If you need orthodontic treatment, you may have some questions and concerns about how treatment will affect your daily life. Here, we address those our patients ask us about most often.
There's no doubt about it: your braces will affect your daily routines, but you probably won't have to make as many changes as you are expecting.
The things that do change will be in the following areas of your life.
Your Dental Hygiene Routine
Your oral hygiene routine will necessarily be more time consuming during orthodontic treatment.
If you have braces, you’ll need to spend extra time brushing and flossing your teeth, to thoroughly clean out all the little crevices in your braces as well.
With Invisalign aligners, you’ll be brushing and flossing like normal, but you'll have to spend time cleaning the aligners themselves after each meal and snack as well. This will ensure they are clean before you put them back in your mouth.
Your Social Life
Social activities like talking, eating, laughing, and kissing will feel different with braces and Invisalign at the outset of treatment, but you will quickly get used to it.
You may occasionally encounter rude or insensitive people who tease you about your braces. While you may know logically that this is both silly and unkind, you may nonetheless find it difficult not to let it bother you. Just try to remember that you’re undergoing a medical treatment, and that's nothing to be embarrassed about. Your oral health and your smile will be greatly improved in the end, so keep your chin up!
It may also take you a while to grow accustomed to how different your smile looks with braces. Practice smiling in front of the mirror, or taking a few selfies from various angles, can help you get used to your new look a bit faster.
Eating & Drinking
Your eating and drinking habits will undergo some changes during orthodontic treatment.
As you know, you'll need to brush and floss after each meal or snack. Otherwise food debris can get lodged in braces quite easily, and you may end up going through your day with a bit of spinach dangling from your braces. You may want to start keeping a small pocket mirror on you as well.
Certain foods can also actually cause damage to your braces, so you’ll need to make some changes to your usual diet during treatment. Foods that are hard and crunchy, that you have to bite into, or that are sticky and gooey, are all off limits!
These changes may seem like a lot, laid out all at once, but don't worry too much. You'll quickly get used to daily life with braces, and your braces won't be on your mind much!
