After each visit before you leave the assistants chair, take some time to stand up, walk around, feel every bracket with your tongue and swallow to make sure that everything feels fine before you leave. The tiniest wire poke can sometime be painful so make sure you are completely comfortable before you leave.
1. Is there a certain way I should be brushing my teeth?
When brushing your teeth it is best to spend a few minutes on each arch angling your toothbrush perpendicular to the brackets so that they are nice and clean, paying attention especially by the gum line.
2. What if I get any sores or cuts on my cheeks and tongue?
For the first few months wax will be very useful in soothing your lips and tongue. If you need to, apply the wax to each bracket at night to give your tongue some rest. Walgreens also sells non-toxic silicone ear plugs that are awesome at staying put inside your mouth. It can be used just as wax to cover the brackets.
3. How will the adjustments feel?
With each wire change your teeth might feel like you are not quite biting right. This is just a sensation of something new in your mouth and the feeling will go away within a few hours.
4. What happens if I break a bracket?
As these brackets are on the inside of your teeth and sometimes on the biting surface of your teeth, if the brackets on the back teeth come loose or break we will sometimes cement them back on at a later date because during the first few months of treatment we are focusing on moving the front teeth. If a bracket comes loose, save the bracket and call our office and we will be happy to schedule you for a repair appointment.
5. Foods to Avoid
NO – NO FOODS LIST
Eating certain foods can cause damage to your braces and wires. Loose bands, broken brackets and broken wires cause delays in your orthodontic treatment. Here is our list to help you through your orthodontic journey!ICE: May be nice but never chew it! It will damage your braces.
- ICE: May be nice but never chew it! It will damage your braces.
- PIZZA CRUST: The hard crust can bend the wires. The pizza part is ok.
- HARD PRETZELS, HARD ROLLS, BAGELS: They bend wires and break brackets.
- DORITOS, HARD TACOS, CHEETOS and the LIKE: They are too crunchy!
- APPLES: Slices are okay, just don’t bite directly into the whole apple.
- CORN ON THE COB: Cut the corn off of the cob.
- CHICKEN AND RIBS: Cut the meat off the bone.
- LOLLIPOPS, JOLLY RANCHERS, & HARD CANDY: They weaken your braces when you bite into them!
- POPCORN: The little kernels get between the gum and the braces.
- RAW CARROTS: Slice them thinly and eat with your back teeth.
- NUTS: Nuts are way too hard. NO NUTS OF ANY KIND.
- CARAMEL CORN, BUBBLE GUM, TAFFY, STARBURST: It sticks and it will pull wires out!
- PENS AND PENCILS: Chewing on pens, pen caps or pencils can break brackets.
There are many other foods that may cause trouble.
If you are in doubt, ask us about a particular food item.
REMEMBER: NOTHING HARD, NOTHING STICKY OR CHEWY,
AND NOTHING VERY SWEET!
Speech Exercise:
As you may have already noticed your speech may sound a little different. In order to get back to your normal speech, try reading The Rainbow Passage. This passage was developed by speech pathologists to help retrain the tongue to work around your braces. Read The Rainbow Passage out loud every day until you feel that your speech is back to normal.
“The Rainbow Passage”
“When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act like a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is, according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”