Loose band or bracket
Call our office for damage assessment to plan the repair. If your band or bracket comes off, keep it in a safe place and bring it with you! If you are wearing headgear or elastics attached to a loose band, stop wearing them.

Broken or Poking Archwire
If a broken wire can be removed easily, remove the broken piece. If a wire slips out of its tube, replace the wire in the tube or under the tube hook with tweezers. If the wire still pokes, slide it to the opposite side, remove the protecting piece or cover the wire with dental wax. Call our office for a comfort adjustment or damage repair before additional problems develop.

Poking Tie Wire
Tuck the poking wire under with a pencil eraser or the end of your dental mirror. If this is not possible, cover it with wax, cotton ball or gauze and call for a comfort adjustment.

Lost Tie
If the untied tooth begins to change position, call us right away for an appointment to retie the tooth. Do not hook rubber bands to an untied tooth.

Tooth Soreness
Soreness during orthodontic treatment will occur. A warm salt water rinse (1/2 tsp. of salt in a small glass of warm water) will help. Eat soft foods for the first few days. Chewing sugarless gum, eating warm soup or drinking hot liquids after an adjustment or separation appointment will reduce tooth tenderness. Soreness will end in three or four days. Tylenol will help alleviate the tenderness.

Headgear/Removable Appliance Does Not Fit
If these appliances are not worn regularly as prescribed, they will not fit properly. Call for an adjustment appointment right away.

Traumatic Accidents
Use ice immediately to reduce swelling. If the teeth are displaced and don’t fit together properly, archwires are bent or soft tissue is impaled on the braces, schedule an appointment immediately in our office, with your general dentist or oral surgeon.

Soft Tissue Impingement
Call our office for a comfort adjustment to relive the offending portion of the appliance. You may be able to pull a hook or loop out or push it in to relieve discomfort.

Loose Teeth
Loosening is common as teeth must loosen before they can move. They will tighten following appliance removal.

Lost Separators
Floss the contact between the teeth where the separator was lost. If the contact is open, you should be okay. If it is tight, call the office for us to replace the separator.

Irritated Cheeks, Lips or Tongue
Brackets may irritate soft tissues initially until the tissues toughen (as hands callous). Soft wax or cotton balls ease the discomfort as does a warm salt water rinse or Orabase-B ointment (with Benzocaine).

Staining of Clear Brackets and Ties
Avoid coffee, tea, red wine, mustard, curry, spaghetti sauce, tobacco smoke and dill pickle juice.

Loose Bonded Expander
Stop turning the screw and report the problem. If the expander comes off, wear it like a retainer to maintain expansion. You may have to turn back the screw to make it fit. Remove after every meal to clean the teeth.

Set aside Sunday as a day to check for damage. Go to the mirror and gently check each band and bracket by attempting to lift the attachment away from the tooth. Any movement away from the tooth indicates a loose band or bracket. Please call early Monday morning for a damage assessment appointment.