'http://www.beecroftortho.com/ - \"One of the most common questions that come up when people are getting ready to get their braces or thinking about getting braces is \"what foods I can eat?\" and \"what foods I should avoid?\". There\'s been a lot said about the topic, I want to concentrate on four or five different categories of foods that you should probably avoid with braces or limit. 1. Sticky foods 2. Hard foods 3. Foods that get stuck in the gums and underneath the braces 4. Sugary reasons Number one, sticky type of foods: I have a model of some braces here. The reason you want to avoid sticky foods is because of caramel and laffy taffy things like that. Those foods, you\'re going to chew on that, eat those things and they\'re going to tear off and they\'re going to leave residual food particles above the braces particularly on the back where you\'re doing most of your chewing. Now when that happens, they\'re just going to get stuck up there, it\'s going to be really hard to clean and get that out of there. You\'re going to get bacteria and plaque that will be attracted into that area. There\'s nothing worse than just having foods stuck up there for days and the gums start to get inflamed and redden, you get angry and you get all kinds of side effects because of that. We want to avoid sticky foods because they tend to get stuck in the braces, they are hard to clean and they cause all sorts of problems for your gums and teeth. The biggest question I get is can I chew gum? No. There are many topics that are really controversial in the orthodontic world. I feel that sugarless gum is okay to chew. The reason is it tends to stay together than laffy taffy and caramels. It\'s not going to pull apart and get stuck up in there easily, it can a little bit but if you are careful, you can keep it all together. It\'s also sugarless so you\'re not going to get the side effects of the sugary candy. They\'ve actually done studies about sugarless gum. The chewing motion of it can actually relieve some of the initials pain associated with braces that\'s why sugarless gums are not necessarily a bad thing. Number two, hard foods: you want to avoid hard foods because again, we have the teeth and brackets model here. Those foods are actually going to break the brackets off of the teeth and break that seal that the brackets have with the teething glue. People ask why the brackets came off so easily, well, they are built that way. We much rather have, the bracket pop off if you\'re eating something really hard than your tooth actually chip off and they can make it that hard. At a certain force level, the brackets are going to pop off that slows down your treatment and makes things annoying. Foods like apples and carrots, you want to make sure cut out and you don\'t bite those holes. Ice if you want to stay away from problem even when you do have braces and anything that\'s just really hard like hard candies, jaw and breakers. Number three, foods that get stuck underneath the gums: now the big one here is popcorn. If you are Captain Kernels what often happens is the Kernel can get stuck underneath the band, so in between your gums and the band that wraps around the tooth there. When that happens again, you get a lot of swelling and a very uncomfortable feeling, I\'ve even heard of instances where patients needed to go to the emergency room because of swelling and because of the food that is stuck in there. The patients are usually eating food that they are told to stay away from. One of them is Popcorn Kernels and anything small that could stick up there, you know a little sunflower seeds, things that can break off, burrito chips tend to do that as well. You want to stay away from those. Number four, things that you should probably limit are sugary foods like sodas and other foods with a lot of sugar. Sugary foods like the laffy taffy and caramel just sit around the brackets. It\'s a lot harder to clean your teeth when you all have those brackets. Those foods just sitting up there can attract bacteria and attract plaque. They start the process of cavities and we\'re going to talk about that a little bit later. It\'s just easier to avoid those foods when you have braces. That way, it is much easier to keep things clean when you get your braces off your teeth will be a lot healthier as well.\" - Dr. Matt Beecroft http://www.beecroftortho.com/2013/12/types-food-braces-dont-like/ Beecroft Orthodontics, 10472 Georgetown Dr Fredericksburg , Virginia Phone: 540-898-2200 11113 Leavells Rd. Fredericksburg, VA 22407 Phone: 540-898-2200 243 Garrisonville Road Suite#201 Stafford VA 22554 Phone: 540-659-6300 11060 Smile Way King George, VA 22485 Phone: 540-775-2022'
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