How to Avoid Bad Breath with Braces

Bad breath is a problem everyone has dealt with at one time or another. Most people have let out a few panicked exhales into the palm of their hand to determine if their breath needs attention. Bad breath sometimes seems like it sneaks up on us unannounced. If you avoided onions at dinner, why isn’t your mouth a perfume paradise? Don’t worry — we’re here to explain.

If you’re already navigating the messy terrain of bad breath elimination, you’re probably curious how braces treatment may help or harm your fight. In this guide, we’ll offer some tips and tricks to avoid bad breath during braces treatment. We hope that when you’re through with this guide you’ll panic-exhale into your palm on significantly fewer occasions.

What Causes Bad Breath?

Sometimes the causes of bad breath (or “halitosis”) are immediate and obvious — for instance, if you’ve just consumed a whole head of garlic. Other times, the causes of bad breath may be a little less clear, but poor oral hygiene is usually the main culprit.

If you neglect your brushing and flossing, plaque can build up on your teeth and tongue, eventually causing an odor. If poor oral hygiene goes unchecked, small problems can become much more serious. A missed brushing or two can certainly cause bad breath, but if there’s no intervention in your oral hygiene, tooth decay and gum disease can begin. This can create a vicious cycle, since bad breath is a side effect of both of these conditions.

Another contributing factor to bad breath is dry mouth, whether chronic or the result of dehydration. Dehydration and dry mouth slow down the production of saliva. Saliva helps wash away bacteria and plaque from your mouth, so when production slows, so do your defenses against bad breath.

That said, poor oral hygiene is the most serious contributor to bad breath, and that’s where braces can make things complicated. Braces make maintaining proper oral hygiene more difficult by providing numerous hiding places for plaque and bacteria. If you don’t rise to the challenge presented by braces, you could deal with bad breath throughout the treatment process.

How Can I Avoid Bad Breath With Braces?

Braces complicate maintaining good oral hygiene, but that doesn’t mean bad breath is inevitable. Here are some tips for avoiding bad breath throughout braces treatment:

Set Aside the Time

Cleaning your teeth with braces will take more time than you’re probably used to. You’ll need to brush at least three times a day and floss once. You’ll need to learn a new brushing technique from your orthodontist, to ensure you reach every area of your braces brackets.

Flossing will also present new challenges, since you’ll need to thread the floss behind the wire in your braces. You’ll need to do this for each tooth, which can be very time consuming. Set yourself up for success by budgeting more time for your oral hygiene routine.

Be Prepared

With braces you’re going to need to brush your teeth more often. It can be challenging to remember to pack your toothbrush when you leave the house for the day. Our advice? Get a second toothbrush and tube of toothpaste, to keep in your tote, backpack or purse, so that you’re always prepared.

Brush After Meals

Brushing after each meal is an important component of braces treatment. Food particles can easily get trapped in your wires and around your brackets. It’s never a good idea to let food sit on our teeth for a long period of time, since it turns into plaque and bacteria, which can contribute to bad breath.

Clean Your Tongue

The same plaque that sits on your teeth can also hide in your tongue. The surface of your tongue is covered with grooves that are perfect little habitats for plaque. It’s important to include the tongue in your regular brushing routine.

You can also purchase a tongue scraper from a local drug store. A tongue scraper works exactly like it sounds — you’ll simply pull the scraper from the back of your tongue to the front and repeat this a few times until your tongue is clean.

Regular Dentist Appointments

Seeing your dentist for a regular cleaning every 6 months is an important part of your overall oral health, including keeping bad breath at bay. Dentists are able to access any hard to reach nooks and crannies in your smile that you could be missing with your brushing and flossing.

When plaque has the chance to sit on your teeth for over 72 hours it can harden into a substance called tartar, which tends to have an odor. Tartar is harder to clean off of teeth than plaque, and is beyond what your toothbrush is capable of. Your dentist can help remove this tartar at a cleaning, as well as remove any plaque or tartar that has managed to sneak up underneath your gums — which can lead to gum disease.

Stay Hydrated

As we’ve mentioned, dry mouth and dehydration can cause bad breath. Staying hydrated is always a good idea, but especially if you want to keep bad breath at bay. Saliva is a great ally in your fight against bad breath. When you’re hydrated, more saliva can be produced by your salivary glands.

Choose Nutritious Foods

Braces are a durable treatment option, but they aren’t indestructible. Certain foods are off limits during your treatment, since these foods can damage or break your braces hardware. Foods like popcorn and caramel are especially harmful to braces hardware.

The good news is, many of the foods your orthodontist will ask you to give up during your braces treatment are also good to avoid because of their negative effect on your breath. Foods that are heavily processed, sugary and starchy cling to your teeth and make plaque accumulation more likely.

Let’s shift our focus from foods to avoid during braces treatment, to foods you can include during your braces treatment. Whole, plant foods have an extremely high water content compared to processed foods. The water content of plant foods contributes to your hydration, which aids in your production of saliva.

High fiber foods are a great addition to any diet, since fiber content requires more chewing. Chewing stimulates saliva production, which helps keep your mouth clean and your breath socially acceptable.

Avoid Smoking

Cigarettes are linked to a variety of health conditions to which “bad breath” pales in comparison. That being said, smoking can cause cumulative negative effects to your oral health, and your breath can suffer. Beyond just your breath, smoking can also cause gum disease and tooth decay — and as we’ve mentioned, each of these conditions feature bad breath as a symptom.

Final Thoughts

Most people work to avoid bad breath if they can. Though braces do make oral hygiene more complicated, your breath’s fate isn’t sealed. Simply follow the steps we’ve outlined here in order to avoid bad breath during your braces treatment.