coffee teeth

The last thing you want is yellow teeth after years of wearing braces. But unfortunately, it’s a very common occurrence. If you don’t take care of your mouth while you’re wearing braces, you might be surprised to see white squares where your braces were on yellow-stained teeth after your dentist removes them. Thankfully, it’s easy to avoid this experience. Here are some reasons why people get yellow teeth after braces and how to prevent this from happening. We’ll also talk about how you can fix stained teeth after braces.

Brush Properly With A Toothbrush Made for Braces

With all the brackets and wires crowding your teeth, it’s easy for plaque to build up in hard-to-reach places. That’s why it’s especially important for you to brush properly when you have braces. When plaque is left to sit on your teeth, your teeth start to decay, causing them to turn yellow.
People with braces should ask their dentist about electric toothbrushes that are specifically designed for mouths with braces. These brushes will have bristles that are made to remove plaque around brackets and get through wires.

Floss Every Day, Getting Those Hard-to-Reach Spots

Having braces can feel like a great excuse to not floss, since it’s harder to reach the spaces between your teeth. But with more bacteria buildup, it’s extremely important to floss with braces. Just like with brushing, flossing every day will help keep your teeth from decaying and turning yellow.
Superfloss is the best type of floss for people with braces. It’s made up of three types of floss: soft spongy floss, a stiffened-end threader, and regular floss. The stiffened-end threader makes it easier to get between your braces, and the large spongy floss helps you clean around your brackets and wires.

Avoid Tooth-Staining Food

Some food and drinks contain colored properties that can stick to your teeth’s enamel and change their beautiful white color to yellow. These include soda and “sports drinks”, hard and gummy candy, red wine, and coffee. It’s best to avoid these teeth-staining foods and drinks as often as possible, or slowly consume them with glass of water. When you do eat or drink them, wash out your mouth and brush afterwards to keep them from staining your teeth.

Don’t Smoke

Smoking is a big culprit of yellowing teeth, along with other horrible diseases and issues. There’s really no good reason to continue smoking. One of the many effects of smoking is yellowing teeth, caused by the nicotine and tar in tobacco. This can occur not just from smoking, but also from chewing tobacco. Tobacco use is one thing you should quit for good - not just when you have braces.

Use Invisalign Instead of Traditional Braces

If you haven’t had braces yet, you should consider using Invisalign instead of traditional braces. Since Invisalign braces are removable, it’s much easier to keep your braces and teeth clean, reducing the chance that your teeth will turn yellow. Brushing and flossing will be exactly the same as when you didn’t have braces!

Receive Teeth Whitening Treatment After Braces

If your teeth begin yellowing while you have braces, you don’t have to say goodbye to your pearly whites for good. Ask your dentist about teeth whitening after braces! At Water Tower Dental Care, we use Zoom! Teeth Whitening to change the color of your teeth dramatically after just one visit. This leading teeth whitening system brightens up your smile up to 8 shades in about an hour. It’s as easy as that.
Don’t settle for a yellow smile. Contact us to learn more about whitening your teeth after braces! There’s no better place to bring back your beautiful smile than at Chicago’s top cosmetic dentistry.

Like a majority of Americans waking up early and setting off to work every morning, we enjoy a good cup of coffee to help wake us up. That shot of caffeine helps us get moving at the beginning of our day and keeps us on our toes through the afternoon. With almost daily consumption of coffee though, many of our patients ask if it's bad for their teeth. This is a hard question to answer, mostly because we enjoy drinking coffee just as much as the next person, so telling our patients that it's bad for them would make us feel just as guilty for drinking it! However, joking aside, coffee isn't the best drink for your teeth, however it's not the worst. Let's explain.

What Coffee Does To Your Teeth

Hot liquids, no matter what kind, are likely to open the pores on your teeth. When this happens, your teeth are more susceptible to damage, especially when drinking something very acidic. And guess what, coffee's level of acidity is quite high. Acidic drinks are much better at breaking down tooth enamel than base drinks like water or milk. The more your hard outer coating of enamel thins, the more the underneath layer, dentin, with its yellowish hue will be revealed.
As well, when your mouth becomes more acidic, it can breed bacteria faster. If there's one thing bacteria loves, it's acidity. Worse, the more bacteria that re-produces, the more acidic waste it produces, which then breeds more bacteria. It's a domino effect that's worth preventing. Large amounts of bacteria in your mouth can cause a range of problems from bad breath to gum disease.
Not only does coffee breed bacteria, but it can also stain your teeth very easily. Have you ever spilled coffee on your shirt or your carpet? Those stains don't come out too easily, do they? Well, the same goes for your teeth. Coffee is one of the leading causes of stained teeth (tobacco being the leading cause). When you drink coffee, the caffeine interferes with the natural saliva production process, which means it's harder to wash out the coffee in your mouth, leading to some pretty nasty stains.

How To Prevent Coffee Teeth Stains

All of this information is probably not what you want to hear. Believe us, we don't like hearing it either. However, there are solutions to helping prevent any long-term damage when drinking coffee. Follow these tips:
1. Limit Your Time With Coffee
Although it may be fun to sip your coffee all day, the longer you drink it, the more time you're giving bacteria to grow. Drink your coffee in a reasonable amount of time. Your teeth will thank you.
2. Use a Straw
If you're drinking iced coffee, or just don't mind looking a little silly, use a straw. This will allow the drink to bypass your teeth. You can still taste the coffee-goodness but miss some of the acidic and teeth-staining attributes.
3. Brush Brush Brush
After you drink your coffee, it's a good idea to brush your teeth to remove any stains and bacteria. However, obviously we don't all bring a toothbrush to the cafe, so at the very least, rinse with water.
If you're worried that your coffee habit has already stained your teeth to an unmanageable level, there's still a solution. Water Tower Dental Care offers teeth whitening that is guaranteed to eliminate those yellow and brown stains. Extremely simple and fast, we offer Zoom! Whitening which can brighten your smile up to eight shades in about an hour. It's a very easy process, first the doctor applies a special pH-balanced hydrogen peroxide solution to the surface of your teeth. Next, a special low-heat light activates the solution and brightens the teeth. It's that simple.

For more questions about our dental work, visit our homepage and find the dental solutions for you. We'll be happy to help.