Diet in Orthodontics

After installing braces, we ask very little of our patients. There are mainly two rules they must follow:

1. Cleaning (we will talk about this later),

2. Diet.

Before we move on to what and why you should not eat and drink while you have braces in your mouth, I want to explain why this is so important.

We attach the braces to the teeth with a special composite. Since the braces are the very particles that transmit the forces applied by the orthodontist to the teeth, we of course want them to hold firmly onto the teeth. From the point of view of the duration of pressure on the teeth, it is very important that the braces stay on the teeth throughout the entire treatment, otherwise this negative factor will affect the course, result, and duration of the treatment. But, on the other hand, they will have to be removed at some point, and in doing so, we must not harm the tooth enamel.

And these moments leave the orthodontist face to face with a difficult question: how to attach the braces so that they stay on the teeth during the treatment and are easily removed at the end?

There is no answer to this question yet. Therefore, patients must take care of their braces during treatment.

And here the second question arises, how can they do this? This is where the diet in orthodontics comes into play.

The diet consists of two parts:

1. What you should not drink and eat,

   • a. drinks with high acidity - coca cola, fanta, pepsi, sprite, etc. - the acidity wears away the composite with which we attach the braces and damages the tooth enamel.
   • b. sticky food, candies, toffees, caramels, chewing gum, corn, etc.
   • c. hard, small food that cannot be broken down - hazelnuts, chips, popcorn, crackers, dried fruits, etc.

2. What you can eat and drink with caution.

   • a. hard food that can be broken down - hard fruits, vegetables, meat, bread, toast, hamburger, etc. All of this should be broken into smaller pieces with a knife or hands before eating and ONLY CHEWED with the back teeth and in no case BITTEN with the front teeth.

   • b. food that contains hard particles - olives, peaches, apricots, meat, chicken, fish, etc. They all contain pits or bones, which should be removed before eating, and one should eat with caution.

In addition, bad habits such as chewing on a pen, pencil, or nails can also damage both the teeth and the braces.