Our Easy Guide to Cleaning Your Teeth with Braces
Braces can achieve amazing results in straightening and realigning your teeth, but it’s important to look after both your teeth and your braces throughout the entire treatment. When you’re going through the discomfort and expense of wearing braces for a length of time, the last thing you want is to cause tooth decay, gum disease or tooth staining from improper oral care. Below, we list some top tips on how to look after your teeth with braces.
Get the Right Brush
When you’re wearing a brace with brackets, wires and sometimes elastics, there are a lot of additional places for food particles to become trapped in your mouth and risk causing a build-up of bacteria. In order to clean these small surfaces and harder to reach areas, you should choose a brush with a smaller head. Try the Oral B ‘Ortho’ manual toothbrush or ‘Ortho’ head for electric toothbrushes which are specially designed to clean around braces.
Be Gentle
It can be tempting to be more enthusiastic with your tooth brushing when cleaning around a brace as you’re worried about getting rid of any debris, but be careful not to aggravate gums that could be sore from recent orthodontic treatment or brace adjustment. Choose a toothbrush with soft nylon bristles and brush thoroughly but gently, covering all four quadrants of your mouth in turn.
Use a Floss Threader
Trying to floss teeth under braces isn’t easy, but you can simplify the process by using an orthodontic floss threader. This is a thin piece of flexible plastic that you can thread like a needle to get floss onto the other side of teeth. Floss picks are another tool that can make flossing easier with braces – these have a short section of floss held between two prongs that you can use with one hand to get between the brace brackets.
Kill Bacteria with Mouthwash
If you’re worried that you can no longer reach every part of your mouth with a toothbrush or floss now that you have a brace , then make sure to use mouthwash as part of your oral care routine. Mouthwashes such as Colgate Advanced Pro-Shield have antibacterial properties to kill 99% of germs on contact, reduce the build-up of plaque and help to prevent gingivitis. On top of this the mouthwash will leave you with fresh breath and 12 hours of protection against germs – what more could you want!
For more advice on cleaning your teeth with braces from the team of ortho-experts at Tony Weir Orthodontics, call us now on 07 3054 6767 or visit our contact page for more ways to get in touch.