Taking Care of Your Smile While Straightening Your Teeth

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When it comes to preventing tooth decay and gum disease, Hiller Hummel Orthodontics encourages our patients to maintain diligent daily oral habits along with regular checkups and cleanings with your dentist. This is even more important while you are straightening your teeth.

If you are wearing aligners, cleaning is as simple as brushing and flossing your pearly whites as you normally do, but if you have braces with wires and brackets you want to be extra diligent about removing food particles and plaque as you care for your smile in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Let’s take a look at how you can maintain your healthy smile with some tips from Dr. Michael Hiller and our orthodontic team for our patients who are aligning their smile:

Wearing elastics: remove your elastics before beginning to clean your teeth and gums.

The tools you use: using a soft-bristled toothbrush, hold it at a 45-degree angle against your gums and begin cleaning the gum line using circular strokes. Fluoride toothpaste is an excellent choice to help your teeth resist acids from food and drinks and strengthen enamel.

Step one, brushing: brush each tooth along with your braces. Clean any gaps between the wire and teeth and under the wires. Note: a powered toothbrush is very effective at cleaning with braces as it effortlessly cleans the inside and outside surface areas of each tooth using circular strokes.

Step two, flossing: flossing is an indispensable component to maintaining a healthy smile. Water flossers, or oral irrigators, are an effective tool for thoroughly flossing your pearly whites. Finally, once your teeth are clean simply replace any elastic and you are good to go.

Healthy eating: maintaining healthy eating habits is as important to your smile as it is your body. In fact, limiting or avoiding acidic foods and beverages, hard foods such as ice and sticky foods such as chewing gum that can harm your brackets and wires will go a long way to ensuring strong oral health.

Taking care of your smile while straightening your teeth is a matter of staying diligent with daily oral habits and keeping up with regular checkups and dental cleanings. If you would like to know more, or to schedule a visit with Dr. Michael Hiller in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, please give us a call at 225-924-7367 today. We are always happy to help you maintain your confident smile!