June is Oral Health Month! National Oral Health Month has been recognized by the American Dental Association and us in the oral care industry since 2012. It serves as a wonderful reminder that oral health is an essential part of your overall health and that oral health and summertime go together like hot dogs and relish.
How Oral Health Relates to Your Overall Health?
Oral health is more than how white and straightened your teeth are. Oral Health can affect your entire body. Tooth decay, for example, can allow bacteria to get into your bloodstream and travel to other parts of your body. This can lead to dangerous infections and even heart disease.
Gum Disease can quickly become severe enough to cause pregnancy complications and heart disease. Gum disease can also add a significant burden to your health by increasing overall inflammation. Not to mention missing or painful teeth can make eating healthy more difficult, further affecting your health.
That’s not even taking into consideration the mental health aspects of a healthy or unsightly smile. Oftentimes dental complaints can cause people to forgo better work, dating, or personal opportunities and contribute to an overall lower self-confidence.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. There is a LOT you can do to help keep your smile as bright as that Texas June sunshine!
How to Maintain Your Oral Health?
- Regular visits to the dentist, every 4 -6 months
One of the most important things you can do to maintain your oral health is to visit your local Greenville dentist for a check-up. Dental hygiene appointments to remove plaque and tartar from teeth located beneath the gums. This helps to prevent not only cavities but bone loss. These ESSENTIAL but commonplace appointments allow your dental team to polish, floss, and assess the condition of your teeth.
- Brushing and flossing your teeth after every meal
If you can, brushing and flossing your teeth after every meal can help to maintain your healthy smile. By brushing and flossing, you get rid of food and plaque that accumulate between teeth and gums. Brush your teeth and tongue for at least 2 minutes with a soft-bristle toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste, and follow with some floss.
Pro-tip: Keep a travel set of dental tools at work to clean your teeth after lunch and never miss an opportunity to keep those pearly whites pearly and white.
- Use antibacterial mouthwashes
Antimicrobial mouthwashes can help to prevent plaque formation, infections, and foul breath. A quick swish can go a long way, so be sure to keep some on hand.
- Eat plenty of healthy unprocessed foods
Eating healthy is not just good for your muscles and your skin – it’s also essential for your teeth! Maintaining a healthy diet helps to feed your teeth what they need to stay strong and healthy and helps your body to fight oral infections when/if encountered.
- Avoid acidic beverages such as orange juice and carbonated beverages
It’s been long claimed that carbonated and sugary drinks are awful for your teeth and sadly all of these claims are true! These drinks can not only wear away at the enamel that protects your teeth and also coats them and your entire mouth in the cavity-causing bacteria’s favorite snack sugary syrup.
This in combination with the fact that these typically aren’t part of a healthy, unprocessed diet can be doubly damaging.
- Check your mouth for any oral cancer warning signs
Oral Cancer affects more than 5,400 Americans each year. It is one of the easiest detectable at early stages and checking for these warning signs can make all the difference; with 90% of early caught cases being fully curable!
The warning signs include red or white discolorations, bleeding, sores that do not heal, or small thickened areas in the mouth.
- Avoid tobacco products
By now you already know the health risks of tobacco use but they are bad enough that we can’t help ourselves but remind you. Smoking or chewing tobacco can be very very harmful to a healthy smile. Tobacco users are more than 6 times more likely to develop oral cancer than nonsmokers. It can add additional plaque to your teeth and it will weaken your immune system making it harder to fight the infections you’re more likely to pick up.
Schedule Your Appointment Complete Dental Care This June!
We meant it when we said that summertime fun and oral health go together like hot dogs and relish! June is the perfect time to get back on track with your oral health and with all the kids out of school and our AWESOME Central AC there’s never been a better time to come relax at the dentist!
So schedule your appointment with the specialists at Complete Dental Care today!
