In order to avoid frequent visits to receive treatment from your Stuart dentist, it is important to keep harmful things away from your teeth. By gaining a working knowledge as to what has the potential to damage teeth, you can make a conscious effort to protect your teeth from harm and keep them looking good, feeling great and staying healthy.
Good oral hygiene is about more than brushing several times a day and ensuring you floss regularly enough, and it is also essential to avoid damaging your teeth through harmful foods, drinks and other substances. The following are tips from your Stuart dentist on what to avoid when ensuring your teeth remain in good health.
Perhaps the most obvious thing to avoid when ensuring good oral health is harmful food, but what foods, in particular, are bad for teeth? To fully understand, it is important to know how tooth decay happens. When bacteria that naturally occurs in the mouth combines with sugar and other harmful carbohydrates, it creates an acidic effect and eats away at the enamel. Subsequently, it is crucial to limit the intake of foods that are high in sugar, starch and other carbohydrates that can damage the surface of teeth. It is also imperative to avoid hard foods that may cause teeth to become weakened, chipped or cracked.
Soda, sports, drinks and soft drinks -- flavored, carbonated drinks with sugar -- should be avoided. Some examples are Coke®, Pepsi®, Mountain Dew®, Gatorade® and Powerade®. These types of drinks can be the most damaging to teeth. It is the acid content in these types of drinks causing damage to the teeth.
Not every dark beverage is bad for your teeth, but many commonly consumed dark-colored drinks can harm dental enamel, including carbonated drinks, coffee, tea and alcohol. Any drink that contains a high-level of sugar or other harmful substances should be limited, and it is encouraged to drink water throughout each day. By drinking water instead of coffee or tea, you can keep the saliva production in the mouth at a healthy level and wash away harmful bacteria, whereas many dark beverages only make the problem worse.
Food and drink are not the only things to keep away from your teeth, and other hard objects that people often chew on and bite throughout the day can harm teeth as well, including fingernails, pens and anything else that grabs our attention. Athletes who play a contact sport should also wear a mouth guard to avoid damaging their teeth. It is encouraged by your Stuart dentist to break any habits that are detrimental to the health of you or your child’s teeth and make a conscious effort to protect teeth from the harm of hard objects.
Last but certainly not least, your Stuart dentist urges you to avoid the use of tobacco products as they can be incredibly harmful to the teeth and gums. Chewing tobacco, smoking tobacco and any other form of tobacco consumption can lead to severe strains on the surface of teeth, cause enamel to erode and significantly increase the risk of periodontal disease and mouth cancer.
Contact our office now for more tips on how to keep your overall oral health in excellent condition.
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