How To Floss with Braces

How To Floss with Braces

Oral hygiene is always encouraged. It is encouraged to patients who are young and old; patients with a complete or incomplete set of teeth; patients who have no dental caries and patients who do; and it is encouraged on patients with braces. A patient who has braces is even more susceptible to decay because of the contraption in their mouths. Keeping an eye on their oral health would help preserve the beauty and function of their smile. As part of one?s strict oral hygiene regime, learning how to floss with braces, is going to make a big difference.

How to Floss with Braces: The Sturdy Floss

Most people are familiar with the normal floss. The one that is in a portable box with a spool; you pull the string of floss, you cut it and then you use it to clean your teeth by inserting it in between the gaps. It is simple to use and anyone with teeth in tact can floss regularly, except when they have braces. Flossing with the traditional floss design is close to impossible. Understand that anyone who is going through braces treatment, regardless of which type of braces they have, will be working with brackets, wires and rubbers in their mouth.

The wires course through the arch, forming a straight line along the teeth. With the wire in the mouth, it will be impossible for anyone to use the traditional floss to clean the teeth at all. It is simply impossible for you to insert the floss in between the teeth with the wire there, for orthodontic patients a specialized type of floss: the sturdy floss is prescribed.

This type of floss is rather unique and it has three parts: the sturdy part, the foam part and the floss part. To use it, you use the sturdy part of the floss as you would when you insert shoelaces into the holes of the shoes but instead you slip it through the gap in between two teeth. You insert it on one side and then you pull it out from the other, then you pull the floss through until you reach the foam and the floss parts. The foam part of the design is rather amazing because the texture helps you capture more dirt from in between. You run this foam part to and fro, making sure to collect as much as you can, and then you pull the string all the way allowing the floss part to exit. The same design of floss is also useful for teeth with dental bridges that are linked with each other. The bridgework will not allow you to floss in between, but you can use the sturdy floss to go into the gaps and get rid of any trapped dirt in between.

Importance of Knowing How to Floss with Braces

To some people, flossing may not be that important. To some people, brushing and rinsing will be enough to clean the teeth and the mouth, but is not exactly true. If you wish to really keep your mouth healthy, especially while the braces are still in your teeth, you will try to learn how to floss. You will find out how to floss with braces because oral hygiene is important with or without braces; also, you really have to do it because:

• The normal floss cannot do it. However hard you try, it is just going to be impossible so if you used to floss when you did not have your braces, you will make sure to keep flossing even with the braces on using a sturdy floss.

• The toothbrush cannot penetrate in between teeth like the floss can. In a mouth without braces, flossing is important because there are many things that the toothbrush can do but it cannot simply go in between two teeth to prevent proximal caries (tooth decay that develop in between teeth). In as much as you try, the bristles of the brush cannot and will not go through and if you wish to remove trapped particles in between your teeth, you will have to get a floss and run it through your teeth.

• The braces is a food trap. The braces: the brackets, the rubber bands?and the wires are a deadly food trap. It is a complicated dental appliance that can easily trap food, collect plaque and help cause disease you are not careful. If you are encouraged to be diligent with your efforts to clean your teeth when your teeth are without braces, it is even more encouraged when your teeth are with braces. You make it a habit to floss because plaque accumulates on a daily basis and if you ignore that fact, you may wake up one day with caries badly decayed teeth and an unhealthy mouth.