Ask the Dental Experts

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Dental Braces Care

With so many brackets, wires, and bands to brush and floss around, dental braces care can be very challenging, to say the least. There are numerous hard-to-reach places located beneath and around dental braces. Care has to be taken in finding and removing food particles and plaque that accumulate in these areas.

Without proper dental hygiene, plaque and bacteria will build up, cause permanent tooth stains, tooth decay, and precipitate gum disease. While your teeth may turn out perfectly aligned, you will have new problems on your hand that can cause you pain and cost you money.

But there are things you can do to prevent this. Dental braces care is not that difficult once you learn a few basic methods to help in the process.

1. It is important to use a floss threader to floss your teeth at least once daily. The floss threader has a loop to insert the floss at one end. Run the floss threader between the wires and your teeth. Remove the threader and pull the floss into a C-shape around the tooth, flossing up and down the sides.
2. Make sure to check and see if you missed any areas.
3. Rinse with plenty of water when you are done.
4. Dental braces care also requires fluoride toothpaste and a soft bristle toothbrush with small head.
5. Brush your teeth each morning when you wake up, after each meal, and every night before going to bed. Pay close attention to places where brackets and bands meet the tooth and where teeth meet the gumline.
6. When traveling, take a toothbrush with you that has the same features as the one you use at home.
7. When brushing your teeth and braces, angle the brush toward your gums. Cover each and every tooth with small, circular motions. Concentrate on areas between the wires of your braces as much as possible. Use the bristles to brush over and around brackets.

Do not neglect regular, professional dental services, either. In addition to disciplined self care, you need to see a dentist every six months for professional tooth cleaning and a complete dental examination. This will keep your mouth free of cavities and plaque.

Labels: braces, brushing teeth, caring for braces, dental braces care, floss threader, flossing

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Plaque Disclosing Tablets

Even though you may teach your children to brush their teeth three times daily, and you may show them how to follow all the instructions that the dentist gives them on proper brushing methods, they will still have a great deal of plaque left on their teeth. This is because there are so many places where plaque can hide, and where a toothbrush may not have an easy time reaching. Because plaque is invisible, it is even harder for children to brush all of it off their teeth. This is where plaque disclosing tablets can help.

Plaque is film that consists of food debris and bacteria. It builds up on teeth each time a child eats. While it is virtually impossible to see even under a bright light, disclosing tablets can make it immediately visible.

These red-colored liquid that is produced will harmlessly stain tartar and plaque that are resident on a child’s teeth. It will help your child find the areas that need more brushing.

Using this simple tool helps remove plaque every day before it mineralizes and turns into tartar. (Another word for tartar is calculus). After a child gets tartar on his or her teeth, he or she cannot brush or floss it off. A professional tooth cleaning at a dental office will be required at this point.

It is so much easier to teach a child to use disclosing tablet. These are reasonably priced and completely bio-friendly tools that are made from a harmless vegetable dye that stains the plaque, but never stains the teeth. After a child gets used to using them, it becomes much easier to intuitively know, as if by second nature, where the various hiding places for plaque are located. This provides a child with a visual frame of reference to work with when learning basic dental hygiene.

Please be mindful of how important it is to teach children to never swallow the liquid or their toothpaste.

The process is surprisingly simple. To begin with, a child brushes or flosses the teeth as usual. Then, he or she chews a tablet until it turns to liquid. The liquid acts immediately, turning the plaque into a brightly colored red stain that can be seen in the mirror. Both the plaque and the vegetable dye can then be brushed off until there are no more red spots remaining. When the teeth are completely white again, this indicates that all the plaque has been removed.

Plaque disclosing tablets are typically used as a short-term strategy of dental hygiene. Once a child learns what spots on the teeth experience plaque buildup, it is much easier for him or her to get in the habit of consistently and rigorously brushing and flossing these areas.

Labels: flossing, pediatric tooth care, plaque disclosing disclosing tablets, tooth brushing

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Dental Hygeine for Children with Braces

Braces for children correct a great many problems that plague growing kids. Overbites, underbites, and occlusion are just some of the many dental conditions that braces and functional dental appliances correct. Braces can be used on a child of any age provided they are affixed to permanent teeth. If a child is very young, and still has most of his or her primary teeth, functional dental appliances can be substituted for braces and still achieve impressive results.

Sometimes a child does not even need braces if problems with teeth are detected early on. In the early stages of most problems, a functional appliance is often all that is needed to correct the teeth of a child. One such device is called a space maintainer. It is used after a baby tooth has been lost and the permanent tooth has not yet emerged. A space maintainer can prevent the teeth that surround the gap in the smile from becoming crooked. If placed immediately after a baby tooth is lost, a space maintainer can conceivably make it unnecessary for a child to have braces.

This is not to say that braces are not necessary. Sometimes they are the only option. It is good to understand the challenges of dental hygiene that accompany orthodontics in order to better equip your child for both a healthy and beautiful smile in future years to come.

The downside to braces, however, is that they make the already challenging discipline of dental hygiene even more challenging for children. When a person of any age has braces, it is harder to keep teeth plaque-free and prevent cavities.

Children who are wearing braces need to use a soft toothbrush (so that bristles can reach under the wires and still clean teeth), and they need to use a toothpaste with fluoride. It goes without saying that they need to brush after every meal. The surface of each tooth should be brushed in a circular motion, and extra care must be given to the areas where braces meet the tooth, and where the tooth meets the gums.

Children with braces need to floss their teeth. No exceptions. Toothbrushes simply cannot reach between teeth, so only floss can remove the plaque that causes cavities in these places.

To floss teeth with braces, kids should use a threader and slide it underneath the arch wire. They should then pull the floss between their teeth, pull it into a C shape, and move it around their mouths, flossing both sides of every tooth.

After children have finished flossing, they need to make sure they have not missed any areas. Once they have checked their teeth thoroughly, they should rinse their mouths thoroughly with water.

Reducing foods with sugars will help children with braces prevent cavities. Hard foods like Cornnuts and ice will damage they can damage braces. Children should eat softer foods and cutting harder foods into smaller bites when at all possible.

By watching their eating habits and paying careful attention to their daily dental hygiene, children with braces can keep their mouths healthy and teeth in great condition.

Labels: braces, children with braces, cosmetic dental braces, dental hygeine, flossing, tooth brushing