Living With Braces: Care and Oral Hygiene
Braces need a slightly different daily routine. Brush after every meal with a soft-bristled brush, floss around the wires once a day, avoid hard and sticky foods, and keep your regular dental cleanings. Patients who do those four things finish on schedule with healthy teeth underneath. Patients who do not finish late, sometimes with marks on the enamel.
None of this is particularly difficult. It is simply unfamiliar, and the first fortnight is comfortably the hardest part of the adjustment. What follows is what actually matters, in roughly the order it matters.
Brushing With Braces
Brush after every meal and before bed, for two minutes each time.
Use a soft-bristled brush with a small head, or a powered brush if you have one. Angle the bristles toward the gum line at roughly forty five degrees and work in small circles, then repeat the same motion above and below each bracket, which is where food accumulates and where brushing is usually skipped. Finish with the chewing surfaces and the inside faces of the teeth.
An interdental brush, the small cone-shaped one, gets under the wire and around the brackets in a way a regular brush cannot. Keep one in your bag or your locker.
Fluoride toothpaste, every time. A fluoride mouth rinse is a useful extra layer, particularly for teenagers.
Flossing With Braces
Once a day, properly, is better than three rushed attempts.
The wire is the obstacle, and the solution is a floss threader or pre-threaded orthodontic floss that lets you get the floss behind it. Slide gently between the teeth, curve the floss against each tooth surface, and go just under the gum line. A water flosser is a genuine help here, especially for patients who find threading fiddly, though it works best alongside floss rather than instead of it.
What Are White Spots and How Do You Avoid Them?
White spots are patches of early enamel damage that appear where plaque has been left sitting against the tooth, usually in a ring around where a bracket used to be. They show up when the braces come off, which is the worst possible timing.
They are caused by plaque rather than by the adhesive or by the braces themselves. Brushing after meals, cleaning around the brackets rather than only across them, using fluoride and keeping sugary drinks to a minimum will prevent them entirely. Once formed they are difficult to reverse, which is precisely why we mention them at the beginning of treatment rather than at the end.
Eating With Braces
Avoid these. Hard foods that need real force: nuts, ice, hard candy, popcorn kernels. Sticky foods that pull at brackets: caramel, taffy, chewing gum. Chewy foods that wrap around wires: bagels, hard rolls, licorice. And anything you bite into with your front teeth, such as whole apples, corn on the cob and raw carrots. Cut those into pieces instead of giving them up.
Eat these freely. Soft breads, pasta, rice, soft-cooked meats and fish, eggs, dairy, soft cheeses, cooked vegetables, bananas and other soft fruit, and most desserts without nuts. The list of what you can eat is far longer than the list of what you cannot.
Also worth saying: do not chew pens, fingernails or ice. Broken brackets from non-food chewing are common and entirely avoidable.
The First Week and What to Expect
Soreness. Your teeth will feel tender for a few days after placement and for a day or so after each adjustment, which is simply the teeth beginning to move. Over-the-counter pain relievers, soft food and a warm salt water rinse handle it comfortably.
Irritation. Lips and cheeks need a week or two to toughen up. Orthodontic wax over any bracket that is rubbing makes a substantial difference. Ask us for more whenever you run out.
Loose-feeling teeth. Teeth feel slightly mobile as they move through bone. This is normal and temporary.
A poking wire or a loose bracket. Cover it with wax and call us. Our emergency care page explains what to do first and when a visit is needed.
Sports, Instruments and Braces
Keep playing. For any contact sport, wear a mouthguard over the braces and tell us which sport it is so we can advise on fit. A broken bracket is inconvenient, whereas a lip injury against unprotected brackets is considerably worse.
Wind instrument players usually adapt within a few weeks. Wax on the brackets helps during the adjustment period, and it is worth telling your music teacher what is going on.
Keep Seeing Your Dentist
Every six months, throughout treatment. Braces make thorough cleaning harder, which raises the value of a professional clean rather than lowering it. We coordinate with your dentist whenever anything overlaps.
Frequently Asked Questions About Braces Care
How many times a day should I really be brushing?
After every meal and before bed, which for most people works out to four times a day. If you are somewhere without a brush, rinse vigorously with water and brush as soon as you can.
Do I need a water flosser?
Not strictly, but many patients find one makes the difference between flossing daily and not bothering. Use it in addition to floss and a threader rather than as a replacement.
Can I chew gum with braces?
No. Gum is the classic bracket-remover, and sugar-free gum pulls at wires just as effectively as the sugary kind.
My braces feel fine. Do I still need to come in every six to eight weeks?
Yes. Adjustments keep the teeth moving to plan, and skipping visits is one of the most reliable ways to add months to your treatment. Feeling fine is not evidence of progress.
Questions About Your Braces?
Call or text us at (847) 272-0600. If you are still deciding on treatment, our types of braces page compares the options, and you can request a complimentary consultation at our Northbrook office at 1220 Meadow Rd, Ste 300.