Sometimes a wire will dislodge or become loose during treatment.  This often occurs in the early stages of treatment when the wire is quite fine and flexible, and is not uncommon.  It is not a significant problem as the wire will be working in the other parts of the mouth – and in fact, all the work that the smaller and earlier wires are doing is at the front of the mouth.  Typically a dislodged wire will occur at the back of the mouth and if so there a a few things you can do:

1.    Try to place the wire back in one of the tubes/holes in the bracket on the back tooth – if in doubt, look at the other side and try to copy it.  This can be done by using a small pair of tweezers.  Feel free to move the wire a fair bit if you need to, it’s quite flexible.

2.    Place some wax over the end of the wire to make it comfortable and keep it out of harms way until you can get in to see us.

3.    If you can’t do either of the above things then feel free to cut off the part of the wire that has dislodged or come loose.  This can be easily done using a pair of nail clippers/cuticle cutters or similar.  Try to cut the wire  close to the next brace further along.  You may need to stretch the cheek back a fair way to get to it but that’s OK – the cheeks are very flexible!

It’s quite OK to cut off a loose section of wire and once again, this won’t stop the rest of the braces from continuing to work and doing their job.  Well done for solving the problem!  Give one of our receptionists a call during normal business hours to work out whether or not we need to see you sooner than your next scheduled appointment.