Making Sure Your New Smile Is A Healthy One
Even though the braces on your teeth will give you a straighter smile, they can't protect your teeth from cavities and tooth decay. That's why it's critical to maintain a thorough oral hygiene routine every day while you're wearing your braces, ensuring that you have the healthiest smile possible. To make sure that you're getting the most out of your brushing and flossing routine, your local Griffin & Locust Grove orthodontic experts here at Lindsey Orthodontics have put together this helpful guide on how to brush and floss with braces.
Getting The Right Tools For The Job
With braces, food particles and bacteria can get caught in the tiny crevices in the brackets or in between your teeth, which can be particularly challenging to reach if you're not using the right tools for your oral hygiene routine. We recommend using a soft, micro-bristle brush that will make it easier for you to clean those hard to reach places. The soft bristles will also help massage your gums when brushing, cleaning slightly underneath and along the gum line, compared to hard bristles that will cut up the gum tissue and cause bleeding.
Once you have the perfect toothbrush, all you need is the perfect toothpaste. We recommend using a fluoride toothpaste, since fluoride helps restore essential vitamins and minerals to your teeth to make them stronger and more resistant to decay in the future.
Is An Electric toothbrush Safe For Braces?
We often hear this question since so many people are now opting for the ease and effectiveness of electric toothbrushes. We recommend an electric toothbrush with a soft bristle head and a pressure sensor. The pressure sensor will alert you if you are brushing too hard and putting too much pressure on your brackets.
Using Proper Brushing Technique For Maximum Effectiveness
Now that you have the tools that you need for the best brushing for your braces, it's time to go over how to properly use them. The ideal technique when brushing your teeth in braces is simple. Just angle your brush at a 45 degree angle so the bristles are pointing at your gum line. Then, start moving your brush in tiny circles around the teeth and gum line. Make sure not to scrub too hard or else you'll risk damaging your gums. As you keep making the tiny circles with your toothbrush, continue along the front, back, and chewing services of your teeth. Once you've covered every side of your smile, you're brushing is complete!
Special Brushing Tools To Make Things Easier
If you want to be even more thorough with your brushing while you're in braces, you can opt to invest in an interdental toothbrush. While it may not be shaped like your normal toothbrush, it does have a brush made from tiny fibers attached to a small metal wire, which can easily fit in between your braces, arch wire, and the spaces between your teeth. Interdental toothbrushes are also extremely easy to travel with, making it a perfect option if you're looking to clear away some chunks of food particles while you're on-the-go.
Water Flossers are another great oral hygiene tool for those wearing braces. These devices shoot out a thin, powerful stream of water that can be used to dislodge tough to reach food particles, easily clean the spaces between the teeth, and more. However, water flossing should never be used as an alternative to brushing and flossing. Instead, add a water flosser to your oral hygiene toolkit and normal routine to get ensure that your entire smile is free from harmful bacteria.
Floss Fundamentals
Flossing with braces can be particularly challenging, since the moment you try to slide a piece of floss down your teeth, the thread is suddenly blocked by an arch wire. So how do you get around this metal predicament? The answer is a simple device called a floss threader, which is a small device that helps you slide the floss underneath the arch wire so you can get all of that bacteria that is resting in the areas in between your teeth. For a thorough and effective floss, make sure you run some floss through every gap of the teeth, both top and bottom.
How Confident Are You In Your Oral Hygiene Skills?
With a full routine of brushing, flossing, and rinsing, you may think that you've gotten all the plaque and bacteria on your teeth so your smile is perfectly healthy. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to gauge the actual effectiveness of our oral hygiene habits, which is why we can use something called a "disclosing solution" or "disclosing tablets". What a disclosing solution does is spread a harmless dye throughout your mouth, which attaches itself to the food particles leftover in your teeth even after a brushing or flossing to highlight them and make them more visible. When you see how many particles you have left in your smile even after your brush, floss, and rinse, you can make sure you adjust your oral hygiene routine based on where the most food particles showed up.
Choose Lindsey Orthodontics For A Healthier Smile!
If you have any questions about proper brushing and flossing technique when wearing braces, or about orthodontic treatment in general, contact us at Lindsey Orthodontics to speak with a member of our friendly and knowledgeable staff. If you would like to schedule an appointment so you can start on the path towards your new smile, you can reach out to us or use our online appointment request form. We have two local offices in both Locust Grove and Griffin, so the high quality orthodontic care that you and your family deserves is never far away from home. We look forward to making you feel right at home in our office, and transforming you smile into a radiant and beautiful one!