The trouble with braces.

If you are in braces right now, or have a family member that is in

braces right now then this is something you need to read.

One of the biggest problems we see with braces is the

amount of cavities that people have right after the braces are removed.

There are a couple of reasons for this.

#1 Is that braces trap food. 

There are lots of nooks and crannies where food can get trapped

and hide out even without having braces.

Once braces are placed the amount of food that can be trapped can triple.

Residual food hanging around in your mouth will feed cavity causing bacteria.

#2 Its harder to floss.

Trapping food is bad enough. But the fact that its even harder to get the 

food out because flossing is now much harder makes it even worse.

Tomorrow I will discuss some things that can be done about this.

But for now just know that those with braces must be more diligent 

then the average person when it comes to caring for your teeth

when you have braces on. 

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Stop Sipping!!

We see it all the time.

People coming into the office with with their teeth hurting.

I tell them that they have a ton of cavities and they tell me that that is impossible.

Since nothing is impossible I ask them why they think that.

They tell me its because they only drink 1 can of soda pop a day.

I tell them that that's not so bad and that lots of people have a soda at some point during the day.

I then ask them how long it takes them to drink it.

They tell me that they sip on it throughout the day and that it

 takes them about 4 hours to finish off a can.

Here in lies our problem.

Cavities caused by soda happen due to the time that the teeth

 are exposed to the sugar and not the amount of sugar ingested.

If I drank an entire 2 liter of Mountain Dew for breakfast and

 my patient only had 1 can on Mountain Dew but it took him 

4 hours to drink his can, who do you think would be worse off?

If you said the guy drinking the can then you are starting to catch on.

Although my sugar content is higher and I may experience 

more symptoms throughout my body my teeth are much

 better off. I get the sugar in my mouth and then get it out 

and I am done. The person who sips on that one can for hours

 at a time has sugar covering their teeth the whole time they

 are sipping. So less sugar but more tooth exposure.

Moral of the story is DO NOT SIP!

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