What if you have an emergency with your braces but your orthodontist office is closed? Don’t worry about it. Today we will talk about tips and tricks that you can do while at home to take care of some minor orthodontic emergencies that you might have.

There are some orthodontic emergencies that can be handled from home so that you don’t have to go into the orthodontist’s office. If you have something that’s causing bleeding or infection or swelling, please call your orthodontist and get an appointment as soon as you can. But most orthodontic emergencies can be handled from home. Even if you already use the tips and tricks that we discussed today, I still recommend that you do reach out to your orthodontist and let him or her know. But these are some little tricks that you could do from home to help ease some of your discomforts during this time.

1. Pokey wire

It is the most common orthodontic emergency. One reason you have a poky wire is because of the wire shifting within the mouth. This means that the wires are at the right length. But it shifted towards one side or the other side. You can tell if you have a shifted wire because the wire will stick out a little bit longer on one side and those markers on the wire will show the midline. If those are shifted to the right side as well, that means that your wire just skewed over to the right. If this is to occur, you can use something like your fingernail or the back of a toothbrush. Push on that wire and shift the wire back to the right spot. This should really help ease any discomfort.

The other reason you would have a poky wire is that the wire is just a little bit longer. This can occur when your teeth start aligning or for closing space. If the wire sticks out a little bit too long, what I would recommend you do is use orthodontic wax and wrap it around that area until your next orthodontic appointment.

2. Pokey ligature tie

A ligature tie is a little piece of wire that’s used to tie in your main wire to your braces and sometimes a little part of this wire sticks out and it can be annoying because it keeps catching your lip. To handle this you can also use the back of your toothbrush and what you want to do is push this wire towards your tooth so that it doesn’t poke your lip. If it’s already created a little bit of a sore on your lip, what I’d recommend is to use a lot of wax in that area to keep your lip away from the braces and allow for it to heal. But this should be resolved in a couple of days.

Do not confuse this with a bracket that’s poking your lip. Some brackets have little hooks on them and those are used for rubber bands. Those little hooks will not bend with the back of a toothbrush. If you push too hard, you’ll break the bracket. If that’s what’s causing discomfort, what I would recommend you do is use a little ball of wax and put it on there until your lip gets used to the bracket. This won’t occur to someone who’s had braces for a while because your lips are already used to the braces. But if you recently got your braces put on, this is something that could cause this comfort and it’ll be solved with a little bit of wax.