Can you eat sweets with braces?

You can eat some sweets with braces, but you need to be careful about which ones and when. Braces and wires are fragile, and the wrong foods can break them. Sugary food trapped around a brace is also a recipe for tooth decay. This guide follows the advice in the British Orthodontic Society's patient leaflet on food and drink.

Sticky sweets: avoid

The British Orthodontic Society is clear that sticky foods such as toffee, caramel and lollies must be avoided, because they can loosen braces and break wires. Toffees, caramels and other sticky, chewy sweets fall into this group: see what are chews?

Hard and crunchy sweets: take care

Hard, sticky or crunchy foods can all cause problems. The society's advice for hard foods such as apples, nuts and biscuits is to cut them into small pieces and chew with the back teeth. Hard sweets come under the crunchy, hard or sticky foods the society says to avoid: see what are boiled sweets?

All sweets: less often, at mealtimes

Even soft sweets that will not break a brace can harm the teeth underneath it. When you eat anything sugary, the bacteria in plaque make acid, and your teeth can be under attack from that acid for up to one hour afterwards. Food and plaque left around the brackets can lead to decay and permanent, unsightly marks on the teeth.

That is why the society says chocolates and sweets should be kept to a minimum and only eaten at mealtimes. It also advises avoiding sugary food and drink between meals and at bedtime, and avoiding fizzy and acidic drinks, even diet ones.

Why it matters

Broken or loose braces lengthen treatment, because the teeth will not move correctly while the brace is damaged. If you keep damaging your brace, your treatment will take longer, so a little care with sweets can mean getting your brace off sooner.

Looking after your teeth

• Brush for two minutes at least twice a day with a fluoride toothpaste, and after lunch too if you can.
• Check your brace regularly for bent or loose parts, and do not fiddle with it.
• Keep up routine check ups with your family dentist.
• If you do have sweets, sugar free ones are kinder to your teeth, because the sugar alcohols in them are not fed on by mouth bacteria: see what are sugar free sweets made with?

Always follow the advice of your own orthodontist, who knows your brace and your teeth.

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