While crowns, dental replacement, and many other dental surgeries can allow for a healthy and complete smile no matter how healthy your current teeth are, if your teeth are otherwise healthy, natural, and in fair condition, it’s a great idea to care for them. This can not only improve your natural smile but lessen the chance of encountering issues like toothache, damage, and needing reparative work such as fillings.
Thankfully, there is a range of daily measures you can use to keep up your dental health. Of course, visiting a dentist such as DaSilva Family Dentistry when you feel there’s a problem and also for regular checkups is essential. They can give you more prescient advice than you may figure out on your own. However, there are some excellent practices you can incorporate into your lifestyle if you hope to live in the healthiest dental environment possible.
Let’s see what that may entail:
Regular Brushing & Flossing
It’s a great idea to commit to regular brushing and flossing. But that’s obvious. What matters is the manner by which you do it. Purchasing great toothbrushes (or even electric models) that both polish as they clean, helping with whitening, as well as using mouthwash to help kill bacteria and protect your gums can be essential. Many people find benefit in using tongue scrapers, too, to gently rid your tongue of the natural bacteria that can build on it (and contribute to bad breath in the long run). Little measures like this can make a tremendous difference, but consistency is key, as morning and night brushing and flossing can help more than almost anything else.
Quitting Or Limiting Vices
There are certain vices that degrade dental health like nothing else. For instance, drinking sugary drinks, eating high-sugar-content foods, smoking, and bad habits like chewing ice in a drink (I'm guilty of this) can all have an effect. Quitting or limiting your vices in this way can also be a real helper in keeping your teeth as preserved as they can be. You’ll no doubt find that certain issues, such as regularly drinking alcohol, can also have an effect. There are some practices that make dentists wince, like opening beer bottles with your teeth (no matter how cool this looks, don’t do it). Sometimes, a little lifestyle adjustment is necessary.
Relaxation
Relaxation can help with your dental health. How is that? Well, many people find themselves unfortunately and subconsciously grinding their teeth down due to stress. Some people fidget, some people pace, some people feel emotionally turbulent, while others grind their teeth, especially in sleep. Wearing teeth guards can be helpful if this is a regular practice, but learning to de-stress and relax before bedtime or whenever you notice yourself grinding your teeth can also be important. Regular trips to the dentists will ensure that this is tracked and solutions are put in place to avoid this becoming a real issue.
With this advice, I hope you can extend the longevity of your teeth more readily going forward.