The first week with braces, day by day

Day by day

1. Day 1Crowded mouth, ache arriving by evening, soft food. Hour by hour.
2. Day 2Peak tenderness. Biting anything firm is unpleasant; front teeth are the worst. Raw spots on the lips. Wax, cold, soft food, salt-water rinses. Speech still thick.
3. Day 3Still sore, slightly less. Some people find day three worse than day two. Cheeks ulcerate where brackets rub; salt-water rinses three times a day.
4. Day 4Noticeable improvement. Pasta, soft bread and cooked vegetables are comfortable. Speech close to normal.
5. Day 5Most soreness gone. Raw spots healing. First attempt at a proper floss with a threader; it takes ten minutes, and it gets faster.
6. Days 6 and 7Firmer food (cut up) is fine. The tongue has mapped the hardware. Wax is needed less. You can eat out.
7. Week 2Lips and cheeks have toughened; wax is rarely needed. Brushing takes four minutes without thinking. The first poking wire, if it happens, tends to happen around now as teeth start to move and the wire ends shift.

The habits that matter

• Brush after every meal, or at least rinse hard with water and brush morning and night. Four minutes. Gum line, above and below the brackets.
• Floss once a day with a threader, a floss pick made for braces, or a water flosser. It is slow in week one and quick by week three.
• Carry the kit everywhere: wax, travel brush, floss picks, a small mirror. The kit.
• Cut food up. Apples in wedges, sandwiches in quarters, corn off the cob. It becomes automatic.
• Keep the breakage list in your head: popcorn, nuts, hard candy, ice, gum, caramel. The full food guide.
• Save the clinic number in your phone under a name you will find at 9 pm on a Sunday.

School and work in week one

Going in is fine; most people do. Pack soft lunches, a water bottle to rinse with, and the kit. Tell the teacher or a colleague that talking is a little slow for a day or two. A raw lip is the thing most people are self-conscious about; wax over the offending bracket solves it. Braces at school covers the rest of the year.

Aligners: the first week

Gentler and shorter. Tightness and tenderness for a day or two after the first tray, a lisp for a day, a rough edge occasionally (an emery board fixes it). The habit to set is the routine: out, eat, brush, in, and counting hours. By day seven the tray feels loose, which means the next one is due on schedule.

Questions people ask