How to eat and drink with braces
If brackets have just been put in, it can be difficult and excruciating for you in the first few days. This pain tends to go away after several days, but it is crucial to make conscious food choices. Hard or sticky foods can damage your braces and cause pain in the days after a brace fitting or fitting.
Here’s how you can eat food with new or orthodontic braces. Remember that learning what to eat and how to eat can help you adjust quickly to your new or tight bracket.
Modify your diet
Eat soft foods. You need to choose foods easy to chew. Soft foods will not harm your braces, and it also won’t hurt sensitive teeth. These are some examples:
• Purees. You can puree almost all foods if you want. Although sometimes it is not a personal preference, it is clear that it is an option that you will have to consider if you’re going to suffer the least possible discomfort.
• Cooked foods. Cooked foods are softer, and therefore you will put less work on your teeth.
• Hot and cold soups. It’s a way to keep getting all the vitamins and minerals you need for your diet without chewing. Soups are that type of food for freshly placed braces ideal for the first days.
Avoid hard foods. These foods can break braces and cause mild to severe pain in the days following a brace fitting or fitting. Avoid anything hard or crunchy, especially after an appointment with the orthodontist. Hard foods to avoid the following:
• Fibrous and undercooked meats.
• Sticky and crunchy foods: Candy, gum, toast, nuts, all of them are somewhat complicated to eat when you wear braces. Sticky foods stick to the appliance and can lead to undesirable circumstances. As for nuts, their hardness and texture can even damage the braces and force you to go to the dentist more times than desired.
Change the way you eat
Cut the food into small pieces. Biting food in the way you are used to after a lifetime of eating this way could cause the braces to come off your teeth or break. One way to avoid this is by cutting your food into smaller pieces. This can help you decrease how much work your teeth do when grinding food. For example: Cut the apples into slices before eating. As with corn, biting into an apple can cause pain or damage to your braces.
Chew using your back teeth. Most people don’t think much about the teeth they use to bite and chew their food. However, when braces have just been fitted or have only been adjusted, your teeth can be particularly sensitive. Chewing with your back teeth, which tend to be thicker and better designed for chewing, can help relieve pain in your front teeth.
Eat slowly. Although it’s difficult if you are starving, mostly if your teeth were too sore to eat on the first day after your braces were placed, it is important to eat slowly. Eating too fast could cause you to forget how to eat (small pieces chewed with your back teeth). If you eat too fast, you may also be at risk of biting into seeds or bones.
Take the medication. If you experience significant pain after braces are fitted or adjusted, you may want to consider taking medication to manage the pain. Common non-prescription medicines, such as acetaminophen (Tylenol) or ibuprofen (Advil), help pain relief.
Nor can we forget the braces drink: because hydrating is just as important as eating
It is vital to reduce the consumption of sugary drinks, to reduce the risk of tooth decay. For this reason, they are the type of braces drink to avoid. The acid in these drinks attacks the enamel producing a decalcification process that generates white spots around the brackets that can last forever. The liquid seeps into the appliance and is in direct contact with your teeth.
Also, these drinks usually contain many sugars, something that accelerates cavities and damage to teeth. Water is undoubtedly the essential drink that you must take to guarantee adequate hydration during your new experience. However, you can also count on milk.
Now you will think “Gee what a leaflet just to straighten my teeth”. Fortunately, there is also an alternative for the visible braces, namely Clear braces. This Aligner consists of a series of plastic aligners that go over your teeth. A big advantage is that you take them out when you drink and eat, which means you don’t have to take into account what you eat and when.
Would you like more information if Clear braces can be something for you? Please contact us for an introductory conversation 🙂
