5 Ways To Improve Your Dental Health During Quarantine

Due to the stay-at-home safety precautions, lots of dental offices are only seeing emergency patients, which means you might be someone who had to reschedule your dental cleaning appointment. If that’s you, keep reading to find out how to best care for your teeth at home to hold you over until you can safely get back into the dental office. We all know how important it is to receive routine professional cleanings. Until it is safe for you to resume your routine dental cleanings, you should start working extra hard at home.

1. Brushing after every meal

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I’m sure you’ve heard the rule to brush AT LEAST two times a day and it’s exactly how it sounds. In addition to brushing in the morning and at night, adding the extra third brushing session after lunch is ideal. When we’re at work in the office, brushing after lunch is not always practical. But now that we’re at home, it’s practical!

2. Limit snacking

Speaking of brushing after every meal, lots of us have been snacking a little more than usual during the quarantine. We need to stop that! Snacking is the absolute worst for our teeth. It’s actually healthier for your teeth to eat all the snacks at once like a designated snack time instead of snacking throughout the day every hour.

3. Drink a lot of water

I know I’ll be the first one to say limiting snacking throughout the day is much easier said than done. If you need to snack, try to do it all at once. But if you can’t, make sure you’re drinking a lot of water. Not only does water help remove the debris from your teeth but it also keeps your body overall health. Water is key to a healthy life. We all realize that water is good. But what lots of us don’t realize is that your oral health is directly related to your overall health. Water is good on so many levels from so many angles. Just try to drink as much water as you can.

4. Start flossing

If you’re not a flosser, which unfortunately most people are not, start flossing! Now it’s time to create a new routine. Most people are talking about working out and exercising. But I’ll be the first one to tell you that flossing keeps your gums healthy and firm just like working out. It really is in your best interest to add flossing – working out your gums on the list of your daily tasks for quarantine. If you truly can’t get it to flossing, try the floss fix. They’re better than nothing. Or even better consider trying interdental aids. We have another article dedicated to interdental aids if you’re like. Another option is to try adding a water flosser. You might as well amp up your game right. Just to remember that water flossers are super good at keeping your gums healthy. We always recommend our customers to also use traditional string floss or interdental aids in addition to a water flosser to help prevent cavities.

5. Leave the toothpaste on your teeth

Last but definitely not least, I am trying to remember to leave the toothpaste on my teeth after I brush. The idea behind that is if you’re using fluoride toothpaste, you want that fluoride to sit on your teeth so it can do its job preventing cavities. But if you rinse it off right away because you swish with water and spit, you just rinsed away all the benefits. It’s hard to get used to this when you’re so used to rinsing and spitting. I will brush my teeth, spit, and not rinse. I will leave the toothpaste on my teeth and then put my night guard and retainer right over the toothpaste. Lots of people including me don’t like the feeling of toothpaste on your teeth. But after putting the night guard and retainer in right away, I don’t even feel the texture anymore. Some people don’t like the feeling of toothpaste texture on their teeth. But putting the night guard in my mouth has helped so much. If you are someone who just can’t get into it because of the texture or you forget at night, definitely consider using a fluoride mouthwash before bed. You would swish with the fluoride mouth, rinse, spit, and then you don’t drink water after you want that fluoride mouthwash just sit on your teeth. We know some of these tips might have sounded like a lot. I don’t want to overwhelm you and make you feel bad that you don’t have all the stuff all the products I mentioned. Just start slow. Add one thing to your routine that I mentioned even if it’s as simple as adding that one extra brushing session after lunch that can help so much. You can even just focus on drinking more water throughout the day. You don’t have to go out and buy a bunch of products right now.