Eating with dental braces

Getting dental braces is the investment to get a nice looking smile and redesign your smile aesthetics. Wearing orthodontic appliances like metal wires, ceramic braces, Invisalign causes little discomforts in the initial days.

If you wore them, you might experience the soreness, pain, swelling and teeth sensitivity for the first few weeks. Right? When the braces get adjusted with your mouth, you can get relief from such annoyance.

Likewise, you need to adjust your diet menu during the orthodontic treatment. It is because the certain food items damage or dislodge the braces. It persists the treatment duration to get the smile you want.

In this post, eating habits to be followed while wearing braces are given by experts in Orthodontics.

1. Switch to soft foods

Hard food items like nuts, popcorn, hard candy, potato chips and others should be avoided. A bite on such foodstuffs may break or loose the ceramic braces. Similarly, hard foods are effective to evict the brackets and wires in a metallic brace.

Soup

Hence the dental brace wearer should say bye to hard foods. It is essential to stick to soup, yoghurt, soft cheeses and other soft food items.

2. Cut fruits and vegetables into small bites

A bite on a cucumber or carrot with bare teeth does not harm the teeth. In contrast, a bite on the fruit when the teeth are covered or concealed with dental braces results in dislodging the brace.

Sliced Carrot

It is ideal for other fruits and vegetables that we eat without slicing them. Hence we advise you to cut them into small pieces before consumption.

3. Use side and back teeth for chewing

It is difficult to bite anything front teeth when you wear dental braces. Similarly, the wearer may experience teeth sensitivity in the front teeth at while wearing orthodontic appliances. Dental braces may knock down when you use the teeth with braces to chew or bite food items.

This is the reason why Dentists recommend to use side and back teeth to chew food.

4. Avoid Sticky foods

Chewing Gums

You should stay far from sticky food items like chewing gums. When you bite or chomp a gum with braces, the gum affix to the surfaces of the orthodontic appliance. It is little difficult to remove the gum wrapped in the brackets. Likewise, they damage the braces.

5. Eat slowly and carefully

Even after switching to soft foods and consuming sliced fruits, you need to bite and chew them slowly. When the braces encounter a vigorous chewing, it is followed by loosening of the braces. Similarly, the chances are higher for the braces come out from the teeth.

6. Avoid sugar craving

When you take those while wearing Invisalign or other orthodontic braces, the sugar particles trapped between the brace and your teeth.

Sugary foods

Unless you clean or wash away the sugar deposition, it will initiate the decay process. It is not easy to treat cavities during the phase of orthodontic treatment.

Avoiding or minimizing the consumption of drinks and food items like soda, sweetened beverages, jams and others which are rich in sugar content is mandatory.

7. Don’t bite or chew inedible things

Few people have the habit of biting pencils, pen caps, nails and other things they have. Biting on such hard substances ends in crack in the teeth. The same will happen in the dental braces as they are fragile.

A girl with pencil in her mouth

Remember that our teeth and orthodontic appliances are not designed to chew inedible things.

Conclusion

You have to experience the hardships like difficulty in eating, teeth sensitivity and others in the initial stage of orthodontic treatment. When the gum tightens with the scar tissue, you can get relief from the discomfort levels.

Likewise, when you get familiar with the different eating habits, eating with a dental brace is not difficult. Remember that the difficulties you encounter with braces are temporary, the redesigned smile you are going to obtain is longevity.