How to Floss Teeth With Braces

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Dr. Mike Glasmeier of First Impressions Family Dentistry in Nashville, Tennessee and today we'll be talking about ways that you can floss your teeth when you are in braces. Three things that I would recommend in using to help floss with braces would be: 1) a floss threader, 2) an interdental brush and 3) some sort of mechanical device such as a Waterpik. The first step in flossing with braces would be to use your floss threader. What a floss threader does is allows you to tie floss on to a little string and enables you to get around the brackets and wires in order to dislodge food between the teeth. With traditional floss it's impossible to get down between the teeth due to the wire running across the teeth so the first thing you would do is grab your floss threader and kind of feed it through under the wire and slowly floss in between each tooth to dislodge any sort of plaque or debris that has accumulated. Once you have used your floss threader to dislodge any sort of food or plaque that has accumulated between the teeth we'll go on to an interdental brush. The interdental brush will be used to be pushed between the wire and the teeth to remove any sort of excess food or debris that has accumulated following flossing. A waterpik is also a great alternative to cleaning around the teeth following flossing by using pressurized water to help dislodge any sort of food that has accumulated around the teeth and gums. In conclusion using a floss threader, a Waterpik and an interdental brush are great ways to clean teeth with braces."