There are things to avoid because they can damage your braces, and there are things to avoid because they are a pain!
The foods to avoid because they can damage your braces are hard stuff, and sticky stuff. Examples of hard stuff are ice, jawbreakers. Sticky, gooey foods like caramel, taffy, and gum should be avoided.
Things like raw carrots, apples, bread with hard crust, and nuts, can be eaten with care. The bread, carrots and apples can be cut into smaller pieces.
Some foods are a pain to eat with braces. Corn on the cob is darn near impossible to eat. You can slice the corn off the cob with a knife and and eat it. Chicken wings are a pain since it is difficult to chew the meat off the tiny bones. The braces just get in the way.
Some foods are annoying because they get stuck in your braces! Broccoli, and spinach really get caught in braces. Carry a toothbrush if you plan on eating these. Peanuts will get wedged under the wire, and drive you nuts as you feel them in there, and you are trying to dislodge them. Others are popcorn, chips, and sometimes chicken.
Growing up, I was in and out of the hospital many times for various surgeries. I had a ton of ear infections. To combat the infections, they gave me tetracycline. I don’t knwo if they knew about the long term side effects of tetracycline at the time. But one side effect is my teeth are kind of stained. They are not a bright white, but kind of a yellow tinted off-white. It doesn’t matter how much I brush then, or get them cleaned, they stay the same dirty stained color.
From what I have read, the staining is not just on the surface, but goes deep into the tooth. So there might not be anything I can do about removing the stains. It sounds like I might be about to get veneers to cover up the stains. I am also going to have to get a new bridge after my braces are done straightening my teeth.
A lot of people seem to be curious about the cost of adult braces. Well they are aren’t cheap. I went to a couple orthodontists. The first one quoted me about $5700. But I would have gotten a 6% discount for paying the whole thing at the start, and not using credit.
But I had problems with that orthodontist, so I got a referral to another orthodontist. The second orthodontist charged me $4500 for the braces. Plus I spend an extra few hundred dollars to get the ceramic brackets. I really debated about going with the standard metal brackets, or the ceramic brackets. But my brother said go for the ceramic brackets, so I got them. I figured a few hundred dollars over the life of my braces was that big of a deal.
My dental insurance covered about $2000 of the cost of my braces. The regular dental insurance didn’t cover adult braces. But then they offered an upgrade where we had to pay a little more each pay check, and commit to two years. I went for it, and got my braces. It will be nices to have straight teeth. I will have to look at getting my teeth whitened.
After I had my braces as a kid, I had a 3-tooth bridge installed. I was told that this would keep my teeth from shifting. Uh…wrong! Over the years, my teeth still slowy shifted, and got out of whack.
Now fast forward almost 30 years. As my teeth got more and more out of alignment, I became more and more self-conscious of them. I wanted to get braces to get them fixed. When my company offered an upgrade to the dental insurance that would cover $2000 toward adult braces, I went for it.
One of the first things they did when installing my braces was to cut the bridge into the three individual teeth. He actually knock the bridge off the tooth on the one side, and had to re-glue it down. So now I have the two end teeth still solidly attached to the teeth underneath. And I have one loose prosthetic tooth in the middle. When they installed the braces, the glue a bracket onto the loose tooth and attached it to the wire. So I don’t have a big gap in my smile.
But the prosthetic tooth is a pain in the but sometimes. It flops around in there on the wire, and often flips up. I have had the bracket come unattached from the tooth several times, and have broken the ceramic bracket at least once. But I call the orthodontist, and they get me right in and they fix it quickly.
I am not sure why they needed to cut the bridge. But I am paying the orthodontist for his expertise, so I put my mouth into his hands.
I went back to the orthodontist today. The wire broke right next to the tooth where they attached the hook on the bottom left side. I only noticed this as the rubber band would get pulled through where it was broken. When I went to remove the rubber band, I found the wire going through the rubber band. I tried to figure out how the wire got routed through the rubber band. When I pulled the rubber rand, it came back through the break in the wire. I noticed this on a Friday. I called the orthodontist, but found their office closed on Fridays. I didn’t think it was an emergency or anything, so I waited til money.
I called then first thing this morning. I told them the wire broke, and they got me in at 10am. At the office, I tried to explain how the wire broke. But they couldn’t see it. I show her where the break was, and she still couldn’t see it. She wanted me to point to right where the break was. A little frustrated, I detached the rubber band from the button on the top. The rubber band was around the wire. I told her where the rubber band was is where the break was. She poked it with the tool, and figured out there really was a break in the wire. They replaced the wire and I went back to work..