Dietary Guidelines For Wearing Orthodontic Braces

Getting new braces can be exciting, especially when you’re anticipating your beautiful, new smile. However, receiving orthodontia does mean a change and will require some lifestyle adjustments. One of the most important things to remember is that your diet may need to be slightly modified while you are wearing your new braces.

If you’re preparing to receive orthodontic work, we’d like to help by giving you some guidelines about your diet, especially what foods to avoid.

Foods To Avoid

When you are wearing braces, you will need to protect them. One of the best ways to protect them is by avoiding certain foods. That’s because there are foods that can loosen, bend, and even break the bands, wires, and brackets that make up your braces.

First, you will want to avoid hard foods. This can include foods like pretzels, hard candies, hard taco shells, and nuts. You’ll also need to avoid some chewy foods, including things like hard rolls, jerky, and licorice. You will also have to avoid foods that you bite into using your front teeth, like whole apples, corn-on-the-cob, and carrots.

Sticky foods should most definitely be avoided, especially caramels, gummy bears, chewing gum, and other types of candy. Popcorn and chips are also best avoided.

Eating With Braces

When you have braces, avoid using your front teeth to bite into foods. Cook vegetables so that they are soft. Slice up apples and other crunchy foods into small pieces before you eat them. Chew these foods using your back teeth.

Before you eat anything, think! Consider the effects of various foods on your braces. The momentary pleasure of the food is not worth the discomfort or complications that come when the food is stuck in your braces or causes them damage.

Use common sense when choosing what you’ll eat, and you should be able to keep your braces free of problems throughout the duration of your treatment.

Contact Us for Braces

Changing your diet a little during your orthodontic treatment will help you keep your braces damage-free. This, in turn, helps your treatment progress. Please call us to begin your treatment or to ask questions about braces. We offer orthodontic treatment to patients of all ages and we are happy to serve you!