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Salt Water Rinse Question

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 12:32 pm
by JennyLaughs
I know this may seem like a silly question for a lot of reasons, but I just wanted to ask, would rinsing my mouth out with salt water too often corrode, rust, or in any other way do damage to my brackets and wires? I've been rinsing about 3 times a day, but I would like to do it more to help ease the pain and speed up the healing of my "ground hamburger" spots (that's what they feel like to me anyway). Any info would be very helpful, thanks in advance!

Re: Salt Water Rinse Question

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 12:52 pm
by Audra
Orthodontists would not use a metal in your mouth that would corrode or rust

Re: Salt Water Rinse Question

Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 8:36 pm
by JennyLaughs
Thank you for your reply! I knew it was probably a silly question, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask someone else's opinion

Re: Salt Water Rinse Question

Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 12:03 pm
by sarahorsomeone
It's worth pointing out that saliva contains a certain level of salt anyway. Not in such a high concentration perhaps, but it's constantly coating your brackets and wire and they manage ok with that!

Although in contradiction to the previous poster (and myself I suppose), I did manage to rust through the wire in my Hawley retainer (without using any salt water rinses); but my orthodontist had never seen anything like it and wouldn't even believe me until he saw it with his own eyes; so I don't think that's a normal occurance! I wonder perhaps if there was something faulty about the wire in my case.