Emergency care

When to call

As a general rule, you should call the office when you experience severe pain or when you have a painful appliance problem that you cannot take care of yourself. We will be able to schedule an appointment to resolve the problem.

What you can do at home

You might be surprised to learn that you may be able to temporarily solve many problems yourself until you schedule an appointment with our office. When working with your appliances, you need to know the names of the parts of your appliances so you are able to identify what part is broken or out of place.

• Loose wire: use the back of a spoon or the eraser end of a pencil to carefully and gently push the wire back into place.
• Irritation from a wire or bracket: place orthodontic wax or a wet cotton ball over the spot to relieve the discomfort.
• General soreness: dissolve one teaspoon of salt in eight ounces of lukewarm water and swish for a couple of minutes without swallowing.
• A piece comes off: save it and bring it to the office with you.

After alleviating your discomfort, it is very important that you still call our office as soon as possible to schedule a time to repair the problem. Allowing your appliance to remain damaged for an extended period of time may result in disruptions in your treatment plan.

See Life With Braces for more on soreness, loose teeth, and sports.