How To Handle Potential Problems With Braces

During your orthodontic treatment plan, you’ll make regular visits to your dentist in West Edmonton. At those appointments, your dentist will examine and clean your teeth, track your progress, adjust your braces as required, make any necessary repairs and answer your questions. 

Occasionally, something might go wrong with your braces between your appointments. Your dentist will do everything they can to make sure that doesn’t happen, but braces are built of several components and your mouth is full of moving parts. Sometimes things happen that we don’t expect. Here’s a brief explanation of three issues that our patients sometimes experience between appointments, and what you should do if any of them happens to you.

If an archwire breaks

The archwires that run between the brackets on your teeth, and that pass through o-rings that hold them into place, help your teeth move by exerting pressure in concert with those brackets. Archwires come in different shapes — round, square and even rectangular — and are made of several different types of materials, including nickel-titanium, beta-titanium, and stainless steel. An orthodontist or dentist near you will choose the right shape and type of wire for your treatment plan and progress.

If a wire breaks, two things are going to happen. First, your progress is going to halt since your teeth will no longer be moved. Second, you may experience poking or irritation of your lips or cheek depending on where the loose end of the wire points. For both reasons, you should make an appointment with your dentist immediately if any wire on your dental braces in West Edmonton breaks. While waiting for your appointment, get some dental wax from a drugstore near you and put it over the end of the wire.

If a bracket gets loose

Brackets are bonded onto your teeth, usually atop a thin layer of composite resin materials. That bond is a powerful one but can be disrupted from time to time. Commonly, the culprit is eating something too crunchy or too chewy too often — the sort of thing your orthodontist may have told you to avoid or minimized for this very reason. 

If you notice a bracket getting loose, wobbly, or shifting on your tooth, make an appointment with your dentist so it can be repaired. In the meantime, place some dental wax over the bracket to avoid irritating any of the soft tissues in your mouth.

If a spacer falls out or gets loose

Spacers aren’t used in every orthodontic treatment plan but are sometimes used to make space between teeth so that orthodontic bands can be put around certain teeth — most often molars. Those spacers will gradually create more and more space between teeth until there’s enough room for the band. When there’s enough room for a band, there’s too much room for a spacer and that spacer will get loose or fall out. For that reason, a loose or dislodged spacer is nothing to be concerned about. It’s a sign of progress. Just let your dentist know so that they can get ready to take the next step — perhaps placing an orthodontic band where it’s needed — to get you closer to your end goal.

These are three of the most common issues that affect our patients between their follow-up appointments. If you experience something else that concerns or confuses you at any time, don’t wait until your appointment to call and let us know. Get in touch with us right away so we can answer any questions you have about wearing and living with dental braces near you.