Eating habits with braces!

[GillyWeed]

I was just wondering if any of you guys HAVEN'T changed your eating habits since getting your braces on. I honestly haven't had to change a thing! Skittles, licorice, twix bars, tortilla/potato chips, POPCORN, burgers, broccoli, carrots, almonds...I could go on for days but I'm sure you get the idea.

Am I the only bad one eating everything on the No-No list???

[catgyrl]

Scooch over, girlie! The only thing on the "no-no" list I don't eat are whole apples and corn on the cob. (Ahem... not counting the time I tried to eat it a month or so ago - and broke a bracket. Never again!) Some things (caramel-y type things) are a bit difficult and a pain in the butt to clean, so that's the main reason I won't eat some things. But I think as long as you're careful and eat slowly, it should be fine.

[furious george]

I'm jealous! Most things are just too much of an effort. I wonder if it's the molar buildups, or if it's just me? I have a really hard time chewing.

[drgnchsr36]

I eat almost everything.. but I've avoided beef jerky (it's too messy) for now and almonds.. but I think that's about it!

[nikkibabie19]

I wish I waa some of you.

Right now its just too much of a painful effort to eat all those things.

If it wasn't painful I admit I prob would have had half those things already.

But for now its just a liquid diet with the occasiona sandwich and soggy cereal

[xanidu2012]

Nope u not the only one. I eat pretzels, peanuts, cashews carefully. I was never much of sticky candy or popcorn. . Gave up on steak though

[zdenka]

The only thing on the no-no list I eat are chips. Other than that those foods either hurt to eat or are just so much work, that I am not even interested.

[Georgina A]

You're so lucky! The only things I can seem to tolerate at this point are bananas and mac and cheese. I can barely stand eating at all because so much food gets stuck in my braces and I have to rinse my mouth out like 5 times after eat to get rid of all the debris! I'm trying to look at the bright side and know that I'll lose some weight because of it, but restrictions suck and so does giving up my hard candy habit!

[klobird]

If anything gets screwed up with my braces and it's my fault, my ortho charges $50 to fix it.
Good deterrent. So, I don't eat popcorn (only because of the hulls) or hard nuts, or gummy bears etc..Like I won't eat one of those loaded chewy oatmeal chocolate nut bars--things like that. And I don't eat my very favorite thing in the whole world--a frozen Tw*x bar.

I do eat cheetos, pizza (I don't get why that's even on the no-no list) tons of steak, and some caramelly things.

Even with the $50 deterrent, I am getting braver and braver with the no-nos.

[Acklay]

I'm pretty sure I ate everything on the list before my second week of braces was over. I may have been a bit slow, but I ate it anyway. Now a month and a half into the process I'm eating anything I want and I'm not slowed down at all.

[TMJJill]

I'm in a bit of a strange situation. They are adjusting my bite and I have quite a few teeth that can't touch right now. I have a really hard time chewing and breaking down things like lettuce, skins on fresh fruit and veggies, pickles, peppers, etc... Makes eating a lot of the healthy stuff very hard. I can do better with some of the foods when they are cooked. I think it will be a long time until I can easily do fresh greens though.

I will say that I tried canned spinach and plan to avoid it for a while. It wrapped itself around all of my brackets and wires and I really had to work to get it all off. It isn't worth that again.

I eat most other things I can chew, but just haven't tried some of the things above because I know it wouldn't be easy. I can cut my corn off the cob and just not worry. (See, I can learn from others on the board. )

[ITALIANNYC]

Question:

Am I the only one who cant chew on the molar that the ankor thing is on?

Whenever I chew on it , it hurts. As if the ring is being pushed into my gum.

Had braces on for 2 weeks, but basically eat what I want. Just try to avoid that tooth, which is extremely hard to do.

[starfish88]

I was just wondering how soon after braces on I'll be able to eat like normal? I'm going on holiday a week after I get my braces on and I'm hoping to enjoy my food especially as I haven't and probably wont have eaten any solid food between wisdom teeth out on the 13th and getting braces on the 28th...I miss food!

[Elegra]

I found that slowly over the months, I got more confident about biting straight into things and now there's nothing I won't eat! Even toffee and caramel is fine as long as I let it soften in my mouth first rather than trying to chew it straight away.

Some things I approach by biting with my molars rather than straight on.

And of course, some food is just more hassle than it's worth to eat ie. nuts, stringy bits of vegetables etc, which means you spend ages picking them out the wires!

[BellaBraces]

I don't really like to bite down with my incisors. I can eat most things provided I have cutlery. I am looking forward to the day when I can bite into a sandwich! I bought one at the airport the other day. It looked quite soft but I still could not manage it and had to sit there separating it all out and tearing it into small pieces. I got some very funny looks.