Hello all,

I have had a fixed wire retainer for several years on my front 4 upper incisors. I am maintaining proper tongue posture but I know that the people with the most results from mewing and palatal expansion have slight spaces open in between their teeth.

An important point of clarification is that I think people who mew hard or have palate expansion have the midline space (diastema) open a tiny bit, and then teeth movement closes it over weeks/months. And this happens multiple times so after years they may only have a small diastema even though they have expanded significantly. 

However, for me, I am worried that any expansion of the midpalatal suture I do get will be only expansion towards the back, near my molars, while the front of the suture will not expand due to the retainer. So it would be impossible for me to have a diastema with this fixed retainer, so I'm worried that I would get expansion only in the molar area of the suture, like a wedge with the wide end at the molars and the narrow tip at my incisors. This wedge-like expansion seems like it would not be as good as normal expansion, since it is not physiologically "normal". Or maybe it is harmful and causes asymmetry, or the retainer may just slow progress overall. I am wondering if I should get this removed. Anyone else in the same position?