Dr. Hughes wants to know: Do you know where your retainers are?

If you recently completed treatment at Hughes Orthodontics, we’d like to congratulate you! Now that your braces have been removed, Dr. Hughes will provide—or has provided you—with retainers. After braces are removed, teeth can shift out of position if they are not stabilized. Retainers, however, provide that stabilization. They are designed to hold teeth in their corrected, ideal positions until the bones and gums adapt to the treatment changes. Wearing retainers exactly as instructed by Dr. Hughes is the best insurance that the treatment improvements last for a lifetime. Here are some things to remember when you receive your retainers:


* Wear your retainers full time, until the doctor instructs otherwise. Wearing your retainers at night ensures that your pearly whites won’t relapse.

* Take your retainers out when eating...and always put retainers in their case! (Most appliances are lost in school lunch rooms or restaurants.)

* Clean retainers thoroughly once a day with a toothbrush and only a small amount of toothpaste. Use warm but not hot water.

* When retainers are not in your mouth they should ALWAYS be in a retainer case.

* Retainers are breakable, so treat them with care. If retainers are lost or broken, give us a call immediately.

* Remove retainers when swimming or during any sporting activity in which the retainers could fall out and get broken or lost (cheerleading, basketball, etc.) or when you should be wearing a mouth guard (football, soccer, etc.).

We hope this helps! You can always contact our team by calling 703-360-8660 if you have any questions! Have a great weekend!

This Earth Day, are you making a difference? From Dr. Hughes

At Hughes Orthodontics, we support Earth Day, which is designed to inspire awareness and appreciation for our environment and ecosystem. Earth Day marks its 40th anniversary today.

Whether lending a helping hand to plant trees or getting out to volunteer in various projects in our community, today is our opportunity to get involved in making our year-round impact in the community. Are you making a difference today? Tell us, what are you up to? How long have you participated in helping our planet?

If you’d like to join the millions of people around the world who are making small but important changes to help sustain our ecosystem, try these helpful environmental tips, courtesy of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA. For a list of events in our community, please click here.

Hughes Orthodontics, reminding you to play it safe this spring

April, also known as National Facial Protection Month, is upon us, and for Dr. Hughes and our team at Hughes Orthodontics, that only means one thing: it’s once again time to remind our dear patients to protect their faces and pearly whites. Above is a helpful video from our friends at the AAO about staying safe on the ball field this spring.

According to the National Youth Sports Safety Foundation, children, high-school athletes and adults will have more than 5,000,000 teeth knocked out in sporting events this year. For our team at Hughes Orthodontics, that's just not acceptable.

We hope the above video helps. Dr. Hughes will tell you protective gear is vital for anyone engaging in tooth or mouth-threatening activities. If you have any further questions about any of the tips offered in the video, please contact Hughes Orthodontics. And remember to have fun and stay safe!

Smile, and you might just live longer! From Hughes Orthodontics

People with big smiles may live than those who don’t! That, according to a March 2010 study at Michigan’s Wayne State University. Dr. Hughes has known for quite some time that positive emotion has been linked to both physical and mental health, but researchers at the university did something quite interesting: they looked at photos of 230 ball-players who began their careers in baseball prior to 1950.

The players' photos were enlarged, and then studied their smile intensity (ranging from big smile, no smile or partial smile). The players' smile ratings were compared with data from deaths that occurred from 2006 through 2009. The researchers then corrected their analysis to account for other factors associated with life longevity, such as body mass index, career length and even college attendance.

The results? Researchers found that players who weren't smiling in the photos died at the average age of 72.9 years. Players with partial smiles lived to be 75. Those with big smiles, however, lived on average to be almost 80 years old!

Smile now, smile often and you might just live longer! Have you been perfecting your smile by visiting Hughes Orthodontics on a regular basis? If not, give us a call!

Don't be fooled! From Dr. Hughes

Today is traditionally known as April Fools' Day. Dr. Hughes and our fun staff would like it if you shared a story about a trick you played, or a friend played on you, on this silliest of days.

Feel free to post them here or on our Facebook page, and try not to get fooled today!