Tips for Keeping The Smile Healthy At Home

Tips for Keeping The Smile Healthy At Home

Keeping a healthy smile requires persistent at home oral care and visiting the dentist twice a year. However, you can maintain a healthy smile by adding more to your routine and keeping optimal oral health.

Here are some tips for keeping your smile healthy outside of the dental office.

Brushing and Flossing: The Basics

Brushing twice daily and flossing daily is essential to any basic oral care routine. However, if you are not brushing for two minutes, twice daily every day, your oral health can suffer. That’s because tartar builds up after plaque has had 24 hours on teeth. This is why dentist suggests brushing twice a day, once in the morning and once before bed.

Use a soft bristled brush and tilt the brush head to just at the gum line to properly remove plaque and debris.  

Flossing should be done at least once a day, but if you can floss more than once do so. Throughout the day, snacking on food can get stuck in between hard to reach places. Carry floss with you throughout the day and it can remove this debris and allow you to have fresher breath.

Maintain a Healthy Diet

A well-balanced diet with a lot of vegetables, fruits, and water aids in the health of your smile. Vegetables and fruits have a natural texture that cleans teeth and adds nutrients and vitamins that keep teeth and gums healthy. Drinking water, the recommended eight cups, is needed to flush out toxins and allow for saliva production. Water also sweeps away debris from the mouth without adding any additional debris like juice, tea, or soda.

Combat Bad Breath

Mouthwash, brushing your tongue and flossing throughout the day aids in combating bad breath. Mouthwashes are an easy addition to any oral care routine and can remove bacteria left over from brushing and flossing. Mouthwashes also offer an additional boost of fluoride to protect dental enamel from decay.

Brushing your tongue every time you brush your teeth also removes bacteria that accumulates on the surface. This debris and bacteria produce smelly gases resulting in bad breath. Some toothbrushes have a dual head dedicated to brushing teeth, but a small dollop of toothpaste can remove the debris.

Keeping a healthy smile is possible with these additions to your at-home routine. Visit our dental office for your next dental check-up to maintain your health all year.