Your child can maintain proper dental hygiene with their braces with the right tools and support. Here’s how!

Mouth Rinses

Since braces unfortunately make it easier for food to get trapped in the teeth due to the wires and brackets, it’s essential that rinsing become part of your child’s routine. This could be a simple rinse with water a few times a day to loosen trapped food, or you child may benefit from a mouthwash or fluoride rinse to further protect their smile. You can talk with your dentist about mouth rinses and how they’ll impact your child’s oral health.

Brushing Carefully

Your child’s brushing routine won’t change. They should still brush for the full two minutes two times a day. However, brushing may take a little more effort with the braces in the way. Your child may have to learn how to properly position the toothbrush in order to remove plaque effectively.

To do this, have your child gently brush their gumline first. Then, you can have them angle their toothbrush down and brush the top part of the teeth above the bracket. Finally, move to the bottom part of teeth below the bracket and brush upwards. This way, you’re brushing the entire tooth and floss can help remove everything in between.

Brushing regularly will help avoid stain marks around where the brackets are, so brushing is an integral part of your child’s oral care routine!

Floss

Although flossing will get a little trickier with braces, it’s essential that your child still flosses. By using flossing aids such as floss threaders, your child can get under braces and remove plaque that would otherwise be difficult to reach. Proper flossing is going to be essential to keeping up with dental hygiene with braces!

Checkups

No matter how well your child cleans their teeth, getting checkups with your dentist every six months is crucial. During these cleanings, your dentist can remove plaque that’s built up and give your child’s mouth a proper teeth cleaning. They can also identify problem areas where your child should focus more on. Your dentist may even suggest that your child come more often while receiving orthodontic care in order to ensure your child’s mouth isn’t at risk for cavities and gum disease. Checkups are going to be the best thing you can do to help your child maintain oral hygiene while they have braces.

Is your child getting braces? Talk with them about how their oral health routine will change in the coming years. Ask your orthodontist or dentist to explain proper brushing techniques to your child. You can also ask your orthodontist what flossing aids would be best to get under wires. Your child can have proper oral health and still have braces!

The post How Can Kids Best Maintain Dental Hygiene While Having Braces? appeared first on Your Dental Health Resource.

Although people in the past have heard that they only need to wear their retainer for a year or two after treatment, many orthodontists today agree that you should wear your retainer most nights for the rest of your life. For people who didn’t wear their retainer after orthodontic treatment, the teeth can majorly shift during this period. The brackets and wires that held your straight smile in place are no longer there. Your teeth need guidance to sit in their permanent spots, which is why your retainer is so important. If you didn’t wear your retainer or rarely wore it, you might have to get braces again to repeat treatment.

Your Teeth Have Shifted

As we get older, our bite can change as our teeth shift. What once may have been a corrected overbite might now be a protruding one. Even if you wore your retainer for the year or two you were supposed to, your teeth can still shift. If your teeth have shifted into unnatural positions, you may need braces again in adulthood. When your bite is incorrect, this can cause problems with chewing, speaking, and could even cause symptoms of TMJ disorders.

You Didn’t Complete Treatment

If you need two-phase orthodontic treatment as a child but didn’t complete your treatment, you might need some additional work done. Two-phase orthodontic treatment is best for complex orthodontic issues that require two sets of braces at two different times. If your teeth looked fine after phase one treatment, you or your parents might have decided to skip that second set of braces. When you don’t complete treatment, you’re leaving room for future problems. These are issues that’ll likely need correction as you enter adulthood!

You Left Your Wisdom Teeth In

Wisdom teeth are that pesky set of third molars that come in between the ages of 17 and 21. By this time, some people have already completed their orthodontic treatment. This means their smile is straight when wisdom teeth make their appearance. Since our jaws have gotten smaller over time, wisdom teeth are often impacted. This means there’s not enough room for them to come in and they push against your other teeth. When this happens, teeth that were once straight can quickly become crooked.

If you neglect to remove your wisdom teeth, you could need a second set of braces to correct the damage the wisdom teeth have caused. Getting a second set of braces isn’t the end of the world! This treatment is well worth your time and money to have a straight smile again. Whether you neglected to wear your retainer, didn’t finish treatment, or just need to get your wisdom teeth removed, you can still get a beautiful smile the second time around!

The post I Had Braces as a Kid, Why Do I Need Them Again? appeared first on Your Dental Health Resource.