Book In Regular Dental Check Ups To Keep Your Mouth Healthy In West Auckland!
Like everything else about our health; it is mostly up to us to keep our mouths looking good and feeling comfortable.
Our role as your Dentist is to support you in this goal.
Along with regular dental check ups there are a few things you can do to give your mouth the best chance of staying healthy and attractive:
Diet: Most people know sugar is bad for their teeth, there are a few tips to prevent the sugar you eat from harming them though.
Don't forget; sugar isn't only sweet! Starches are just sugar in disguise, so things like biscuits, bread and chips are also sugar.
- Limit your frequency of sugar intake. The more time sugar spends in your mouth the more harm it will cause. Try to keep your sugar intake to meal times only. Snacking all day on sugary and starchy foods, even small amounts, not only hurts your waist line but wreaks havoc on your teeth as well. This is why Dentists despise all forms of sugary drinks & sticky processed sweet/starchy foods.
- If you do have a snack (we all do) get the remaining sugar out of your mouth. Rinsing with water is good or chewing sugar free gum which removes food residue and encourages saliva which is magic at combating sugar's harmful effects.
Tobacco and Alcohol: Tobacco and alcohol both negatively affect your mouth, tobacco especially so. Gums are far more likely to develop infections leading to gaps between teeth, poor health and eventual tooth loss as a result of tobacco use. Smoking and consuming alcohol together greatly increases your risk of developing oral cancer. Both will of course increase your oral cancer risk by themselves.
Home Care (Hygiene): So how does poor sweet little sugar hurt our teeth anyway? Sugar does nothing to our teeth by itself but it converts to harmful acid in our mouths. How does sugar achieve this transformation? Plaque, the bacteria that lives in our mouths, includes some real nasties, these convert any sugar you give them into acid. Acid breaks teeth down over time, allowing bacteria to get inside and infect them along with your gums.
So we must not only limit the sugar we feed the plaque but also keep the plaque to a minimum to stay healthy.
That is why dentists advise everyone cleans their teeth daily. This is done by:
- Brushing
With fluoridated toothpaste, spend two minutes twice daily, around half an hour after breakfast and dinner, brushing your teeth and gums with a soft or electric toothbrush and a small amount of tooth paste (Colgate, Macleans, Sensodyne etc).
The brush removes the plaque layer from the front, top and backs of your teeth. Be sure to brush everywhere right to the back. Be thorough and vigorous (electric brushes do the vigorous part for you) but be gentle. Do not press hard or scrub at your teeth and gums, brushing should be a massage not a massacre.
Fluoride is soaked up by teeth making them much more acid resistant.
- Flossing
Achieves the same outcome as brushing, on the parts of your teeth that the brush can't reach. This is super important but often neglected, one reason most dental disease occurs between teeth.
Please note; we hear all the time "I don't floss because it feels bad and makes my gums bleed".
For those that have flossed for a while, this doesn't happen.
If you have neglected flossing, hard plaque (tartar) forms and your gums become swollen and angry, making it difficult to use floss, swollen gums bleed at the slightest touch which is why flossing "makes your gums bleed".
The answer is a gentle scale and polish with us to free up the spaces between your teeth allowing floss in. Then a little demo of how to floss comfortably at home. After a little while your gums will settle and be healthy. Your breath will be sweeter also.
See NZ Dental Association flossing Video
Regular Dental Check ups in West Auckland: Despite our best efforts, teeth and gums do develop problems over time. This can be due to cracks in teeth - especially around existing fillings, old early cavities from childhood slowly developing into a problem and many other causes.
We advise you have your teeth checked at least once a year by us so we can identify problems early.
Waiting for pain or other symptoms usually results in more costly and difficult treatment or even tooth loss.
If you haven't had a dental check up or hygiene for over a year, give us a call on 626 6622.
We are offering our new patients a full standard hygiene for only $140.00
BOOK YOUR HYGIENE APPOINTMENT ONLINE
Lynfield Dental Centre also provides other dental services such as Cosmetic Dentistry, Professional Teeth Whitening, Sedation Dentistry and Emergency Dental Services to West and Central Auckland communities including Mt Roskill and New Lynn.
We can also assist with tooth replacement options to replace missing teeth.
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