Young woman smiling at camera wearing white shirt in professional orthodontic office setting.

Flossing With Braces

Using a toothbrush or Waterpik^® can clean most, but not all, of the surfaces of your teeth. Getting to the sides can prove difficult and generally, this is only possible with dental floss.

Flossing is Very Important and You Should Be Doing It at Least After Every Meal.

Remember, sticking to a consistent oral hygiene plan will help your orthodontic treatment stay on track and help ensure the best outcome for your smile. Flossing is time consuming but, with a little bit of practice, it becomes easy to do. When you wear braces, the archwire which does most of the work in aligning your teeth can tend to block dental floss from getting access between the teeth, so you will need to use a threader to get the floss to loop around the wire.

Here are some step by step instructions on how to floss with braces:

Dental braces on upper and lower teeth with red gum background showing orthodontic treatment.

STEP 1

Loop a piece of floss into the circular part of the threader. Stick the pointed tip of the threader under the wire.

Close-up of dental braces on upper and lower teeth showing orthodontic treatment progress.

STEP 2

With one hand, hold onto the pointed tip; with the other hand, hold onto one of the two ends of floss that is hanging out of the threader.

Orthodontic braces on upper and lower teeth showing metal brackets and wires in dental setting.

STEP 3

Pull the pointed tip of the threader while keeping the other hand firmly grasping the end of the floss. If you did this correctly, the floss should now successfully be underneath the wire.