FutureWifey

Hi FutureWifey!

Congrats on your first week! I'm very glad to hear that you're able to eat solid foods (and BTW, alfredo pasta with chicken is my FAVORITE!! Especially the one from Pizza Hut. I usually get that on “adjustment days”, since it’s soft enough to eat.)

Yes, I'm sure the hooks are for your future elastics. As for the colored dots, they are supposed to brush away. Do you have metal braces? On my metals, they were gone within a couple of brushings. I switched to ceramic uppers last week, and the colored stripes on those are taking a little longer to go away. They're not noticeable in person, but when I take telephoto pics to post here, I can still see a faint residue of blue. (Or, maybe that was food... haha) Keep working at it... spent a few extra seconds per tooth with the toothbrush, but don't brush your gums for too long. I went a little crazy with one tooth and discovered my gums were really irritated with me afterward.

Toothpaste: I use Colgate Whitening with Baking Soda with Peroxide (as recommended by Sunny!), and it does a great job at removing recent stains (from meals I've eaten that day), but it has no actual permanent tooth whitening affect. I know this because I've been using that toothpaste since April, and when I got my brackets changed last Friday, I made it a point to look at my naked teeth in the mirror, and there was no difference between the area that was under the bracket and the rest of the tooth. I also asked my ortho if it was okay to use (after his tech told me it wasn't), and he said it would be fine. He did prescribe a higher fluoride toothpaste for me to use, too, but since it's so expensive ($11 a tube), he said I could use that once a day, if I wanted.

Good luck to you!! Keep up the water, wax and rinses!

-Cathy

Yeah I use the Arm & Hammer with Baking Soda and Peroxide. It's good stuff for the teeth. And yes, the dots come off Takes some time but they will fade away. I use an electric toothbrush too and I love it. Glad you are back into solids!!

Great to read that you enjoyed your meal and that you're feeling heaps better.

Many brackets are manufactured with standard hooks for elastics, due to elastics being a very common 'add on' during ortho treatment. This may or may not mean that you'll be wearing them. If you do need elastics ... remember they're there for a reason and the outcome will be to your benefit.

I use a colgate toothpaste with baking soda and peroxide and love it. My teeth and brackets feel really clean after I've used it ... and it's been for a long time now, so I'm confident it's doing a great job.

It's interesting that with some brands of brackets the dots come off during the first brush where as with others it can take a bit longer. They're there to help the ortho during the installation phase, so there's no need for them to last longer than your bonding appointment.

Good luck with your progress!

Thank you all for your quick and kind responses. I knew I made a good decision to blog on this site. I've seen you guys all over this site and I even read your blogs. It's an honor to have you all comment on my blog. Very encouraging!

catgyrl I LOVE Pizza Hut too! I never thought about their alfredo until now. I'm gonna keep them in mind for my 1st adjustment. I do have metal brackets and I brush 3 times a day. They are black and red dots and I don't see them fading at all. It really makes me feel like I'm doing a bad job with brushing my teeth.

Denise Thanks for your encouragement. I'm gonna start scrubbing harder and hopefully they'll disappear. I was just worried that my bracket might fall off and sometimes certain teeth are so sensitive that I don't want to make it worse.

Sunny I'm definitely feeling better. I'm so adjusted to my braces now that eating and talking feels natural again. It sounds like I should switch toothpastes right away. Does it make a difference if I wait until my current ones are finished? I would hate to waste my money.

There's no need to change your toothpaste, as long as you're happy with the job it's doing. More important is rinsing your mouth twice a day with a mouthwash that contains fluoride.

Good luck!