Caring for your oral hygiene throughout your braces treatment is very important! Help protect your teeth and get the most out of your smile by regularly cleaning your braces and following some simple guidelines.
When you visit our office, we will change your wires and reposition brackets. But in-between visits, caring for your Damon Braces is entirely up to you!
Taking care of your teeth does become more difficult when you get braces. With wires and brackets, there are countless spaces for food and plaque to get trapped. It is essential that you brush after each meal, floss once a day, and rinse with mouthwash.
While this may seem like a lot of work, keeping your braces clean is extremely important for maintaining your braces. Being conscious of your hygiene now may prevent more permanent issues down the road, such as decalcification.
Because they are permanently affixed to your teeth, caring for braces is different from caring for Invisalign. Properly cleaning braces will ensure your oral hygiene is in good shape and can help make your treatment work better in the long run.
The good news with flossing is that you only have to do this once a day. You can always floss more if needed, though. Flossing helps with debris that brushing is not able to remove. Follow these steps for flossing with braces:
Once you have brushed and flossed, rinse your mouth with a mouthwash that is concentrated on killing germs and bacteria. We also recommend using mouthwash after eating or drinking beverages with dark pigments like coffee, cola, or wine.
The responsibility of braces includes more than regular cleaning. You will need to make some slight alterations in your lifestyle. These habits are easy to develop and go a long way towards getting a head-turning smile.
Anyone playing sports should protect their braces and teeth by wearing a mouthguard. Mouthguards are very important to protect your teeth, brackets, and wires during athletic activities.
Since brackets and wires can pop off of teeth, all patients with braces should avoid certain foods. Sticky or chewy foods such as caramel, bubblegum, taffy, popcorn, peanuts, hard candy can damage your braces. Eating these foods may cause brackets to pop off your teeth. It can delay or extend your treatment time and cause you to make unnecessary trips to our office.
Clear brackets demand a higher level of attention. Since the clear brackets are prone to staining, you need to exhibit care with coffee, soda, red wine, or foods with artificial colors. If you have clear braces and consume any dark-colored food or drink, you will want to ensure that you are brushing your teeth right after and utilizing mouthwash. This will prevent staining of your clear brackets and the glue around the brackets.
At Bovenizer and Baker, we know that braces are a large investment of both money and time. And we want to ensure you are getting the most out of your treatment. By adding some simple steps to your daily mouth hygiene routine, you can help ensure you get the best possible results from your treatment.
As always, if you have any questions, please contact our office for more information at 919.303.4557. For more frequently asked questions on taking care of your braces, visit our FAQ Page.