The ghoulish holiday, Halloween is right around
the corner which can be exciting for most, but for those of you in braces,
there are some candies to avoid. The sticky, hard, and gooey: these candies
fill your dopamine receptors with spasms of sugar-filled joy, but if you’re
undergoing orthodontic treatment at Gonzales Orthodontics to straighten your
teeth, then these sweets are not so sweet.
Here are six culprits that Dr. Gonzales and our
team recommend leaving on the candy aisle and not put in your mouth, no matter
how tempting they may be.
1. Gum is sticky and stringy. It
can get tangled like fishing net in your braces. You don’t want to be that
person trying to pull knots of Wrigley’s out of your braces without being seen.
2. All chewy, gooey candies need
to be avoided. When you’re wearing braces, don’t even think about putting a
caramel candy in your mouth. Caramel will not only stick to your braces, making
it look as if you haven’t brushed your teeth in a week, but the gooey texture
can pull apart the wires, and trigger an emergency visit to our office.
3. Hard candy may seem like a
safe choice, but it’s not. What’s the problem? Nobody ever just sucks on hard candy;
sooner or later, we bite down on it. Biting a hard candy may cause part of your
braces to snap. Furthermore, once the candy is broken into a bunch of little
pieces, it’s not uncommon for one of those sugary shards to get wedged between
your braces and teeth … and that’s a cavity waiting to happen.
4. The taffy you enjoy getting
at a seaside boardwalk is going to have to go on the back burner. Like caramel,
taffy can pull apart and damage your braces. You don’t want to have your
expensive orthodontic gear replaced.
5. Please, just one lollipop?
Nope. A lollipop is nothing more than hard candy on a stick. If you can’t have
hard candy during orthodontic treatment, then you shouldn't have hard candy on
a stick either.
6. Other
items to avoid are licorice, nuts, popcorn, jelly beans and caramel apples. Again, we're worried about the sticky, hard and gooey!
Halloween
is meant to be spooky and fun, so by avoiding these candies and snacks, you
will ensure yourself the trouble of having to visit our office by keeping your
teeth happy, while keeping your brackets and wires intact!
Be safe and have a very, Happy Halloween!
