Are Braces Going to Ruin My Halloween?

Halloween is just around the corner, so you know what that means?! Candy on candy on candy!  Halloween is basically a time for you to dress up and indulge in your favorite sweet treats with no shame, but if you have braces, things might have to be a little different this year (or until you’re through with your treatment.)

Pretend it’s Halloween night, and you’ve come home with a pretty solid haul of candy. Braces limit what you can and cannot eat, but there are some sweet treats you can definitely indulge in, guilt-free! Of course, you should always remember to brush and floss your teeth thoroughly after snacking on those delicious sweet treats .

Safe Snacks

“So which of my hard-earned Halloween treats AM I allowed to eat?” you ask? Well, for starters, chocolate is a completely safe treat for brace wearers. Chocolate is soft, so anything from Reeses Peanut Butter Cups to a regular Hershey’s chocolate bar is perfectly safe to consume.

A few things to be wary of though:

• Chocolate with caramel in it
• Frozen chocolate
• Chocolate with nuts in it

All of these things can cause damage to your braces or be very difficult to get out of your brackets and wires, and obviously, that is not something you’re going to want to deal with on Halloween!!

Cookies are another safe treat to eat. If you’re trick-or-treating in a neighborhood that passes out some tasty baked treats, these are perfectly safe for you to eat as long as they aren’t ridiculously hard or full of nuts. Hard cookies, like hard candies, can damage your braces, so be cautious!

Apples are also okay as long as they are cut into small pieces. Although they’re very healthy snacks normally, most people don’t realize the level of damage that can be caused to braces by biting into an apple (especially if it’s covered in caramel)!

What NOT to Eat

Hard candies can be both safe to eat and very damaging, depending on how they are eaten. If they’re bitten into, they can cause damage, but just sucking on them can be perfectly safe. Sticky candies are a very big no. These can get stuck under and in between your braces, making a really big mess for you to have to scrub out. Skittles, popcorn, and toffee are all Halloween treats that should be avoided. It’s going to be a bit tricky, but you can do it!

Solutions

In addition to sticking to only the safe treats to eat, you can also try a number of other options to make your Halloween as fun as possible! One option is for you or your mom or some friends to make some safe treats to eat before you even go trick-or-treating for the night. This way, you can satisfy your sweet tooth without stressing about causing damage. Another option is to have a “candy trade” with your friends. Trade them some of your off-limits candies for some of their safe to eat candies.

Having braces doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy this fun holiday just like everyone else! And if, for some reason, you do damage your braces, our team at Milnor Orthodontics is here to help!