Got Braces? Get Out of These Bad Habits!
April 11, 2016 by Staff
Filed under Health, Weekly Columns
(Akiit.com) So you went to your dentist for a quick check-up and walked away with braces on your teeth. Sorry to hear that! As someone who wore braces in his teens (for three long years!), I can definitely sympathise. I could tell you that having braces is nowhere near as bad as you may think. And, for sure, people do tend to exaggerate the horrors associated with braces. But there’s no denying that braces provide many inconveniences and discomforts we’d rather do without.
The truth is that you need to break some of the mouth habits you probably have in order to make the experience more comfortable. It may also help you get them off in time! So break these h
abits before they break you.
Drinking sugary soda
You already knew that drinking those sugary fizzy drinks was something you should stop anyway, with or without braces. But when you have braces, it becomes much more vital. Maintaining good oral health during orthodontic treatment will help the process go by smoother.
The specific problem is that braces makes it harder for you to clean certain areas of your teeth. And soda is going to creep into all the tiny areas that you might not be able to reach properly when brushing and cleaning. The sugar and acid in soda causes plaque and damages your teeth’s precious enamel. Once the braces are removed, you may find white markings where the brackets were. These were caused by the eroded enamel as a result of soda. So cut them out when you’re wearing braces!
Biting things you shouldn’t be biting
This seems like an obvious one, right? But so many people use their teeth for things that they really shouldn’t be used for. You could be sitting here thinking “duh”, but the chances are you have a habit of doing it yourself!
Do you ever open anything using your mouth? If that plastic packet of crisps or sweets (that you should be thinking twice about eating now!) doesn’t open, you rip it open with your teeth, right? Well, that’s not what your teeth are there to do. They’re not all-purpose tools! These habits can cause damage to the wiring of your braces, or loosen the brackets. Having to get braces rewired may make the time you have to spend wearing them even longer. So don’t bite things you shouldn’t be biting. And yes, that definitely does include your nails! Stop biting your nails! (Please!)
Not wearing a mouth guard
This probably only goes out to the sportier readers, but a mouth guard may well be something even couch potatoes will need to get used to. During any vigorous activity, your teeth may grind or hit one another in unhealthy ways. This is why you should be wearing mouth guards during very physical sports even when you don’t have braces.
But when you do have braces, it’s even more crucial. The possibility of getting hit in the face – accidentally with a stray elbow or purposefully with a fist – needs to be protected against. So if you’re going to do doing any vigorous sports, make sure you protect those braces. Again, a break in them can just elongate the time you have to spend with them in the long run!
Staff Writer; Bobby Miller
Characterizing beverages as a unique cause of oral health issues is overly simplistic. Oral health is determined by a variety of factors, including types of foods consumed, the length of time foods are retained in the mouth and the level of oral hygiene. In fact, science tells us that individual susceptibility to both dental caries and erosion varies depending on a person’s behavior, lifestyle, diet and genetic make-up.
Bottom line: beverages can be a part of a balanced diet, and there are steps people can take to prevent and mitigate oral health issues, such as maintaining good oral hygiene habits and making routine dental visits.