Patients often ask, “Can you eat donuts with braces?” Dental professionals may allow you to consume donuts with braces, but ensure you brush your teeth since sugar, and sticky ingredients can harm orthodontic treatment, and crunchy topping can break brackets and wires, so there is a degree of risk.
Avoid Sugary Food
While foods such as doughnuts, pastries, and cake are soft and easy to chew, these items contain sugar and white flour that will stick to your teeth, wires, and brackets.
Luckily, most cakes are lightweight and tasty, and are completely acceptable to eat with braces. However, keep in mind that you should stay away from cakes that contain crunchy toppings or fillings. This is true for pies as well. Don't eat pies that have nuts or potentially harmful toppings.
You want to avoid anything crunchy or hard, which means no nuts, potato chips, or popcorn. Instead, opt for Cheetos or Pirate Booty. Soft cookies (without nuts) are good, but avoid hard cookies like Oreos and Chips Ahoy unless you're a milk dunker. Ice cream is fine, but skip the nuts and hard candy toppings.
Can I eat chips with braces? Yes, you just need to select the right ones. Pringles, “baked” chips and Cheeto Puffs/Fries are great braces options for chips. Just try to remember to eat ONE CHIP AT A TIME, so that you don't accidentally break a bracket.
Yes – you may eat fries – but you need to make sure that you're brushing your teeth properly and after every meal. Remove any leftovers with a proxy tip or floss tip. Also, don't forcefully remove any leftovers if you are having a hard time doing so – trying repeatedly will only cause damage to your braces.
Your braces may have brackets, bands, and arch wires that can all be damaged by certain foods. Avoiding very hard or sticky food is a big priority. Along with avoiding certain foods, having proper hygiene is essential to making sure cavities do not form around the braces.
Early adolescence, or between the ages of 10 and 14, is widely considered the ideal time to get braces. That's because preteens and younger teens have all (or nearly all) of their adult teeth in place, and their softer jawbone tissue is still quite responsive to repositioning.
The safest candy to eat is by far chocolate, as the soft texture of chocolate is unlikely to do any damage. So thankfully this well desired food is not off limits and means you can gobble up all your favourites like Cadbury giant buttons, Aero bar, Flake and Maltesers.
DON'T chew hard candies. While peppermints and similar types of sweets are safe to suck on, biting them can cause serious damage. So lollipops are okay for your child with braces as long as he or she is old enough to understand that it's limited to licking.
Skittles® Runts®, Sweettarts, and M&Ms® should be avoided if you have braces, as the shell could get wedged under your wire or pop off your brackets. This can require you to go and get orthodontic treatment rather than just brush your teeth.
The brace can be used to eat a turkey sandwich, but you should get some soft bread and make sure the toppings don't chew or crisp up. There is no need to do anything special to prevent tooth decay, just brush your teeth and use dental floss if necessary. It is a safe food to eat sandwiches while wearing braces.
We have a lot of patients ask how much braces hurt on a scale of 1-10. The truth is, the initial placement of your braces does not hurt at all! It is common to experience a dull soreness for a few days after your first braces appointment.
The discomfort typically disappears within four days, and braces pain rarely lasts longer than a week.
You're Still Warming Up to Your Braces
Also, the pressure your teeth normally exert when chewing anything but soft food may be too much for your extreme sensitivity. The braces may get in the way of gripping and biting food, and it may feel like doing so will snap off a piece of the braces.
Any type of hard and crunchy food is something you will want to avoid while wearing your braces. Chips like Fritos, Doritos, Tostitos, Cheetos, Takis, as well as pretzels and other hard breads are foods that can not only damage your wire, but also cause your brackets to break.
Taking Care of Your Braces
Milk and water are the safest drinks for your braces. Drinking soda, juices and sparkling water will only damage your teeth, so avoid them if you can. If you can't give up drinking soda, at least use a straw and don't let the soda sit in your mouth.
You might notice that your teeth don't seem to fit together the way they used to. That feeling can make chewing feel awkward, and if your brackets are irritating your cheeks and lips at the same time, the best thing you can do is to eat slowly and carefully.
Many breakfast foods are crunchy and difficult to eat with braces. You may think making bacon will be a nice treat and ease the pain, unfortunately, this will increase their discomfort. Here are the breakfast items we recommend you avoid: bacon, cereal, peanut butter on toast, and granola bars!
Chocolate: Soft milk or white chocolate is 100% safe to eat with braces, as long as there's no sneaky caramel, toffee or nuts hiding inside. Stick to treats like Hershey's kisses or even Kit Kat bars. Avoid dark chocolate, though.