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It might be the most wonderful time of the year, but if you’re dashing through the snow to an emergency orthodontic appointment, you’re not feeling very jolly. And post-holiday, no one wants to start off their New Year’s Resolutions with “Get Cavities Filled.” How to survive the sweetest of seasons with braces and enamel intact?

Candies and sweets would normally be on the naughty list, but we’re not Scrooges! Indulging in a treat or two is part of the holiday fun, and we have some advice for how to enjoy them guilt-free. But first, some treats are definitely more naughty than nice. Which are the ones that are better as decorations than desserts?

• Candy Canes

If you’ve ever suffered a broken bracket or a chipped tooth after an innocently biting down on a much-harder-than-expected piece of candy, you know that caution is in order. That’s why we tend to savor candy canes, letting them dissolve slowly in the mouth. Of course, the drawback to this strategy is that now we’re slowly bathing our teeth in sugar, encouraging the growth of plaque and cavity-causing bacteria.

Candy canes, peppermints, and other hard candies are potentially bad for your teeth and braces when you crunch away, and definitely bad for your teeth if you let them dissolve slowly.

• Gumdrops

Glistening, colorful gumdrops. Roofing your gingerbread house, trimming a gumdrop tree, or simply sitting in a bowl, they are one of the sweetest ways to decorate for the holidays.  And when we say “sweet,” we mean that literally. Most gumdrops are basically made of corn syrup and sugar—and then rolled in more sugar.

But their sugar content isn’t the only problem. This is sugar in an extra-gummy form that sticks between our teeth and along our gums, and gets caught around brackets and wires.

• Toffees, Caramels, Taffy

They might come in lovely ribboned boxes, but these extremely sticky foods are not a gift to your teeth.

Not only do chewy candies stick to enamel, they stick to fillings, crowns (especially temporary crowns), and orthodontic wires and brackets. No one wants an unexpected trip to the dentist or orthodontist because dental work has been damaged or dislodged!

• Gingerbread Houses

Nothing says the holidays like a gingerbread house—chewy, sticky gingerbread covered with hard sugar icing, gumdrops, and peppermints. Great for your décor; not so great for your dental health. Eat one gingerbread man if you’re in a spicy mood and leave your architectural masterpiece intact.

Well, this list wasn’t very jolly. So as a little holiday gift for you, here are some suggestions to help you enjoy your desserts in the healthiest way possible.

• Be choosy.

Just like you search for the perfect presents for your family and friends, take the time to choose the perfect holiday treats for yourself. If you are wear braces, or are worried about cavities, or are just generally concerned with your oral health, stay away from sticky, hard, and excessively sugary desserts.

What can you accept from your holiday hosts with a grateful (and relieved) smile? The occasional soft chocolate should be nothing to stress about—and if you make it dark chocolate, you’ll actually get nutritional bonuses like magnesium and antioxidants. Soft cakes, cupcakes, cookies, and pies should be braces-friendly—yes, they are made with lots of sugar, but it is the holidays after all. Just be sure to follow our next suggestions to make that slice of cheesecake guilt-free.

• Eat sweets with a meal.

Saliva does more than keep our mouths from getting dry. It also helps prevent cavities by washing away food particles and neutralizing the acids from food and bacteria which damage enamel.

Eat dessert with a meal, and you benefit from increased mealtime saliva production. When you snack throughout the day, this acid-neutralizing ability is greatly reduced.

• Rinse after eating.

Rinsing your mouth with water after a meal or a snack, especially a sugary one, also helps wash away the sugars and carbs which oral bacteria convert into cavity-causing acids.

• Brush immediately. (Maybe.)

If you wear braces, you want to make sure there are no food particles stuck around your brackets and wires. If you wear aligners, you want to get rid of food particles on and around your teeth before you replace your aligners after eating.

But if you’ve eaten acidic foods like citrus or colas, the acids in the food can weaken your enamel just enough to cause some potential enamel damage if you scour your teeth immediately after eating. We often recommend waiting about 30 minutes to brush to give your enamel a chance to recover.

Since every mouth is different, especially when you wear braces, talk to Cooper, Ford S. for the best times and methods for holiday brushing.

You don’t want to ho-ho-hope that we can fit you in at our Charlotte, NC or Spartanburg, SC office for a bracket repair. Make your holiday dessert list and check it twice, and make sure you’re brushing and flossing more often if you’re indulging in seasonal treats—give yourself these two gifts, and you’ll be ringing in the New Year with a beautiful, healthy smile. Sweet!

At OrthoCare Orthodontics we love learning trivia and interesting facts about Thanksgiving! This year, Cooper, Ford S. wanted to share some trivia that might help you feel a bit smarter at the holiday dinner table and help create some great conversation with friends and family.

The Turkey

There is no historical evidence that turkey was eaten at the first Thanksgiving dinner. It was a three-day party shared by the Wamponoag Indians and the pilgrims in 1621. Historians say they likely ate venison and seafood.

According to National Geographic, the dinner at the Plymouth colony was in October and included about 50 English colonists and 90 American Indian men. The first Thanksgiving dinner could have included corn, geese, and pumpkin.

Today, turkey is the meat of choice. According to the National Turkey Association, about 690 million pounds of turkey are consumed during Thanksgiving, or about 46 million turkeys.

The Side Dishes

The green bean casserole became popular about 50 years ago. Created by the Campbell Soup Company, it remains a popular side dish. According to Campbell’s, it was developed when the company was creating an annual holiday cookbook. The company now sells about $20 million worth of cream of mushroom soup each year, which is a major part of the recipe.

While there were likely plenty of cranberries for the pilgrims and Indians to enjoy, sugar was a luxury. What we know today as cranberry sauce was not around in those early Thanksgiving days. About 750 million pounds of cranberries are produced each year in the US, with about 30 percent consumed on Thanksgiving.

The Parade

Since Thanksgiving did not become a national holiday until Lincoln declared it in 1863, the annual parades were not yearly events until much later. The biggest parade that continues to draw crowds is the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Beginning in 1924 with about 400 employees, they marched from Convent Avenue to 145th Street in New York City. Famous for the huge hot-air balloons today, it was actually live animals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo that were the stars of the show then.

However you choose to spend your Thanksgiving holiday, we wish you a safe, happy and healthy holiday with those you love.

Whether you have metal braces or clear braces like Invisalign, the first few days after you first get them, or have them adjusted, can hurt. Your braces are pulling the teeth through stiff gum tissue into a newer, healthier position. Fortunately, the mouth, gum and tooth pain from braces usually subsides after a couple of days—and you can alleviate mouth and tooth pain with these 8 tips, straight from your orthodontist:

1. Orthodontic Wax to Prevent Sores

Your orthodontist can provide you with a non-toxic wax to apply over the rough brackets rubbing against your inner cheeks or tongue. First, make sure the bracket is very dry. Then roll up a little ball of wax and mold it over the irritating brackets. The orthodontic wax provides a smooth surface that can prevent sore spots. Just don’t forget to take the wax out before you brush your teeth!

2. Oral Anesthetics to Numb the Pain

Oral anesthetics containing Benzocaine can provide welcome numbing for sore gums and mouth tissues. You can find these anesthetic gels or liquids as over-the-counter medications at most drugstores. Carefully follow the package directions and apply the correct amount to the affected area with a clean fingertip or swab.

3. Over-the-Counter Pain Medications for Temporary Relief

Our orthodontist often advises patients to take an appropriate dose of the OTC pain medication (ibuprofen, aspirin, naproxen, or acetaminophen) before coming in to have braces put in or adjusted. This can take the edge off of the initial discomfort for a few hours. We caution parents to be careful of the dosage instructions on the package, and to try to use the other braces pain relief tips as well, so as not to over-do the pain medications. Please feel free to ask our orthodontist about pain medication cautions and suggestions.

4. Ice Packs to Reduce Inflammation

Painful inflammation of the gums and mouth tissues is normal right after having braces or aligners adjusted, and ice packs can help reduce the swelling. Wrap an ice pack in a thin towel hold it to your cheek for a few minutes at a time.

5. Cold Foods for Braces Pain Relief

Soft, cold foods like frozen yogurt, ice cream or sorbet can provide cooling relief inside your mouth as well. Sipping on ice water or sucking on (not chewing) an ice cube can help reduce inflammation and pain inside the mouth as well. Just make sure to thoroughly brush your teeth and braces after eating anything!

6. Soft Foods to Avoid Further Braces Pain

For the first couple of days after getting your braces or having them adjusted, avoid foods that require too much chewing or crunching. Instead, opt for soft foods like yogurt, mashed potatoes, soups, or soft-cooked vegetables and eggs. Once the pain subsides, you can start eating a more varied diet again, but be sure to follow your orthodontist’s instructions on what to eat and what not to eat when you have braces.

7. Heat Pads for Soothing

It can help to alternate ice packs with heat packs to soothe the tooth pain from braces. If you don’t have a heating pad, a warm washcloth can also help.

8. Warm Salt-Water Rinse to Prevent Infections

If you forgot to use orthodontic wax, and you start getting raw spots in your mouth from the brackets, a warm salt-water rinse will help. Pour a cup of warm water and stir in half a teaspoon of salt until it’s dissolved. Swish and gargle with the solution for about a minute before spitting. The warm salt water can prevent infections and sooth any tooth pain.

Be Patient

Your braces are shepherding your teeth into a healthy, fantastic smile! So, some discomfort at the beginning (and after adjustments) is entirely normal—but worth it! Try these tips and any other instructions your orthodontist provides, and you’ll feel better soon. Feel free to contact us at any time if you have questions.

Whether you wear metal braces, clear braces or use Invisalign to straighten your teeth, your dentist will probably recommend that you follow up that treatment by wearing a retainer. While it may seem inconvenient to wear a retainer after undergoing the long process of tooth straightening, wearing a retainer can help keep your smile long after you finish your teeth-straightening treatment.

Crooked teeth are common, and so is the use of braces. More than four million people in the United States wear some sort of braces to straighten their teeth. About 25 percent of these people are adults, but most are teens. A recent survey of orthodontists found that 60 percent of patients wore their retainers more than 10 hours each day in the first three months of treatment; about 4 percent never wore their retainers at all. Neglecting their retainer leaves these patients at risk for developing misaligned teeth later in life.

Understanding How the Tooth Straightening Process Works

It is important to correct crooked, misaligned or gap teeth. While crooked teeth are a cosmetic issue, they can also cause dental problems – crooked teeth can put extra pressure on different parts of your mouth to cause problems later on in life. Misaligned teeth can also be difficult to brush and floss around, which can lead to gum disease and tooth decay. Poorly aligned teeth can also result in a poor bite that prevents you from chewing your food well.

Dentists use a number of treatment plans, such as metal braces, clear braces and Invisalign, to straighten teeth. These treatments work by applying pressure to the teeth to gradually moving them into their optimal position in your jaw. Metal braces feature brackets cemented to your teeth and wires that apply pressure. Invisalign is a series of plastic trays that slowly push your teeth into place.

The good news is that, under pressure, the teeth move into place relatively easily. The bad news is that, without the pressure of braces or Invisalign, the teeth can move out of place again. This is especially true in the first year after you stop using Invisalign or have your braces removed. A retainer applies just enough pressure to keep your teeth in place while they settle into the new location in your jaw.

The Purpose of Wearing Your Retainer after Braces

There are two main types of retainers: fixed and removable. Fixed retainers are cemented in place, so you cannot remove them. You can easily slide a removable retainer in and out of your mouth. There are two types of removable retainers - Your dentist can recommend which type of retainer might be right for you.

Your orthodontist will also advise you on how long you should wear your retainer. Dentists usually recommend that you wear a removable retainer full time for at least one year after you have your braces removed or you stop wearing your Invisalign. If your teeth have stopped moving after a year of full time retainer use, your dentist may recommend that you wear your removable retainer only at night.

In some cases, your dentist may recommend that you wear a retainer at night for several years – or even forever, if your teeth tend to drift out of place.

If you don’t wear your retainer for the recommended amount of time, or not at all, your teeth may drift out of place and undo all of the hard work you have put into your beautiful smile. Neglecting your retainer can also put you at risk for a bad bite, tooth decay, gum disease and pressure from poorly aligned teeth. 

For more information on the importance of wearing your retainer after wearing braces or Invisalign to straighten your teeth, contact OrthoCare Orthodontics. Dr. Ford Cooper, the founder of OrthoCare Orthodontics, works alongside two additional orthodontists to provide early orthodontic treatment, metal braces, clear braces, Invisalign, corrective jaw surgery, dentofacial orthopedics, and emergency care. OrthoCare Orthodontics provides orthodontic care in four South Carolina locations, including Spartanburg, Rock Hill, and two offices in Charlotte, SC.

New patients can take advantage of a $500 off orthodontic treatment promotion at any of the four practice locations.