Top 5 Dental Care Tips for Overall Oral Hygiene
Your teeth, gums, and mouth can stay healthy as long as you live with good teeth cleaning and care. Just as the phrase goes “the cleaner your gums and teeth are, the lesser your risk of dental decay and gum diseases.”
If you ask a Fort Collins periodontist, the most valuable tips they have to care for your gums and teeth are pretty uncomplicated. Here, we have compiled for you a list of five fundamental yet essential tips that you can use to avoid loads of dental dilemmas down the line.
How Should You Take Care Of Your Gums And Teeth?
Let’s get started with the fundamental methods of gums and teeth cleaning. The whole process takes place during your daily routine and involves five key steps:
- BRUSHING
- FLOSSING
- MOUTHWASH
- BALANCED DIET
- DENTIST VISITS
1. How To Brush Your Gums And Teeth?
Everyone has heard this suggestion at least once in their lifetimes. You should brush your gums and teeth at least two times every day. You may think scrubbing the insides of your mouth is pointless and uncomfortable, but dentists in Fort Collins go as far as brushing your gums and teeth an hour after every meal you take.
The entire process of brushing your gums and teeth serves to remove dental plaque. Plaque is a layer of bacteria that grows over your gums and teeth. When bacteria in the plaque layers get in touch with food particles, especially sugar or starch, they rapidly digest them to produce weak acids.
Prolonged exposure to large amounts of even weak acids weaken the protective enamel layer of your teeth, leading to dental cavities.
- It is highly recommended the soft variety of brushes be sold in the markets for a gentler experience.
- First, a pea-sized squeeze of fluoride-based toothpaste goes on the bristles of your toothbrush.
- The ideal placement of your toothbrush should be at a forty-five-degree angle to your gum line.
- Start moving your toothbrush slowly against your teeth in small circular motions.
- Electric toothbrush users just need to hold it lightly against the gum line and let it work.
- You should maintain the same motion and angle as you oral cleanse one tooth at a time.
- The bristles of your toothbrush should keep moving deeper along the gum and teeth line.
- You should avoid pressing your brush so hard against your teeth that the bristles go flat.
- Bristle tips do the actual teeth cleaning, so let them reach into the cracks between your teeth.
- The flat chewing molar surfaces also need scrubbing of grooves and crevices across the top.
- Using the same small circular motions, you should brush the internal surfaces of your teeth.
- Hold the brush pointed down vertically to clean the inside surfaces of your bottom front teeth.
- You should keep your brush pointed upwards for cleaning the insides of your top front teeth.
- Cleaning your tongue requires gentle brush strokes from the back to the tip of your tongue.
- The soft tongue scrubbing helps kill off the excess bacteria and freshens up your breath.
- Rinse your mouth with water after brushing your teeth for at least two to three minutes.
- Swapping out your old toothbrush for a soft new one after three or four months of use is ideal.
2. How To Properly Floss Your Teeth?
Flossing remains an essential part of a dental health routine, no matter how many discussions on prime time TV question the importance of flossing. With the help of some dental floss, you can quickly get rid of the plaque and food particles that are stuck between your teeth in gaps where your brush may not reach.
Cleaning the cracks and crevices between gums and teeth is vital to maintaining good oral hygiene. If left to their own devices, the plaque can harden into persistent tartar, leading to dental cavities, gum inflammation, and bleeding down the line.
The best way to floss your teeth involves slow to and fro C-shaped motions that hug the contours of your gums and teeth. Dentists in Fort Collins recommend flossing at least once daily to prolong your dental viability.
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- Pull a strip of floss from the dispenser, about 18-inches long.
- Twist the two floss ends around both your middle fingers.
- You should keep at least a 1-inch section clear for flossing.
- The upper teeth should be flossed first, followed by the bottom.
- Push the floss gently between your teeth using your index digits.
- Avoid pushing the floss too hard as it may cause bleeding gums.
- Move the floss up and down along your tooth from the gum line.
- You should keep the floss firmly in a C-shape hugging your tooth.
- Flossing every tooth as well as wisdom teeth is essential.
- Wind up the used floss on your finger for clean sections to floss.
3. How To Rinse Your Gums And Teeth?
The third installment of your daily dental care routine involves rinsing your mouth, but not with plain water. The center for dental implants suggests using an antibacterial mouthwash.
Rinsing:
- You should rinse your mouth daily with an antibiotic mouthwash.
- Rinsing kills off plaque, bad breath, and gum issues causing bacteria.
- A mouthwash with fluoride also helps prevent dental decay.
- Rinse by swishing the mouthwash around in your mouth for a minute.
- Mouthwash should be used either before or after you brush and floss.
4. How To Eat Right For Better Dental Health?
Eating a well-balanced variety of meals and avoiding sugary and starchy food items are indispensable for good dental health. Packaged food products, mainly hard candies, produce the most significant amount of acids because they linger between your jaws for so long.
Snacking excessively on sugary treats leads to rapid dental decay since most of you don't brush your gums and teeth after devouring stacks of sweets. Starch- containing snacks like junk food and fried potato chips cling to your teeth and gums. The longer they stay in there, the more they can harm your dental health, and the sooner you’ll need to visit your
dentist for teeth cleaning.
Snacks To Avoid:
- Cakes, cookies, pies, etc.
- Sugary chewing gums, candies, etc.
- Fried chips, breadsticks, crackers, etc.
- Sweet fruits, raisins, dry fruits, etc.
5. How To Stay Oral-Fit With Regular Dental Check-Ups?
We can’t emphasize enough how important it is to visit your dentist at regular intervals. Maintain healthy gums and teeth. For better oral hygiene demand periodic dental check-ups and professional teeth cleaning. If you experience a toothache, gum inflammation, or bleeding, you should immediately contact your dentist.
For additional protection, you can also request your Fort Collins periodontist to advise you about dental sealants. The sealant fortifies the top coating of the chewing surfaces of your teeth to protect them from decay and help them last longer.
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