Our Hygiene Program Helps Ensure Trouble-Free, Successful Treatment
Undergoing orthodontic treatment is a two-way street of sorts as it takes effort from both your orthodontist and yourself in order for treatment to be successful.
Your role as our orthodontic patient involves following the instructions we provide you with which includes things like avoiding hard, crunchy and chewy foods that can damage or break your braces. And because food particles can easily become trapped around your wires and brackets, it’s essential that you are extra diligent when brushing and flossing your teeth as doing so will help prevent plaque build-up, tooth decay and gum disease.
Our Hygiene Program is Designed to Help You Maintain Good Oral Hygiene
The team at Sturgill Orthodontics loves seeing the big smiles on the faces of our patients once their treatment is complete! To ensure that each of our patients has a trouble-free and successful treatment process, we offer our hygiene program designed to help them maintain good oral hygiene while wearing braces.
Here is an overview of our hygiene program that covers everything necessary to help you, our patient, maintain good oral hygiene the entire time you’re in braces.
Prior to Treatment
The day you come in to have braces your braces put on, we will first place a fluoride sealer called Opal Seal on the facial surface of your incisors to protect the teeth from bacteria. This seals the tooth enamel and provides fluoride. Opal Seal has fluorescent properties that allows for monitoring its presence. The application of this fluoride sealer also helps reduce white spots that can appear on the teeth, which is a common occurrence among orthodontic patients.
You Will Receive an Oral Hygiene Kit
On the day we place the braces, we will give you a Crest Oral B Kit. This kit has everything you’ll need to keep your teeth and braces clean. The kit includes the following:
- An Ortho Essential Precision 5000 electric toothbrush
- Proxy brushes
- Disclosing tablets
- Floss threaders
- Platypus flossers
- Crest Pro-Health fluoride rinse
- Crest fluoridated toothpaste
We will show you and your parents how to properly use all the products in the kit.
During Treatment
During treatment, all our patients are rated on their hygiene to help encourage good oral hygiene practice. Using the rating system, we will create a graph for you, which is used to track the history of your hygiene as you move through the treatment process. We’ve found that this rating system helps keep our patients on track with their oral hygiene routine to help avoid plaque build-up, tooth decay and gum disease.
During treatment, we will encourage you to keep your regular dental appointments as it’s important for you to be seen by your family dentist even when undergoing orthodontic treatment. If we notice a problem, we will notify you and request more frequent visits.
We’re very pleased to offer our patients this oral hygiene program! It’s our goal to help each of our patients obtain a beautiful, healthy smile as soon as possible and we believe this program helps us get there! If you have any questions about oral hygiene when wearing braces, please don’t hesitate to contact us as we’re always happy to speak with you!