Orthodontic Hygiene to Ensure Oral Health While Wearing Braces

If your orthodontist has recently suggested getting braces for you or a family member, you will need to know the best way to care for them. Our blog gives you tips to help maintain your oral health, while undergoing orthodontic treatment.

Every orthodontic patient should know how to keep braces clean, to protect their investment and ensure teeth stay clean and healthy. By learning about the proper way of cleaning your braces, they can last for the remainder of your treatment time at New Image Dentistry & Orthodontics. Your commitment is necessary for your oral health.

Food Debris and Plaque Can Get Caught in and Around Braces

The many different components of braces have its own challenges, when it comes to cleaning. Elastics, screws, springs, expanders, brackets, bands, wires, and springs provide additional surfaces perfect for food debris, plaque, and acids, that can bond to hardware, making it quite difficult to clean. The hard-to-see germs find a place to hide around hardware and between teeth, which then multiplies. Acid, the by-product of the germ-digestion process, is then able to etch around the bands and brackets.

Braces Hygiene at Home

The right toothbrush and how you use it, whether manual or electric, is crucial for the care of braces. A toothbrush that consists of soft bristles and a compact head is perfect for cleaning braces, just remember to remove elastics before brushing, so as not to mess with hooks and wires. Also, the toothbrush should be kept at a 45-degree angle at the gum line, and then swiped across the teeth and then upward, toward the biting surfaces of the teeth.

Brush the top and bottom surfaces of the brackets, which will remove plaque-producing bacteria and food debris. Brush the front of the brackets and wires, as well. You may try holding back your lip with one hand, while you brush the bracket areas with the other hand.

Visit us for regular checkups, and allow Dr. Cloward, Siddiqui, or Dr. Baclar to examine your braces. Contact us today at 623-825-9445 for braces in Glendale, Arizona.