Braces can be dislodged and wires bent or broken while eating certain foods. Hard foods, such as nuts, hard candy, corn chips and even crisp taco shells can harm your braces and should be avoided. Chewing ice cubes can also be very destructive to your applicances. Whole apples, raw carrots or celery must be cut to avoid damaging your braces. Chewy foods such as gum, caramels and even thick bread crusts can bend and distort wires causing treatment delays and extra visits for repairs. Popcorn can become lodged beneath the braces and cause irritation ot the gum tissue. Unpopped kernels can shear or break off brackets as well as bend or dislodge wires.

Foods
Avoid eating or drinking the following:

All carbonated drinks including diets:
Coke
Pepsi
7-Up
Seltzer Water

Foods that don't dissolve:
Popcorn
Apple Skins
Peanut Skins
Sunflower Seed Shells

Sticky/Chewy:
Caramels
Taffy
Now and Later
Milk Duds
Gummy Bears
Skittles
Gum with Sugar (especially with PSA and retainers)

Hard or Crunchy:
Ice, Corn-Nuts, beef jerky, jaw breakers, caramels, candy apples, hard french bread

You may eat or drink the following:
Orange juice, tea, milkshakes, punch, Kool-Aid, Hi-C, soft foods,peanut butter, jelly potato chips, soft tortillas, soft candy, Snapple, Gatorade, box juices, sugar-free gum

Foods to be cut up or sliced:
Corn-on-the-cob, apples, carrots, celery, fresh vegetables

HYGIENE
Brushing
Be sure to brush your teeth right after every meal and before you go to bed. It's best to use a fluoride toothpaste to help fight cavities. Dr. Watson may prescribe a fluoride mouth rinse to help prevent cavities. Try to brush like this:

• Start by brushing the outhside of each tooth at least 10 times.
• Then brush where your gums and teeth meet, using a circular motion.
• Brush the inside surface of each tooth at least 10 times.
• Brush the insinde surface of each tooth at least 10 times, too.
• Brush the chewing surfaces of your teeth last.

Flossing
Because your toothbrush won't reach between your teeth, brushing alone won't keep your teeth clean and healthy. Flossing can help. A floss threader, available from us or a pharmacy, helps you floss with braces on. Floss once a day, like this:

1. Thread flosss through the threader and slip it up behind your archwire.
2. Pull the floss between two teeth and up under your gum margins.
3. Rinse with lots of clean water and watch your teeth and braces sparkle.
4. A water-pik is given to each patient and should be used at least once daily and may take the place or enhance flossing.
   

Remember
You shoud be brushing at least three times a day - once at breakfast, at lunch and before you to to bed. If you are not able to brush after you eat, be sure to rinse thoroughly with water and NEVER skip brushing at night before you go to bed.