Proven Ways to Keep Your Teeth Clean with Braces

July 09, 2021, Clove Dental

Maintaining better oral hygiene is a must for everyone but become quite challenging when one has to keep their teeth clean while having braces. Food and plaque get trapped around braces, leading food to stained teeth, bad breath, cavities, and swollen gums. Dental braces made it a little difficult to keep the teeth and gums healthy, but not anymore. With the following proven tips, you can keep your teeth clean and healthy while having braces. Let’s go through them one by one.

Brushing & Flossing with Braces

As per general oral health guidelines, brushing teeth twice a day is essential and becomes mandatory when people have braces. As the braces and wires catch food really easily, it becomes essential to brush and floss as well. This prevents all the food and other particles from getting stuck in between and keep the teeth safe and healthy. Also, the professionals have recommended some guidelines to follow for brushing and flossing with braces.

If you have removable braces, then make sure to remove them while eating or brushing.

Whenever you eat anything, make sure to rinse your mouth every time so that none of the food particles gets stuck in between braces.

If there are spaces in between your teeth, always use an interdental brush so that all the food particles get cleared easily and there will be no infection.

Clean every tooth individually in a circular motion while applying gentle pressure.

Major Food to Avoid While Having Braces

Since braces are more delicate than teeth, certain food must be avoided while wearing braces. Once your get braces from any of the dental clinics, your orthodontist will offer you a list of food to eat and avoid. Some of the most common and major foods to avoid are -

Nuts
Ice
Popcorn
Gum or Sticky Food
Caramel
Beef Jerky
Apples
Carrots

Basically, you just have to stay away from the food that is chewy, sticky, hard, and crunchy. Avoiding such foods increase the longevity of your braces and soon you’ll be able to get your beautiful smile back.

What To Do When Something Bad Happen?

When the braces wire breaks or protrudes due to any injury or accident, it becomes highly uncomfortable to eat or even speak. In such a situation, it becomes really essential to visit the dentist as soon as possible. Also, if you realize a loose band or bracket or a protruding wire, it is best to consult your orthodontist as soon as possible. Till then, follow these tips -

Loose Brackets - Use a small amount of wax to reattach the loose brackets or to offer support between the gums and brackets.

Protruding Wire - Use the eraser attached at the back of the pencil to position the protruding wire. If that seems impossible or difficult, try to use a little wax to cover the end of the wire.

Lose Spacers & Bands - Both of them can be replaced and recemented back into place but only by the professionals.

These are some of the saviour tips that can help you save your teeth and dental wires from damage. So, along with keeping a check on your oral health, keep these aforementioned tips in mind. Undoubtedly, taking care of the teeth along with braces seems challenging, but with these aforementioned tips, one can keep track of oral health. And yes, make sure to visit the dental clinic as soon as possible when you feel that your wires get loosen or anything. The dentist immediately tackles the situation and save your teeth from any crack or damage.
 

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