Why dental hygiene is so important
We know we bang on about dental hygiene all the time, on our website, our social media and, of course, when you come to see us, but it’s because dental hygiene is the foundation of your oral health.
We find that repetition is key to the message of the importance of dental hygiene sinking in and being put into action. So at the risk of repeating ourselves, yet again, let’s take another look at why cleaning your teeth is so important and how to do it.
Plaque never stops and neither should you
When you clean your teeth, what you are aiming to do is brush away the bacterial plaque that builds up on your teeth, gums and soft parts of your mouth. Plaque never stops feeding on the sugars in your saliva and using that energy to reproduce itself. It’s a busy bacterium, and as it goes about eating and making little copies of itself, it also gives off acids. The acid is the problem, not the bacteria in themselves. It eats away at your tooth enamel, creating little holes for decay causing bacteria to get into your teeth.
Those acids also irritate and inflame your gums, causing them to bleed and pull away from your teeth. Plaque can then get underneath and start corroding your tooth roots and jawbone.
Whether it’s gum disease or tooth decay, the final end is your teeth falling out.
Your dental hygiene routine
You need to brush your teeth twice a day for 2 minutes. The best thing to do is get a soft-bristled brush, and gently brush the plaque away. If you have a new electric toothbrush, it can count down those 2 minutes in 30 second increments, making sure you brush each half of each arch thoroughly before moving onto the next. Using a fluoride toothpaste helps to strengthen the teeth against decay.
Back this up with flossing and interdental brushes to remove plaque and trapped food from between the teeth. Do this at least once a day.
And don’t forget to come to our hygienist twice a day for a deep clean to remove plaque from all those places your brush doesn’t reach so well.
They all commented at some point or other on the power of his wonderful, white smile, hammering home the message to millions of Strictly fans that your smile is just as important as your other messages.
Most people are aware of the link between smoking and cancer, and because of the increase in mouth cancer incidents we offer you information and support as you cut down or stop smoking altogether.
Fixed braces
Does the idea of wearing metal braces make you cringe?
Straighter teeth are easier to clean. With fewer irregular gaps in between teeth, such as you find with crooked, crowded and gapped ones, it’s easier for brush and floss to do their work. And, it also means that there are fewer nooks and crannies for plaque and bacteria to build up in, meaning you are less likely to develop tooth decay and need extensive and expensive tooth repairs and restorations later in life.
Dental phobia ranges from a reluctance to book an appointment to a full-blown panic attack when sitting in the dentist’s chair. If you are somewhere on this spectrum, then maintaining your teeth is no laughing matter. It could mean that you haven’t had your teeth checked for years, which in turn makes it more likely that you will need work done. If, when you do bring yourself to the dental practice it turns out you need a tooth replacing with, for example, dental implant surgery, that’s only going to send your phobia back into the stratosphere. So, what’s the answer?
Things got better when dental porcelain came along, and there was another step forward in the 1950s when a dentist discovered a way to etch tooth enamel to create a better bonding surface. But it was not until the 1980s that veneers really started to come into their own for the general populace when dentists discovered a way to bond them permanently to the teeth.
Who is Invisalign good for?
At Orpington Dental Care, we have been using dental implants in Orpington to replace lost teeth for quite some time now, and even we are still delighted every time we put them in for one of our patients.