Dealing with orthodontic emergencies at home
Throughout your treatment journey, you will have regular appointments with both your orthodontist and your dentist. This is to ensure your treatment is progressing as it should, and also to check your appliances are in good condition.
Sometimes, problems can occur with your appliance so it’s important to know how to deal with these while you make an emergency appointment to see us. The following tips will help you deal with minor orthodontic emergencies at home.
Ligature tie-end digging in
If this happens, use a clean eraser on the end of a pencil or Q-tip to try to tuck it around the bracket.
Wire digging in
For the first couple of visits (due to the flexibility of the wire), it is often possible to trim the end with a clean pair of nail scissors or clippers.
Extractions
Where there is a span of wire across the site of the extraction the wire can sometimes come out of the very back band/bracket during chewing. If this happens use a clean pair of tweezers to guide the wire back into the tube.