Dental Care Checklist - How to Keep Your Smile Healthy
One of the best ways to have a great smile is to take good care of your teeth. This seems obvious, but you may be wondering how you can best keep your smile healthy. Our Philadelphia endodontist and the team here at the practice would like to take a brief moment to provide a checklist for maintaining or improving your dental health.
Brush Your Teeth at Least Twice a Day
Plaque build-up can cause cavities, advanced tooth decay, and gum disease. For this reason, it’s important that you remove the plaque from your teeth and not allow it to set and do damage. If possible, you may want to consider brushing your teeth after every meal.
Pick the Right Toothbrush
Not all toothbrushes are created equal. Be sure to pick a toothbrush with soft bristles and a small head. The soft bristles will prevent you from harming your gums and a small head will allow you to access all the hard to reach places of your mouth.
Floss Your Teeth Every Day
Brushing is not enough on its own. Food and plaque can plaque can accumulate between your teeth as well. Flossing will remove that plaque from the hard to reach spots between your teeth.
Don’t Use Your Teeth as Tools
We’ve all done it a few times. We’ve maybe held something between our teeth or used our incisions to help open a plastic bag or a package. This is additional wear and tear on your teeth should be avoided. Remember, your teeth are teeth, not tools.
Drink Water and Limit Intake of Soda or Sugary Beverages
Sugary soft drinks and other beverages can cause tooth decay and affect your breath as well. It’s important that you keep your mouth moist, but you should do that with water instead. Water is clean and can remove food particles between your teeth as well.
Visit Your Dentist Regularly
We cannot stress this enough: it’s important that you visit the dentist at least twice a year so you can get a professional cleaning and have experts identify dental problems before they get worse.
For more information on dental hygiene and dental health as well as Philadelphia endodontic surgery, we encourage you to contact our Philadelphia endodontic dentistry office today.
