How to pay attention to diet during teeth correction?
When you first get braces or wires, your teeth are suddenly subjected to corrective force after being unaccustomed to it. Most people will feel pain and be unwilling to even open their mouth, let alone eat.
Experts advise that for the first two or three days, you should eat soft foods like congee and noodles. Afterwards, you can resume eating rice based on your level of adaptation.
Avoid hard foods such as sugarcane, pork ribs, crab, popsicles, chicken legs, beef jerky, and snacks with pits or shells. Biting or chewing these foods requires significant force, which can loosen the braces and bend the wires, affecting tooth movement.
Try to avoid sticky foods like maltose, chewing gum, glutinous rice products, and toffee. These can adhere to the braces and wires, causing them to shift.
Try to avoid high-sugar foods such as common candies and cookies. To prevent cavities, it's best to eat less of these during treatment. If you do indulge, you must brush your teeth immediately.
Try not to drink sugary beverages like cola, Sprite, and fruit juice. Tooth movement relies on the absorption and deposition of bone in the periodontium, and a balanced diet facilitates this process. If your nutrition is unbalanced during treatment, it may affect the outcome, so paying attention to dietary balance is even more important.
Eat more vegetables and fruits (note that apples should be cut into small pieces to avoid loosening the brackets) and supplement your vitamins to help reduce mouth ulcers and angular cheilitis. Many people with braces are more prone to mouth ulcers or cracked corners of the mouth due to irritation from the braces, so it's important to consciously supplement with sufficient vitamins. Diet therapy is a simple and effective method. Lemons, grapes, strawberries, mangoes, watermelon, tomatoes, cantaloupe, asparagus, broccoli, kale, spinach, and potatoes are rich in vitamin C, so consider consuming more of them.
Since you have braces on your teeth, it's best to chew your food slowly and carefully, regardless of what you're eating, to avoid biting your gums or loosening the braces.
Braces cannot be so perfectly fitted that you can eat without caution, and the thinner wires cannot withstand excessive bite force. Therefore, it is crucial to pay attention to your diet during orthodontic treatment to ensure the effectiveness of the correction.