How to Prevent Dental Diseases

Maintaining proper oral health is important. There are some common ways to keep your mouth healthy, such as visiting the dentist, flossing, and brushing your teeth regularly. Here are some extra precautions you can take to prevent oral and dental diseases.

Tooth Protection

Protecting your teeth is hugely important to keeping your smile looking pretty. Certain activities and participating in contact sports puts your mouth at risk for injury that can contribute to dental diseases. Mouth guards protect teeth from getting knocked out and from teeth breaking.

Mouth guards are also helpful to patients who grind their teeth at night. Bruxism is common and many people do not even know they grind their teeth. Signs may include waking up with a headache, face pain, and fatigue. While it may seem insignificant, grinding teeth can cause broken teeth, loss of tooth enamel, and potentially overtime, loss of teeth.

Eating Habits

A healthy diet with plenty of calcium and vitamin D and other necessary nutrients is important to bone health and strong teeth. Eating the proper amount of dairy, calcium-fortified foods, and green vegetables is sufficient for children and young adults. Food like broccoli, kale, milk, and orange juice are healthy ways to get the proper amounts of calcium.

Avoiding carbohydrates, candy, and sticky foods can stick on the teeth and remain on the surface of the tooth, unless you brush your teeth soon after eating. The complex sugars in carbohydrates turn into bacteria that lives in the mouth, and when mixed with saliva, it turns into acid which eats at the teeth.

Limiting sugary drinks like soda is important to protecting teeth and preventing oral and dental diseases. The acid in soda eats away at the enamel and can create cavities. It also leaves stains on the surface of the tooth that can erode the structure of the teeth. Cavities can cause long-term dental damage if they go untreated.

Dental Visits

Seeing a dentist regularly for cleanings is important to your overall oral health. Taking certain precautions like having X-Rays performed at routine cleanings can monitor your oral health and check for early signs of decay.

Getting your teeth professionally cleaned can also help prevent gum disease and inflammation and bleeding by removing built up plaque. Your dentist may use fluoride treatments and sealant to help your teeth fight tooth decay.

Proper Brushing Techniques

While it is important to brush your teeth, improper brushing can do damage to your teeth. Over brushing can damage the tooth enamel and if you brush for longer than 4 minutes total each day, you run the risk of wearing down the enamel and exposing the dentin (the inside layer of teeth).

Brush your teeth like you are polishing an eggshell – gently and carefully. If your toothbrush gets flattened after brushing, you are brushing too hard. Flossing your teeth with each brushing helps remove any debris or food stuck in between your teeth.

Brushing at least twice a day with a fluoridated toothpaste, before and after bed is a great way to help prevent any oral issues and dental diseases.

If you would like to learn more, please do not hesitate to give us a call or contact us to book an appointment.