Keep your mouth and teeth clean when wearing braces

With fixed braces, it is not so easy to practice good oral hygiene. Food residues easily get stuck on the brackets and wires, which means that more easily dental plaque forms there. If you or your child wears fixed braces, daily brushing must therefore be particularly thorough to prevent tooth decay and gingivitis. But even a loose brace must be cleaned appropriately, otherwise bacteria can accumulate there and oral diseases can develop. In this article, you will learn how to clean your fixed braces and best brush your teeth with braces. In addition, we will show you how to clean loose braces and what you should generally pay attention to when cleaning braces and your diet if you wear a brace. 

Clean your teeth with fixed braces 

If you wear fixed braces, you have to plan a little more time for daily dental and braces care, 2 times about five to ten minutes a day. This is how brushing teeth works best with braces:

• Rinse your mouth vigorously with water to eliminate food debris.
  
• Now position the toothbrush at a 45° angle to the teeth so that you can get behind the wires from both above and below. Now brush each tooth individually in circular movements from the inside as well as from the outside. It is best to use a medium-hard toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste.
  
• The chewing surfaces and insides of the teeth can be brushed as usual.
  
• Clean the areas behind the wires as well as the interdental spaces with an interdental brush or a modern device such as the Philips Airfloss Ultra. This makes it particularly easy for you to clean your interdental spaces with fixed braces and thus supports your oral health.
  
• After cleaning the teeth and braces, rinse your mouth again with water and round off the program with an antibacterial mouthwash.
  
  

Our tip: For brushing your teeth, use a sonic toothbrush instead of a conventional manual toothbrush. The Philips Sonicare ProtectiveClean, for example, removes plaque safely and gently. In addition, it generates a liquid flow that supports cleaning and also reaches hard-to-reach places.