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Keeping Your Teeth White Between Dental Visits

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Keeping Your Teeth White Between Dental Visits

Taking care of your teeth might seem mundane, but without enough attention, those pearly whites of yours can easily turn tinged and stained. Sure, having your teeth cleaned every few months at your dentist's office is a great start to maintaining a beautiful smile, but it isn't enough to keep each tooth pearly white on an ongoing basis. Now, don't get me wrong – you don't have to spend an arm and a leg on professional maintenance in order to get the results you want. You can use a variety of methods at home, like creating your own whitening mouthwash, that can help to keep you teeth white between dentist visits. Hopefully, the tips and techniques offered on this blog is enough to get you the results that you're after.

Optional Products To Make Living With Braces More Comfortable

16 August 2017
 Categories: Dentist, Blog

If you suffer from misaligned teeth, you may be considering an orthodontic correction. However, you may also be concerned about the discomforts and inconveniences that may be associated with your alignment treatment, especially if metal braces are used. Nevertheless, there are optional products that can make living with braces more comfortable. Here are a few of them:

Wax

If metal braces are used to correct the positioning of your teeth, you may develop a few sores on the soft tissues of your mouth. Your gums, inner lips, and cheeks are sensitive areas and may not be accustomed to the abrasiveness of your new brackets and wires. 

To protect your mouth from abrasions, you can apply orthodontic wax to the sites along your brackets and archwire that are making contact with sensitive tissues. The wax forms a gentle, nonabrasive protective coating for the appliance.

Interdental Brushes

Cleaning your teeth with braces can be more time-consuming, but it is necessary. Your orthodontic treatment does not prevent tooth decay or gum inflammation. Thus, your teeth still need to be thoroughly cleaned, and interdental brushes can help.

Interdental brushes are like tiny pipe cleaners for your mouth. They fit into tight spaces, such as between your teeth or around your brackets, to make it easier to clean your teeth effectively.

Night Guards

Night guards are protective dental devices that are worn over your teeth at night. The guards are often used by people who suffer from bruxism or nightly teeth grinding. However, they can also be beneficial for people who wear braces. 

A guard can be worn over your teeth and braces at night to prevent the appliance from damaging soft tissues as you sleep. It is best to obtain your guard from your orthodontist, since he or she can make an impression of your mouth to ensure that your night guard fits your mouth as it should. 

Braces already add some bulk to your mouth, so your night guard must be contoured to fit your individualized needs without being too bulky. 

An Oral Irrigator

Even with a floss threader, navigating dental floss around your brackets can be a bit cumbersome. To ease the task of flossing with braces, an oral irrigator or water flosser can be used to flush plaque and debris from between your teeth and along your gum line. 

For more ways to make living with braces more comfortable, schedule an appointment with an orthodontist at an office like Poulson Orthodontics in your local area.