How to Brush Your Teeth with Braces

Brushing your teeth with braces on can be quite a challenge. You have metal in your mouth, wires that need to be taken care of, brackets everywhere and somehow you are expected to brush with all of this in the way! It can be hard to find good advice on how exactly you brush your teeth with braces on. It’s not always easy to sift through all of the information out there, and it’s easy to end up finding articles that don’t help you like how-tos for brushing without braces or how-tos for how-to clean braces in general. Fortunately, we’re here to help.

While cleaning the food particles off braces is often not made easy by the sheer amount of space they take up, it is still very important that you do. Food leftovers in between the dental work retain bacteria which cause tooth decay and gum disease. Obviously, these are things you want to avoid while the braces do the work of aligning your teeth.

Here are some helpful tips on how to properly brush your teeth with braces on:

• Rather than brushing how you normally do go over the teeth once, wait for about 30 seconds and do it again. Adding a second go-around to your brushing routine will allow your electric or manual toothbrush bristles to loosen up any stuck food particles caught in between all that metal.
• Use mouthwash after every meal. While it would be great if we could all find time to brush after each meal, it’s not realistic for most people, and it’s often not an option to carry around a toothbrush and toothpaste. However, a travel bottle of mouthwash (including refillable options you can get at your local grocery store) is certainly a viable option for people on the go. Even if that’s not the case, just taking some water and swishing it around your mouth after a meal can help loosen or dislodge a lot of food particles that would otherwise get stuck in your hardware. 
• Stick to flossing. As much of a pain as it can be, flossing remains critical for those with braces. Your toothbrush won’t be able to get to everything, and flossing will really help you avoid developing plaque. You can use a floss threader if you cannot reach certain places with floss due to your braces. 
• Consider using a waterpik. These tools are really good at removing plaque or other food bits that are otherwise hard to reach with normal brushing instruments. Waterpiks even come in cordless models so they can be brought with you when you travel. 
• Improve your technique. When brushing, angle the toothbrush in order to have it push down or up between the wires for better toothbrush head contact. You can also angle it slightly against your brackets or dental work but this is not as effective since you are only stroking along the surface rather than brushing off any food particles stuck in between.
• Stay away from troublesome foods. Highly acidic and sugary foods can damage your tooth enamel and cause significant damage to your teeth. Similarly, avoid sticky foods that get easily stuck in and on braces. 
• Be gentle. While it might seem helpful to aggressively brush to get out as much debris as you can, you might also loosen your brackets. Use a good quality small-headed manual toothbrush with softer bristles and avoid using too much pressure when you brush.
• Get your tongue, too. With or without braces, the tongue often holds a lot of bacteria that can make its way to your braces and cause bad breath. When you brush, make sure that you brush your tongue as well to remove as much of those bacteria as you can. 

If you’re new to braces you can use these tips to help keep your teeth and gums healthy. There are a lot of products now that can make caring for your teeth and braces much easier than it was 15 or 20 years ago, especially a Waterpik. If you’re considering Invisalign braces, you’ll have a different set of concerns – namely how to keep your Invisalign tray clean. Check out our guide for cleaning Invisalign trays to learn more about that.

If you have questions about braces and you live in the metro Detroit area, contact your local Fortson Dentistry office and we’ll be happy to help you out.