What to Eat and What to Avoid when Wearing Braces

Changing your eating habits is one of the most difficult adjustments when wearing braces. Some foods are more likely to damage your braces and your teeth than others. I advise patients to avoid:

1. Candy and other high sugar content foods, especially if they will spend a long time in your mouth.  Eating a cookie and then rinsing with water will do much less damage than sucking a sugar candy for 10 minutes.  The bacteria in your mouth will eat the sugar and give off acid which will decalcify the tooth surfaces.

2. Soda (all carbonated beverages i.e. carbonic acid) and other acidic beverages (like lemonade, fruit smoothies, and energy drinks.) Acid will decalcify (eat away) the part of your teeth that are not covered by the brackets, leaving a change of color which will later finish turning into a cavity. If you drink the acidic beverage be sure to rinse it off your teeth with water instead of leaving the residue in your mouth.

3. Sticky things like chewing gum, taffy, Ike and Mikes, gummy bears, and caramels will bend the metal.  This will cause the glue to crack underneath the brackets and bands. As the cracked glue washes out the metal pieces will come loose.  The sticky things will also deform the wires, causing the bent wires to push the teeth to incorrect positions. 

4. Foods with a hard back (ribs and corn on the cob) should be separated from the hard back (the bone and the cob) in order to not break off the front brackets.

5. Hard and Doughy Foods that have resistance to bite into should be cut thin. Don't bite straight into an apple, carrot, bagel, pizza crust, or fat sandwich.  Cut them into thin pieces before eating. Also, eat one piece at a time. One potato chip will not break your braces, but a handful all-at-once may.

6. Energy and Power bars are too hard and chewy. Cereal bars and thin snack bars are better choices, especially if you break them into small pieces before putting them into your mouth.

7. Seeds and popcorn (with a husk) should be avoided when wearing a palatal expander because the small hard pieces get stuck between the plastic and the palate causing a wound.

The link for the article which I wrote for HelloNation (and which they edited, i.e. changed) is below, followed by a screenshot of the first page.

https://orthodontistexpertinwhiteplainsny.org/navigating-braces-what-to-eat-and-avoid-in-white-plains-ny/

Age to Start Braces

It's never too late to wear braces.  We can improve alignment and function at any age, but there are some ages that are more ideal than others.  For example, I cannot change the bone structure in an adult, but I can change it in a growing patient.  Palatal expansion (changing the width of the upper arch) is most effective below age 12 for a girl, and below age 14 for a boy.  Headgears can restrain growth of the upper jaw, but only if there is more growth available, therefor starting by age 8 is more efficacious. If treatment is started after facial growth is finished we are more likely to need to remove adult teeth or reshape the existing teeth in order to achieve alignment. Treating adults limits the facial and jaw balance that can be achieved.

HelloNation published my first article on the best age to start braces.  Unfortunately, working with them also means accepting their edits to match their writing style. The photos are theirs too. Here is the link and a screenshot to the first page of the article. 

 https://orthodontistexpertinwhiteplainsny.org/when-kids-should-get-braces-guidance-for-families-in-white-plains-ny/