We all love to indulge at Christmas with the consumption of delicious and often sweet treats.
If you are wearing braces, you might want to consider the type of food you eat. Some foods could damage and indeed break your brace. It may be the perfect time to consider what types of food you prepare and eat over the festive season.
Many foods especially treats could get caught in your braces and either harm or break them. To achieve the best result from your chosen orthodontic treatment it may be worth avoiding, hard, sugary or brittle foods. This will decrease the chance of any accidental breakages (and probably be nutritionally healthier!)
Foods to avoid whilst wearing braces.
‘Rock’, boiled sweets or candy cane
A very popular food to eat over Christmas time is the American style ‘candy cane’. Lovely to eat and evokes childhood memoires – its best to avoid eating them especially when wearing braces. They can easily snap wires and brackets.
Broken braces will lead to extra treatment costs for repair and slow down your treatment. Sugary treats also lead to increased damage to teeth due to dental decay.
Christmas pudding
These type of sticky – glutinous foods tend to get stuck in between teeth and clog up your braces, also cause cleaning problems. The lack of a good cleaning regime – will lead to cavities.
Ice Cubes
Don’t crunch or chew on ice cubes, this can lead to teeth becoming chipped or splitting. If you are drinking sugary drinks – maybe consider using a straw followed by cleaning your teeth with your brush or mouthwash.
Raw or al dente Vegetables
Vegetables are fantastic for your health, raw vegetable snacks such as carrot sticks or other hard festive foods can be harmful to the wires and brackets of your braces. They can damage your braces if you are not careful. Hard foods should be avoided at all costs if possible, and you can boil or cut your vegetables into smaller pieces to make it more manageable.
Foods to go for with braces
The good news is there are lots of Christmas foods which will have minimal impact on your braces. Remember that you also need to be careful to not eat anything that will damage your braces or stain your teeth when the braces are taken off.
You can opt for popular Christmas dinner foods like turkey, potatoes and cooked or cut vegetables. Instead of indulging in Christmas pudding, you could opt for ice cream or a chocolate log as they are easier on your teeth.
Hopefully, you’ll make the right Christmas food choices, so your braces won’t get damaged over the festive period. However, should something go wrong phone your dentist immediately for treatment advice.
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