How to Avoid Cavities with Braces

Maintaining good oral hygiene is critical to brightening smiles and teeth healthy year-round. Oral health also impacts your overall body health, so following a brush and floss routine has plenty of benefits. If you have orthodontic treatment, maintaining a good oral hygiene habit is even more essential. Keeping your teeth and gums clean prevents cavities with braces and other complications. Being educated on the foods you can and cannot eat with braces, what happens if you get cavities with braces, knowing the symptoms of a cavity, and the proper steps to take will help ensure you make the right oral health choices.

What Can You Eat with Braces?

New braces typically equate to a sensitive mouth, which differs between patients. If you can eat normally, that will help sore teeth feel better sooner. If not, you want to eat gentle, soft foods and chewy, hard, and sticky foods. To help minimize discomfort, consider the following foods.

• Bananas: soft and sweet.
• Ice cream: is comforting, and the cold relieves some of the pressure caused by brackets and wires.
• Mashed potatoes: filling, creamy, and comforting.
• Oatmeal: nutritional powerhouse.
• Pasta: consider softer-cooked shapes.
• Scrambled eggs: provide protein while being easy to chew.
• Seafood: select fish that flakes easily.
• Soft cheese: calcium-rich, delicious, and ideal for those with braces.
• Soups: comforting and warm, with many varieties.
• Yogurt: versatile, creamy, and suitable for all hours.

Foods to avoid eating with braces:

• Corn on the cob and whole apples: direct biting can dislodge brackets and wires.
• Crunchy fruits and vegetables: when uncooked, they can put excessive pressure on teeth.
• Hard candy: risk to teeth and braces.
• Hard rolls or bagels: the density can be challenging when eating with braces.
• Ice: crunching ice can cause tooth and wire damage.
• Nuts: the hard texture can present a risk.
• Pizza crust: the harder and crispier the crust, the worse for braces.
• Popcorn: the kernels are horrible for braces.
• Pretzels and snack chips: all crunch or hard foods can cause brackets to break or wire damage.
• Sticky candy: caramel, taffy, and similar treats can stick to braces.

Although soft foods are advisable to eat while wearing braces, it’s essential to find the ideal temperature, especially if you have sensitivity to hot or cold foods. Warming up colder foods slightly or cooling off hot foods is an excellent option before eating with braces.

What Happens if You Get Cavities with Braces?

Having cavities while undergoing orthodontic treatment can complicate the process and often results in additional dental work if not managed. Since brackets and wires are semi-permanent and fixed to your teeth for an extended period, food particles can become trapped and lead to cavities if you don’t implement proper oral hygiene. Take preventative oral care measures to avert cavities with braces. These include brushing after every meal and keeping your teeth clean around the clock. Also, brushing your teeth with fluoride toothpaste helps strengthen tooth enamel, which prevents cavities.

Can Braces Cause Cavities?

Braces help prevent tooth decay through straightening and cannot directly cause cavities. However, food particles and sugar can get trapped in the brackets and wiring, which can result in cavities with braces. Following a regular oral care routine consisting of brushing after meals, using mouthwash with fluoride, avoiding hard and chewy foods, and getting regular checkups will ensure you don’t get cavities with braces.

How to Know if You Have Cavities While You Have Braces

The primary symptom that indicates you have cavities with braces is a severe toothache. Persistent pain in one or several teeth is likely tooth decay. The pain could appear as a result of eating or suddenly. You could also feel pressure and pain when chewing food. Another main symptom is an increased sensitivity to hot and cold food. As tooth enamel wears, the hard tissue beneath it is affected, called dentin. Hot and cold foods can irritate the nerves in the teeth when there isn’t enough enamel to protect the dentin.

Severe cavities with braces can result in visible holes in your teeth. If you are experiencing a toothache, it’s best to immediately speak to your orthodontist or dentist and never let a cavity reach the point of being a visible hole. An additional sign of cavities with ceramic braces is stains on your teeth. These may first appear as white spots, but the stain could thicken and turn black, brown, or remain white as tooth decay progresses.

Can I Get a Cavity Filled with Braces On?

Most orthodontists recommend having a cavity filled before getting braces. Cavities can compromise the strength of teeth, thus making them susceptible to additional damage during the treatment. Once the cavities have been filled, orthodontists recommend using fluoride toothpaste to strengthen tooth enamel and protect teeth. Other preventative measures, like special cleaning tools or a mouthguard, may minimize the risk of decay while wearing braces.

Treating it with dental fillings is possible if you get a cavity while wearing traditional metal braces. Cavities can spring up unexpectedly, but treatment is available, albeit more complex than without braces. Depending on the location, your orthodontist may remove the hardware to treat the cavity. This approach is time-consuming and may require additional appointments, but it will help restore your dental health. Always communicate with your orthodontist and dentist to ensure the process is smooth and that regular brushing helps prevent cavities.

Avoid Cavities While You Have Braces

Your best shot at avoiding cavities with braces is avoiding hard, chewy, and dense foods when eating, as they can cause problems for your teeth and braces. It’s essential to brush after every meal when eating with braces to eliminate built-up sugar and food that may be stuck. Maintaining a consistent oral health routine is critical for your orthodontic treatment. A dentist can treat cavities while you have braces, but the routine becomes much more complex. The primary symptoms of a cavity include a toothache and an increased sensitivity to hot and cold foods. Still, it’s best to avoid them altogether with a proper routine.

If you are concerned about cavities or braces, schedule a dental consultation or checkup today!

Orthodontic Arts, your number one Orthodontist in OKC. Our Certified Orthodontist provides the latest and greatest Orthodontic practices to our clients in the OKC and Midtown area. Orthodontic Arts is the best place for child and teen orthodontics as well as adult orthodontics. Be sure to ask about Invisalign and invisible braces! Contact us today at (405) 604-3745 or request an appointment.