Food for Thought

If you remember these three words and use a little common sense, you can avoid damaging your orthodontic appliances and/or your teeth. Certain foods can break or bend the wires and brackets in your mouth, so you must carefully choose the foods you eat.

Damaged appliances have several bad effects. If the appliance is damaged, teeth can relapse back to their original positions, thus negating previous treatment results. Also, if your appointment time is spent fixing your braces, there will not be time to move your treatment forward, thus increasing your total treatment time. Finally, a severely damaged appliance can actually move teeth into undesirable positions and increase your overall treatment time.

Sweet and sticky foods are hard to completely remove from your braces. If allowed to linger on your teeth, they constantly feed acid producing bacteria which can dissolve tooth enamel and irritate the gums. Once these processes start, they are difficult to stop. Most patients find it easier to simply avoid these foods. If you do eat them, brush as soon as possible and double the time you normally spend brushing.

Examples of dangerous foods:

ice	taffy	soda
hard breads	caramels	candy
nuts	gum	Kool-Aid
hard candy	jerky	cake
uncut raw veggies	tootsie rolls	cookies
popcorn	gummy bears	pie
		ice cream

If you are not sure about a food, ask us. If we want for you to avoid a favorite treat, perhaps we can help you think of a good substitute!