The Types of Sweets to Avoid this Halloween (if you're in braces)!

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!