
woman cleaning flossing using f-shaped dental wand
Did you know that 90% of people over the age of 20 have had a dental cavity at some point in their lives? Dental health is obviously important for having a healthy smile, but many people still end up skipping out on routine oral health practices. People don’t tend to realize that avoiding dental hygiene practices can result in more than yellow teeth and cavities.
If you don’t follow good dental tips, you could easily end up with tooth decay, gum disease, and many other dental problems. Taking care of your teeth isn’t as hard as you might think. As long as you take care of your teeth a little bit every day, you can almost every dental problem in the book.
Keep reading and learn more about what you can do to put your oral health first.
Brush Your Teeth More Often
Brushing your teeth is the most obvious way to keep your teeth clean, but many people don’t bother with it. When it comes to mouth care, you really can’t skip this step. Brushing your teeth is important for several reasons.
In particular, brushing your teeth can prevent the bacteria living in your mouth from wreaking havoc on your tooth enamel. In particular, the bacteria that live in your mouth have the ability to produce acid that is strong enough to erode your tooth enamel. The bacteria will only produce acid if there is something, such as food particles, left on your teeth for them to consume.
The bacteria especially love to consume sugar. Once the bacteria eat away at whatever food particles are left on your teeth, the acid they create will focus on the surface of your teeth. This acid is not strong enough to cause you any pain, but it is strong enough to slowly strip away the layers of tooth enamel your teeth have.
Keep in mind that tooth enamel is one of the strongest substances in the human body. As the acid slowly eats away at your enamel, tooth sensitivity will be the result. Your teeth will become more sensitive because your teeth won’t have enough tooth enamel left to protect the more delicate tissues inside your teeth.
As a result, it will become uncomfortable to consume hot or cold substances.
The Details
As your tooth enamel continues to break down, you will eventually suffer from tooth decay which can become a serious problem if you don’t catch it early. If you let it go untreated, you could end up getting an infection that could spread to the rest of your teeth and even to the rest of your body which can be very dangerous.
And, of course, you could end up losing your teeth if they get too infected. Brushing your teeth on a regular basis is a good way to prevent all of these problems. All you need to do is brush your teeth at least twice a day or after every meal.
If there are no food particles for the bacteria in your mouth to consume, you won’t have to worry about any acid breaking down your tooth enamel. In the same vein, you also won’t have to worry about getting cavities. However, make sure that the bristles on your brush aren’t too hard.
Hard bristles can actually strip away your tooth enamel over time and cause tooth sensitivity. Instead, opt for medium or soft bristles. These toothbrushes will clean your teeth without damaging them.
Floss More Often
Many people know that flossing is important, and yet, few people ever bother with it. This may be because flossing is a bit more tedious than brushing. Even so, if you really want to follow the most important tips for a clean mouth, you should start flossing.
As with brushing, all sorts of problems can arise if you don’t floss your teeth. This is because floss can reach areas that a toothbrush can’t. A toothbrush can only reach the front, back, and top of your teeth.
Floss, on the other hand, can reach the sides of your teeth. As you can imagine, if you never clean these sides, bacteria and food particles can build up and cause all sorts of trouble. Cavities, in particular, tend to form in those areas because they are so hard to reach.
You might not even realize that you have a cavity at first. That’s because cavities start out as little white dots on the surface of your teeth. However, as the cavities get worse, they will turn brown or black and eventually turn into holes.
As these holes delve deeper into your teeth, they will get closer to nerves and blood vessels, causing pain and making your teeth sensitive. Besides cavities, tartar is another problem that can arise if you don’t floss. Tartar comes from plaque which is a sticky substance on the teeth produced by bacteria.
What You Need to Know
You can easily brush and floss away plaque, but if you don’t, this substance will harden into something that only a dentist will be able to remove. Tartar is a rough, white substance that builds up between teeth and at the base of teeth. The main problem with tartar is that it irritates the gums and can cause gingivitis.
If gingivitis goes untreated, it can turn into periodontitis which can cause you to lose your teeth. Again, you can avoid these problems by flossing. All you have to do is floss once every day. By sliding the floss up and down between your teeth, you can dislodge any food particles are bacteria that may be there.
That way, you can keep your teeth and gums healthy. If your gums bleed the first few times that you floss, don’t worry. It means that your gums are slightly inflamed.
As you floss more often, your gums will eventually get stronger and they will no longer bleed. They will also appear healthier and pinker the more you floss. You can learn more on columbiadentistsc.com.
Avoid Certain Foods and Drinks
There are certain foods and drinks that do more harm than good when it comes to your dental health. Sugary substances, in particular, cause a lot of dental problems. This is because the bacteria in your mouth love to consume sugar and when they do, they produce a lot of acid that can damage your teeth.
Does this mean that you have to stop eating sugar for the rest of your life? Not at all. Eating sugar once in a while and then brushing your teeth afterward is fine.
However, you may have a problem if your teeth are constantly bathed in sugar. For example, many people have the habit of sipping on sodas or energy drinks throughout the day. Not only are these drinks overloaded with sugar but they are also very acidic.
In a sense, sipping on these drinks all day is the same as immersing your mouth in an acid bath. The acid from the drinks will soften your enamel which will then make it even easier for your oral bacteria to damage your teeth. As you can imagine, this is a recipe for disaster when it comes to dental health.
Sugary, sticky foods like peanut butter or taffy are also not great for your teeth because of how they tend to stick to your enamel. And keep in mind that sugar doesn’t have to be in the form of something sweet. Carbohydrates are complex sugars and you can find them in pasta, bread, potatoes, and rice.
Understanding the Details
As long as you brush your teeth after eating something containing sugar, you shouldn’t have much to worry about. However, limiting your sugar intake can also benefit your dental health. Besides sugar, you may also want to limit your consumption of certain drinks that stain your teeth.
For example, red wine and cranberry juice have strong red pigments and they can eventually stain your teeth. Coffee and black tea can do the same thing. Once dental stains set in, it can be hard to get them back out.
You can keep stains from forming in the first place by brushing your teeth after drinking one of these substances. That way, you won’t have to skip out on your morning cup of joe or glass of wine in the evening. If you don’t have a toothbrush on hand, you can try rinsing your mouth with water.
Dental Tips for a Healthy Mouth
The most important dental tips for preventative oral care include brushing and flossing your teeth on a regular basis. By doing this, you can keep all the surfaces of your teeth clean and healthy.
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