Tips For Brushing With Braces
If you wear braces, you probably know that it can be a bit hard to take care of your teeth when you have brackets and wires and rubber bands in your mouth every hour of every day. That’s what we’re here to help you with! Your orthodontists, such as John Redmond Orthodontics, want you to have the best smile that you can—and that means we’ve got to teach you how to take care of your teeth.
To keep that smile of yours bright and confident, we want to tell you about some tips we’ve garnered from orthodontists. Your orthodontist knows that it’s hard to reach plague and food particles when your teeth aren’t straight, they also know it’s hard to reach plague and particles when they are straight but have braces hindering a full view. The issue is, your braces are going to cause plaque build-up and particles to get caught more often than they’d naturally get caught. You’re going to need to prepare to spend a lot of time on your teeth, and we don’t want you to get gum disease because you didn’t take that time.
One big tip from orthodontists is to use an electric toothbrush, because your brush will have a controlled speed at which it spins and you won’t risk damaging your gums, teeth or braces. You want to first remove any elastics, bands and other removable parts of your orthodontic appliances. Then you clean your braces carefully, cleaning the brackets and the wires gently. After that, you want to brush each wire—top and bottoms—all the way around the upper and lower teeth. After that, you want to brush your teeth for two minutes twice a day. Each section of your mouth should have thirty seconds of brushing time, and some electric toothbrushes may track your time brushing so that is a feature you can look for if you’re shopping for a new brush. You rinse, then check your teeth. You want to make sure that no wires snapped, no brackets are loose, you don’t see food particles or bloody gums.
Flossing is a regular thing you should have been doing with your teeth, even with braces, though it is tricky. You want to floss once a day—using waxed floss, because unwaxed is likely to get caught and shred in your brackets and wires. You can also use dental tape or other products that are marketed for braces. You thread your floss under the main wire and then pass it between two teeth—do NOT snap it, simply move up and down and then remove it and move to the next set of teeth.
You want to make sure you’re using enough floss—usually eighteen inches is enough. Threading it carefully ensures that you won’t break it and get it stuck in your braces, or damage your gums with it.
The last thing you want to do is plan regular checkups with your orthodontist and attend those checkups.
