What Can We Do If Orthodontic Bracket Is Broken?

When patients are forced to undertake orthodontic treatment to align their teeth, they shouldn’t not forget to protect their orthodontic brackets. Brackets are where the orthodontic wires pass through them. Thus, if they deviate, even slightly the teeth’s movement will differ. Fortunately, a problem commonly occurs during orthodontic treatment, especially the lingual orthodontics. This Is the breakage of brackets. Since, the orthodontic brackets are separated from the tooth, the treatment process would be ruined and it would decline the speed of the teeth alignment process.

Consequences of a Broken Bracket

To take serious protection of their orthodontic brackets, before anything else, patients need to know that what consequences would be followed if even a single bracket is separated from its place:

• The most important and worst consequence of the orthodontic bracket is postponement of the treatment. It’s also interesting to know that sometimes breakage of even a single orthodontic bracket may postpone the treatment beginning for 2-3 months and even can male futile the previous treatment.
• Another problem caused by the orthodontic brackets breakage is Oral Ulcers. In this case, both your tongue and lips get wounded while speaking or eating. Which consequently would result in infection. On the other hand, since the mouth is always wet, the ulcers would heal through a longer time.
• It is impossible to reuse the broken brackets; hence, the patient has to pay for the new brackets.

Necessary Cares After Breakage Of a Bracket

Since the start of orthodontic treatment, all patients have to observe the necessary care for the health of their teeth. All orthodontists strongly ask their patients to avoid stiff foods, because such foods would break their orthodontic brackets.

However, in some cases it has been seen that despite observation of necessary instructions and care by the patient, the orthodontic bracket would break and it occurs for different reasons.

For example, loosened orthodontic adhesive, chewing nuts, when a spoon hits the orthodontic bracket, etc. are among the common causes which may result in the breakage of the orthodontic bracket. Although it would happen for any patient and is something which is not predictable, so, the patients need to know what to do in such cases:

• Firstly, patients are forced to call the orthodontic clinic or office and ask for an emergency appointment. As noted already, breakage of an orthodontic bracket will affect the treatment process and postpones the alignment of the teeth. Therefore, patients have to call their orthodontist and inform them about what happened as soon as possible. In such cases, the orthodontists have no choice but to use a new bracket.
• In some cases, there is no access to the orthodontist when a bracket breaks and in such cases, patients often experience a very hard condition. Please suppose that one of your brackets has been broken and you want to eat something in this condition. Your tongue and lips are wounded and even you may suffer from an oral infection subsequently. For this reason, before visiting your orthodontist, you need to know what to do when your bracket is broken:
  • See whether the orthodontic bracket is connected into the wire? If it is disconnected, you should detach it very carefully from the wire, because you would swallow the bracket while speaking or eating. But if the bracket still is attached to the wire, please don’t manipulate it, because any pressure over the bracket would result in the deviation of the wire and would disturb the treatment process.
  • As mentioned above, if the orthodontic bracket is still attached to the wire, don’t detach it. So, in order to avoid tongue and lips ulcers, patients have to rub the special wax the orthodontist has given them at the beginning of the treatment process, over the breakage spot, in order to prevent formation of oral and dental ulcers.