contour, after which you no longer notice it. The food restrictions concern hard foods: do not bite nuts, ice, rusks, or hard fruit and vegetables whole with your front teeth; it is better to cut them up. A clear retainer affects the 's' and 'sh' sounds for the first few days, which passes within a week; you cannot eat with it in, so take it out at mealtimes.
Relapse is most likely: the teeth will gradually return to a position close to where they started. The lower incisor area changes fastest: the teeth crowd and rotate again, and the gaps that were closed during treatment tend to open. The process is not instantaneous; it stretches over months and years, so it is easy to miss at an early stage. Straightening the teeth again costs more and takes longer than maintaining the result with a retainer at night.
Tell us what you need: we will suggest a clinic and a doctor and send you a cost estimate.
Request a consultation →
