Life With Braces

When you wear braces, you want to make sure you continue to take care of your teeth, but you will also want to be sure you include some other care tips to your dental regimen. Here are dental care tips for you when you wear braces:

Brush after each meal that you eat

While you should brush your teeth in the morning and at night regularly, you want to increase this when you have braces on to include after each meal as well. When you eat, food particles can very easily get lodged between the brackets and wires where it can stay for a long time. This can cause you to have bad breath, a higher likeliness of cavities, ore staining and discoloration and other problems. Brushing after you eat helps remove food before it can get really lodged in the braces. Consider the following when it comes to brushing:

• Use a soft bristled toothbrush
• Don't use an electronic one because you won't maintain as much control over it
• If your current toothbrush doesn't do the job well enough, try ones with different head shapes
• Brush at different angles to really get around the braces
• Keep a small toothbrushing kit with you at all times, so you can brush when you eat out

Floss after you eat

While you should always floss after eating, you especially want to with braces. You will find that it can be more challenging at first, but you will be able to get the hang of it in no time. You want to thread the floss between your teeth to get the spaces between the tops and then floss along the bottoms. If you continue to have a hard time getting the floss to go where you want, then you can buy a threader, or you can even purchase floss that has a stiffer tip that makes it easier to get it to go right where you want it to go.

Use a water pick regularly

You should invest in a water pick that you can use at the end of the day to really blast food particles out from your braces. Make sure that the water pick isn't so strong that it may loosen up your braces. If you have any doubts about whether or not it is too strong, take it in to show your dentist and get his seal of approval. However, most models allow you to use a lower setting, so you won't have to worry about this.

Contact a dentist, like Snyder, Donald DDS, for more help.