Sep 22, 2022

How To Use Flossers To Clean Teeth With Braces?

Oral Hygiene is important whether or not you are currently undergoing orthodontic treatment in Beverly Hills. Your trusted Beverly Hills Orthodontist, Dr. Solomon, and her entire team at Smile Health Orthodontics are committed to providing our patients with in-office and mobile dental care.

How To Use Flossers To Clean Teeth With Braces?

Oral Hygiene is important whether or not you are currently undergoing orthodontic treatment in Beverly Hills. Your trusted Beverly Hills Orthodontist, Dr. Solomon, and her entire team at Smile Health Orthodontics are committed to providing our patients with in-office and mobile dental care.

We also want to keep you informed on the best tips to ensure that you get the best results. Today, we will discuss the importance of maintaining good oral hygiene while wearing braces and the best tools to help you achieve a perfect, happy and healthy smile.

The brackets and wires in your braces work hard to guide your teeth into proper alignment, but they do not actually take care of the teeth. In fact, brushing and flossing become even more important when wearing braces to prevent plaque build-up, staining, and tooth decay. Proper dental hygiene practices help remove food particles and keep bacteria growth in check.

There are special tools and brushes to help you reach under the wires and allow you to dislodge food particles before they have a chance to build up and turn into plaque. You might have some questions, and today we will answer them.

Why Is Oral Hygiene So Important?

Maintaining good oral hygiene is important because oral health is fundamental to your overall health, well-being, and quality of life.

Poor oral health is directly associated with major chronic diseases, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But you might be wondering why teeth health is so important during orthodontic treatment? Truth be told, Oral health is crucial in determining the orthodontic result you achieve with your treatment and is ultimately responsible for giving you the smile of your dreams.

Healthy gums and clean teeth will promote good tooth movement for a better and healthier result. Conversely, poor oral hygiene can lead to gingivitis and gum infection, which can slow down the movement of teeth and hence slow down your orthodontic treatment.

However, it is safe to say that maintaining excellent oral hygiene is certainly easier with other types of orthodontic devices over traditional metal braces. Let’s take a look.

Advantages of Aligners Over Traditional Braces

Unlike traditional metal braces made out of brackets and wires that are attached to your teeth, aligners such as Invisalign are completely removable and, by default, provide the added benefit of making oral care a breeze.

Because clear aligners are removable, aside from not having to worry about diet restrictions, they will make your life easier when it comes to your oral care routine.

Simply remove your aligners, and follow the recommended instructions for proper cleaning. This includes brushing your teeth with fluoride toothpaste at least twice a day and flossing at least once a day. If possible, you should try to brush and floss your teeth after every meal, including snacks.

The benefit of aligners is that you won’t need specific cleaning tools such as interdental brushes. Patients use Interdental brushes while wearing traditional orthodontics in Beverly Hills.

If you have chosen to use traditional braces over aligners, don’t worry, you will still achieve the smile of your dreams. You will just have to use additional tools such as interdental brushes and Waterpik flossers to keep your teeth clean and healthy.

Each of these tools works differently, so let’s take a detailed look at each of them individually.

What Is an Interdental Brush?

By definition, interdental means between the teeth. Interdental brushes are also known as interproximal brushes. They are small brushes specially designed to clean between your teeth, where a regular toothbrush does not reach.

An interdental brush is basically a smaller toothbrush in the shape of a regular toothbrush brush. It has an extremely thin cylindrical brush head to access to the space between your teeth and remove food debris and plaque. Interdental brushes remove food debris and bacterial plaque where a regular toothbrush cannot reach.

How to Properly Use an Interdental Brush

Although the use of an interdental brush is vital during your orthodontic treatment, you must know how to use it correctly. The main thing you need to consider is the size of the interdental brush you are using.

Often, you will need more than one brush size, and your Beverly Hills orthodontist can help you select the correct brush size or sizes for you. You can also try finding a mixed-size pack of brushes.

The four basic steps to using an interdental brush are

  1. Choose the right size
  2. Insert gently
  3. Move the brush back and forth in each space
  4. Change the size and curve the neck or wire when needed
  5. Change the brush when the filaments become worn

What Are Flossers?

Flossers may also be known as floss picks. Flossers are D-shaped pieces of plastic with a handle that contains a short, taut piece of floss stretched between two posts. Instead of wrapping a long piece of floss around your fingers, a floss pick allows you to slide a single piece of floss between your teeth using the plastic tool. While you can’t deny the convenience of floss picks, you might wonder about their health benefits. Are they as safe and effective?

According to your Beverly Hills orthodontist, Dr. Deborah Solomon has recently launched an oral hygiene campaign to raise awareness about the importance of using flossers after every meal to keep your teeth in optimal health. Dr. Solomon recommends ditching wooden toothpicks and, instead, keeping your teeth clean with gentle flossing. The good old-fashioned wooden toothpicks can actually damage your delicate gums.

How to Floss With a Flosser?

Flossing with a floss pick or flosser is certainly different than flossing with regular dental floss. However, using the right technique, flossing with dental flossers can be an effective way to fight plaque and bacteria buildup between your teeth, on the surface of your teeth, and underneath your gums.

To start, here are four easy steps to follow while flossing with a dental flosser:

  1. Use the pick to get between your teeth and gently press it against your gums.
  2. Slide the pick with an in and out motion to remove any food particles between your teeth.
  3. Rinse the floss pick as needed to ensure it stays clean.
  4. Repeat as many times as needed

Why You Might Need a Flosser

Flossers are an easy on-the-go solution that helps you stay on target with your oral hygiene routine. In fact, flossers are the most convenient way to floss wherever you are. By using personal experience as her inspiration, Dr. Solomon has distributed the cutest individually wrapped black and yellow flossers that you can find in small shops in the Beverly Hills and Pico-Robertson area.

Dr. Deborah Solomon has recently launched an oral hygiene campaign to raise awareness about the importance of using flossers. All of this ingenuity results from a dating mishap. Whereupon going to the bathroom, Dr. Solomon found a piece of lettuce between her teeth and nothing to help her out of that messy situation.

How Does Good Oral Hygiene Prevent Orthodontic Emergencies?

In Short, the best way to prevent an orthodontic emergency is to protect your teeth. Maintaining a good oral hygiene routine during and after your orthodontic treatment helps your teeth and gums remain healthy and strong, requiring no emergency visits to your orthodontist.

Now that you know just how important your oral hygiene routine is whether or not you have an orthodontic device, it’s also essential that you keep up with regular, routine visits to your orthodontists for cleanings and checkups, especially while undergoing orthodontic treatment.

Beverly Hills in House Dental Care

However, at Smile Health Orthodontics, we understand that taking time off work or school can be difficult, and hence in-office visits might not be very convenient. That is why we want to offer you the possibility to receive our quality orthodontic services without leaving the comfort of your home.

With our Beverly Hills in-house dental care, we are sure you will love keeping up with your orthodontic care and journey towards the smile you deserve. If in-house care sounds like the perfect fit for your busy schedule, visit our Beverly Hills mobile dental care page and schedule an appointment today. We look forward to bringing our quality dental care to the convenience of your home.

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