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Oral appliances are vital tools in helping someone get a healthy smile. It’s important, then, that someone wearing an oral appliance cares for it properly to ensure its long-term effectiveness. Here’s how to care for two of the most popular oral appliances – braces and retainers.

Caring for a Retainer 

Retainer care is all about keeping it bacteria-free, and in good shape so that teeth can go to their intended destination. 

You can clean your retainer with a gentle, unscented hand soap and warm water. Or, you can use a non-abrasive toothpaste to gently scrub your retainer to clean it. Usually, whitening toothpastes have abrasives, so stay away from those when cleaning your retainer. Be sure to thoroughly rinse your retainer with cool water after scrubbing it. And NEVER use soap with bleach or bleaching agents on your retainer. 

Use a Separate Toothbrush 

When cleaning your retainer, use a clean toothbrush that you don’t use on your teeth. This helps ensure that your appliance gets as clean as possible, and keeps it bacteria-free.

Don’t Use Mouthwash or Boil Your Retainer 

Never rinse your mouth with mouthwash while wearing your retainer or oral appliance, nor should you attempt to clean your retainer with mouthwash. Mouthwash, particularly flavored mouthwash that is colored, can stain and weaken oral appliances and retainers. Additionally, never boil your retainer to clean it, which can alter its shape and render it useless, which will cost you time and money to replace. 

After cleaning your retainer, store it in its case or in a clean glass of water overnight. 

Caring for Braces 

Braces are meant to be clean and free of food-debris so that teeth can remain healthy while the braces are worn. Food buildup can expose teeth to acid assaults that destroy tooth enamel and lead to cavities. The best way to keep braces clean is by brushing after each major meal per day for two minutes at a time. By keeping braces clean and free of debris, you can protect the surface and health of your teeth, and keep your brackets and wires in working order.

Try using braces-specific cleaning tools like Waterpiks and floss-threaders, which help flossing around brackets, and getting food debris out from the hard-to-reach areas.

ALWAYS Avoid Oral Piercings 

Oral piercings are popular among teenagers, and are surprisingly common with people that wear oral appliances. Surveys of adolescents and young adults (age 13 – 29) report that 25% to 35% have a body piercing at a site other than the ear lobe. Oral piercings are mostly made of metal, and they can do real damage to oral appliances like braces or retainers. An oral piercing of any sort can dislodge wires, break brackets and get caught in an appliance, which can lead to bleeding. If you have an oral appliance, we advise you to stay away from any oral piercing until it is removed.

Ask Us!

If you’re concerned about how to care for your oral appliance, or your child’s oral appliance, then visit our office. We can offer tips on how to keep your appliance in working order, and save you money on potential costly repairs.  

Thanksgiving is all about food and family, but some classic Thanksgiving dishes are absolutely terrible for teeth.  

Stuffing

Stuffing is a Thanksgiving classic that can really harm teeth. That’s because most stuffing recipes revolve around bread. Starches like bread provide cavity-causing bacteria the energy they need to chip away at tooth enamel. Additionally, starches can be very sticky and stay on teeth long after a meal has finished, and cause further damage. The high amount of starch sadly makes stuffing unhealthy for teeth. Combined with the fact that stuffing is full of carbohydrates and lacks dense nutritional value, and you begin running out of reasons to eat it. 

Try getting your stuffing fix by making a tooth-healthy breadless stuffing that uses beans instead of bread as a base! Beans are full of protein and fiber, which makes it a much healthier replacement for bread in stuffing recipes.  

Fruit Cake

A seasonal favorite that appears on tables between Thanksgiving and Christmas, fruitcake sounds like it would be a healthy treat, the word “fruit” is right in the name after all! Unfortunately, fruitcake is full of dried fruit, which can really damage teeth. Dried fruit contains much higher levels of sugar than their natural counterparts, and none of the water that helps make fruit so healthy. Dried fruit is also very sticky, and can stay on teeth longer after a meal in done. The sugar and the sticky consistency make fruitcake a no-no for healthy teeth. If you are looking for an alternative, you can make a fresh fruit crumble, which has much less sugar and isn’t nearly as sticky.  

Cranberry Sauce

Cranberry sauce is a Thanksgiving staple in many households, and seldom appears on dinner tables outside of turkey day. Despite its tart deliciousness, cranberry sauce is packed with sugar and offers little nutritional value at all. In fact, one of the most popular choices for cranberry sauce –canned cranberry sauce – has 121 grams of sugar per can, and no protein or fiber at all. All of that sugar provides nourishment and energy to bad oral bacteria that cause cavities.  

As an alternative, try finding a recipe that calls for fresh cranberries, so that you can control the amount of sugar your family consumes this holiday season. 

But, What about the Turkey?

Believe it or not, that Thanksgiving turkey is actually a dental super food! Turkey contains high amounts of phosphorous, which helps bones and teeth absorb calcium and vitamin D that makes them stronger and more resilient. Turkey is also high in B vitamins, which helps keep cavities away. People with inadequate vitamin B-12 are at a greater risk of contracting more cavities than those with normal level of vitamin B-12. 

Be Sure to Brush

The best way to avoid cavities in any season is to maintain a healthy oral routine by brushing twice per day for two minutes at a time, and flossing once daily. Be sure to drink plenty of water, and try to eat mouth healthy fruits and vegetables that clean teeth as they’re being chewed.  

Teeth are pretty incredible, and in the animal kingdom, teeth can be pretty terrifying! Here’s our list of the scariest teeth found in the wild.

5 - Great White Sharks

The Great White Shark is the largest predatory fish on earth, and it wields a lot of impressive teeth. Great White Sharks have around 3,000 teeth in their mouth at one time in multiple rows on their jaws. If a tooth is lost, another one simply slides forward to replace it, and they grow a new one. These fascinating sharks are constantly growing teeth, and the Great White will go through around 30,000 teeth in its lifetime! 

4 - Hippopotamus 

Did you know that Hippopotamuses have the largest teeth of any land animal? Their front incisors can grow to be 1.2 feet in length, and their canines can get to be 1.5 feet!

3 - Saltwater Crocodiles 

Which animal has the strongest bite force in the world? That title belongs to the Saltwater Crocodile, which has a bite force of 3,700 pounds per square inch! By comparison, humans can only generate a bite force of around 150 – 200 pounds per square inch.

2 - Babirusa 

Have you ever seen a saber-toothed pig? Well, now you have. The Babirusa is a hog with a dental problem, and has two very large canine teeth that can grow up to 8 inches long and even grow through their skin! The Babirusa’s canine teeth never stop growing, and their top canines can grow and curl back onto themselves.

1 - Payara 

The Payara fish is nicknamed the “Vampire Fish,” and earned the nickname with its incredible teeth. The Payara has two large fangs that grow from its lower jaw and go INTO the upper jaw and head of the fish. There are two negative spaces in the fish’s head where these 6-inch fangs rest when they aren’t being utilized by this carnivorous fish. 

Keep Teeth Clean! 

Did you know that animals have ways that they keep their teeth clean? Oral health routines shouldn’t be a wild concept to your family, though. Be sure that your family brushes their teeth twice per day for two minutes at a time and flosses once per day.

Halloween is an awesome time for families to dress up like their favorite superheroes and explore their neighborhoods together, searching for candy. However, candy contains a lot of sugar and is really unhealthy for teeth. But, among the bad candy, a few Halloween classic candies stand out as truly bad for teeth.

Circus Peanuts 

How can a candy named “Circus Peanuts” contain zero actual nuts? Regardless of the lack of nuts, Circus Peanuts are a marshmallow candy that is made almost entirely of sugar. It comes in a bright orange shaped peanut, and is textured like a marshmallow. Circus Peanuts are a sticky candy, and that’s terrible news for teeth. Sticky candy is difficult to remove from teeth, and gives bad bacteria more time to eat away tooth enamel and cause cavities.

Atomic Fireballs 

This spicy Halloween favorite is a staple in many candy bowls nationwide, but Atomic Fireballs can harm teeth. Atomic Fireballs are basically spicy jawbreakers, which is a very hard candy. Hard candy comes in nearly every flavor and size imaginable, but chewing hard candy can lead to a cracked tooth. Hard candy also tends to stick around longer than other candy, which exposes teeth to sugar for longer. Extended contact with sugar can lead to more cavities because sugar provides bad bacteria with the energy it needs to destroy enamel.

Candy Corn 

This may be a bummer for a lot of Halloween fans, but Candy Corn is actually awful for teeth, and it’s largely due to one ingredient: confectioner’s wax, which is basically waxy sugar. The waxy consistency of confectioners wax makes it difficult for saliva to break down, and also causes it to stick to teeth. As specified above, sugar that sticks to teeth gives cavities the nutrition they need to thrive and worsen.

Avoid the Candy Binge this Halloween 

Do your best to limit the amount of candy your child has per day, and be sure that they rinse their mouth out with water, or brush and floss after eating candy to thoroughly remove any sugar or candy particles left behind on their teeth. 

If your child begins experiencing tooth pain this Halloween, then schedule an appointment with our office. Have a happy and safe Halloween, and don’t forget to brush!