Clear Aligners & Mouth Guards: Effects on Enamel

As more people turn to clear aligners for straighter smiles and mouthguards for sports or nighttime grinding, questions about their impact on enamel are becoming more common. While both devices play important roles in dental health, the way they interact with your teeth can either help preserve your enamel or contribute to its wear.

Key Takeaways

• Clear aligners can facilitate better oral hygiene than traditional braces. Because they’re removable, they allow the wearer to brush and floss normally. However, improper cleaning or wearing them while consuming sugary or acidic drinks can trap bacteria and harm enamel.^1,4
• Mouth guards help to protect enamel from grinding and impact. Night guards help to shield teeth from the excessive force of bruxism, which can wear through enamel.^6,7,8
• Caring for your dental appliances and your teeth is equally important. Regular cleaning of your teeth and appliances is crucial for their success. Use a fluoride toothpaste and mouthwash from Pronamel to strengthen enamel and help prevent decay.^4,5,8

What Are Clear Aligners for Teeth

Clear aligner therapy was developed as a discrete alternative to traditional metal braces.¹ Instead of brackets and wires, clear aligners are made from transparent, medical-grade plastic and are intended to help shift your teeth into their desired position.¹ Unlike braces, aligners can be removed but should be worn for 20-22 hours per day.¹

Pros of Clear Aligners

There are several advantages to using aligners for orthodontic purposes:¹

• Aesthetics – Aligners are nearly invisible when compared to metal braces.
• Comfort – Aligners are custom-fit to the user and there are no rough wires or brackets.
• Removable – They allow users to maintain their oral hygiene routines and not have to restrict their diet as they would with traditional braces.

How Aligners Can Affect Enamel and Oral Health

The fact that aligners can be removed may be of the greatest benefit to overall oral health.² There’s a correlation between decreased oral health and increased plaque in people with traditional fixed braces, which may be because people have a hard time brushing and flossing with all that metal in the way.²

Traditional braces increase the prevalence of white spot lesions (WSLs), an opaque, white region on the surface of the tooth that indicates the early stages of tooth decay.² Development of WSLs is the result of phases of remineralization and demineralization, which means that enamel was weakened and strengthened over time.² Comparatively, those with clear aligners were found to be at a lower risk of developing WSLs due to their ability to maintain proper oral hygiene.

How to Keep Your Clear Aligners Clean and Protect Your Teeth

While clear aligners are preferred by orthodontists and patients², the results and the health of your teeth are entirely up to you. Take care to follow these directives:^1,3,4

• Avoid any drink that isn’t water while wearing aligners.
• Sugars and acids from soft drinks, juice, flavored waters and sports drinks can become trapped in the appliance and cause tooth decay.
• After eating or drinking, thoroughly brush your teeth before re-inserting your aligners.
• Aligners can harbor bacteria, which can lead to tooth decay or gum problems if not properly removed.
• Both the internal and external surfaces of the aligner should be cleaned to avoid microbial adhesion and the formation of a biofilm.
• Biofilms can easily spread throughout the mouth, which can interfere with existing oral bacteria and lead to bacteria-related issues like tooth decay, gum disease and systemic infections.

Follow the directions of your orthodontic and dental professionals carefully to ensure that your teeth remain healthy while you’re using a clear aligner. Keeping your aligner clean should be a part of your oral hygiene routine.

Caring for Your Teeth During Aligner Therapy

If one of the benefits of wearing clear aligners to straighten your teeth is the ability to maintain proper oral hygiene, you should take the proper steps to keep your mouth healthy:^4,5

1. Brush your teeth twice a day for two minutes each time, with a fluoride toothpaste. Fluoride is what protects teeth from tooth decay by strengthening the hard outer surface of the teeth, called enamel.
2. Clean between your teeth with floss or another interdental cleaner to remove debris from what you’ve eaten and plaque.
3. Visit your dentist for routine check-ups and professional cleaning.
4. Avoid tobacco products, which may increase your chances of gum disease,
5. Eat a balanced diet. Limit sweets, sodas and other sugary things.
6. Keep your aligner clean and follow the instructions from your orthodontist for doing so. Caring for your aligner will keep bacteria from building up and affecting your enamel.

Enamel Care for Aligner Therapy

If you’re looking to start an oral health routine to complement your aligner therapy, look to Pronamel. Brush with Pronamel Clinical Enamel Strength Deep Clean toothpaste; it provides 3x stronger enamel protection* and has an advanced cleaning system for 55% more effective cleaning action.^

28% of clear aligner wearers develop at least one new early-stage cavity. Use Pronamel mouthwash to help protect against cavities. For more effective interdental cleaning, Pronamel Intensive Enamel Repair Extra Fresh Mouthwash gets in hard-to-reach areas and actively repairs acid-weakened enamel beyond brushing alone.**

Mouth Guards and Night Guards

Mouth guards help to protect your teeth from sports injuries and conditions like teeth grinding.⁶ A night guard is a mouth guard that is specifically worn at night while you’re sleeping. They can be custom-made by a dental professional or purchased from a store.⁶

Bruxism and Enamel

Bruxism is the term used to describe the unconscious, involuntary clenching, grinding and forward thrusting of the jaw, often while a person is asleep.⁷ Grinding and clenching your teeth is hard on your jaw, muscles and teeth; it’s estimated that people with bruxism can bite down with a force that’s six times greater than normal!⁷

This can result in damage to your teeth like surface cracks in your enamel, broken teeth, tooth pain and sensitivity.⁷ In some instances, tooth grinding and clenching may be so severe that people can wear through their enamel to the dentin of their teeth in some spots.⁸ Since compromised enamel can lead to tooth decay and sensitivity, it’s important to take steps to protect your teeth.

Mouth Guards for Sleeping

Your dental professional may suggest using an oral appliance to help protect your teeth, like a mouth guard for sleeping.⁷ These devices are often hard acrylic or resin and are typically worn in the upper jaw.⁸ They don’t stop tooth grinding from happening, but they can help to prevent or limit the amount of damage to your teeth that is caused by the disorder.⁸

How Should a Night Guard Fit?

A proper night guard should offer protection against trauma from the force of repeated tooth clenching while you’re asleep. While soft “boil and bite” mouth guards are available at drugstores, hard mouth guards that are custom fit to your jaw are preferred:^6,8

• A soft mouth guard is often harder to adjust to.
• A night guard that is custom-made for your mouth can help prevent inadvertent tooth movements due to biting.

How to Clean Mouth Guards

Mouth guards pick up bacteria from inside your mouth, which means that you should make every effort to keep your teeth and your night guard clean.⁸

• Brush your teeth thoroughly before putting your night guard in before bed, and then again when you take it out in the morning.
• Rinse your mouth guard in cool water and use a brush and soapy water to clean it after each use – your dental professional may have more specific instructions if they’ve custom-fit an appliance to your mouth.

As with other dental appliances, properly caring for your teeth is an important step in the process. If you’re dealing with bruxism, you may already have compromised enamel. Choose a fluoride toothpaste that’s designed for stronger, healthier enamel: Pronamel.

 

^{*vs. your mouth’s natural defenses
**when used as directed with a fluoride toothpaste
^vs. Pronamel Intensive Enamel Repair}

 

Source Citations:

1. Clear Aligners. American Association of Orthodontists. https://aaoinfo.org/treatments/aligners/. Accessed 8/13/25.

2. Impact of Clear Aligners on Oral Health and Oral Microbiome During Orthodontic Treatment. International Dental Journal. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10509397/#sec0008. Accessed 8/13/25.

3. Aligners vs. Braces: A Comparison. American Association of Orthodontists. https://aaoinfo.org/whats-trending/braces-vs-clear-aligners/. Accessed 8/13/25.

4. Cleaning and Disinfection Protocols for Clear Orthodontic Aligners: A Systematic Review. National Library of Medicine. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8871989/. Accessed 8/13/25.

6. Is there evidence for Novamin application in remineralization?: A Systematic review. Journal of Oral Biology and Craniofacial Research. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7068624/. Accessed 6/26/25.

7. Dentin Hypersensitivity: Etiology, Diagnosis and Contemporary Therapeutic Approaches—A Review in Literature. Applied Sciences. https://doi.org/10.3390/app132111632. Accessed 8/20/2025.