In the last one month, this blog carried dental care dos and don’ts, busted dental care myths, listed bad dental habits, familiarized you with dental jargon and entertained you with teeth trivia. In today’s post, we will tell you what the mystery proper dental care routine is that everyone talks about.

Let us look at what comprises the perfect dental care routine.

• Brush after every meal. So, actually, the first brushing in the morning just freshens your breath and helps you get rid of the bad breath.

• Floss everyday. Flossing is as important as brushing. While brushing takes care of the surfaces of the teeth, flossing ensures that the spaces between the teeth are cleaned.
• Clean your tongue regularly. Some say that you should clean your tongue as often as you brush your teeth. However, gently cleaning your tongue once a day is more than enough. Too much scraping can make cracks on your tongue, making home for bacteria.
• Rinse your mouth after consuming anything. A sip of juice or a bite of chocolate can help bacteria grow and flourish inside your mouth if you are hours away from your post-meal brushing. You cannot possibly brush every time you put something in your mouth. However, you can rinse your mouth with water or mouthwash.
• Visit your dentist twice a year. You may not have a visible reason to visit your dentist, but you should still visit him/her for a check-up like you would for your general health. One visit in six months should be a part of your annual itinerary.

Apart from following a proper dental care routine, try to cut down on smoking and curb your sweet cravings.

When you are traveling, along with medicines and bare necessities, carry your toothbrush, floss, tongue scraper, toothpaste, and mouthwash in a kit that you can keep all the time with you.

Do not ignore any pain, swelling, or any kind of irritation in your mouth. See your dentist at once if you have some dental problem symptoms.

Happy smiling!

On the 1st of this month, we carried a post discussing the causes of bad breath and steps to keep it in check. In this post, we bring to you some more great advice on keeping the odor away.

• Brush and floss daily

  If you are letting bacteria thrive in your mouth in the form of plaque, you will have bad breath. Fight the bacteria with the two most trustworthy weapons you have – the toothbrush and the floss. Ask your dentist to recommend good toothpaste.

• Rinse your mouth after consuming anything

  Rinse your mouth several times a day, especially after eating or drinking something, even if it was a tiny piece of pastry you ate. You should use a mouthwash to gargle and rinse your mouth instead of plain water.

• Clean the tongue

  Use a tongue scrapper or a soft toothbrush to clean your tongue. A lot of importance has been laid on getting rid of the bacteria off the teeth, but the tongue also becomes a shelter for bacteria if not cleaned properly. Clean both the sides of the tongue. Too much scraping is not considered good. Ask your dentist for tips to clean the tongue.

• Eat plenty of fiber

  By fiber, we mean roughage that comes in vegetables and fruits. The roughage helps keep the tongue clean, thus preventing any bacterial growth. Eat as much fruits and vegetables as you can eat.

• Drink water

  You must have seen water being prescribed as the remedy for body odor, suggested as tips for good skin and overall fitness. Now, we bring you water as the remedy for bad breath. It is important to keep the mouth hydrated as the bacteria loves to make home in dry mouths. Gulp down at least 8-10 glasses of water a day.

• Cut down on caffeine and tobacco

  Caffeine and tobacco not only leave a bad smell in the mouth, but also cause the mouth to dry up, making way for bacteria. Cutting down on smoking and the number of cups of coffee and tea will help you keep bad breath in check.

• Check what you eat

  Foods like onions, garlic, seafood, and some meat can leave an odor in your mouth. If your taste buds love these foods, try to follow up your meals with good oral hygiene.

• Check the medicines you are taking

  Learn the side effects of all the medicines you are taking. If any of them is causing bad breath, ask your doctor to prescribe a replacement. However, it is important that you do not avoid taking the medicines for the fear of bad breath. Consult your dentist for ways to do away with the bad breath.

Happy smiling!

In the electronic city of Akihabara in Japan, you will come across something called an etiquette checker in several shops. An etiquette checker tells you if you have bad breath, thus helping you know if you are bothering others around you. The pack typically has the following line: Let’s become a sociable person (sic).

All of us know how bad breath can spoil our dates, meetings, social interactions in general. We may be annoying others even without knowing it. Are there simple steps that we can take to ensure that our mouths never stink? Yes, there are. Bad breath does not necessarily mean that there is a dental problem. One just needs to follow a few basic steps as a routine to do away with the odor.

The simplest factors causing bad breath are:

• Consumption of tobacco and alcohol
• Deposits on the tongue
• Food particle inside the mouth

Here are quick and easy steps to follow to avoid bad breath:

• Brush your teeth after every meal. Yes, you have heard this a million times before, but that only reiterates how important a step this is. Hidden food articles in the mouth decay producing micro-organisms, which in turn release bad odor. Now, you wouldn’t want small living beings squirming through your tongue, would you?
• Floss, floss, floss. Floss regularly to get rid of the food particles stuck between your teeth.
• Rinse your mouth thoroughly with a good mouthwash a couple of times during the days when you feel you have bad breath.
• Cleanse your tongue. More often than not, we pay so much attention to our teeth that we forget our tongues. Cleanse your tongue regularly if you want to avoid bad breath. In fact, if you have not been cleansing your tongue, you may well be losing your taste buds. You do not want to do that. You would like to tell the difference between smoked salmon and boiled tuna using your tongue.

We will talk about more interesting tips in the posts that follow. Till then, happy smiling!

Dental hygiene: just about everybody knows the basics of brushing and flossing - or, at the very least, they know that brushing and flossing are things that they should be doing. When it comes to maintaining your dental hygiene, you’ll find that you’re able to figure out those elements just by watching TV and catching the commercials for most toothpaste companies. Chances are good that one of the next things that you’re going to hear about dental hygiene is the importance of bacteria killing mouth wash and rinse products.

A solid dental hygiene routine is about more than just following the basics - especially when following the basics is something that you just do on a cursory level. Just putting some toothpaste on a brush and going over your teeth quickly isn’t quite enough (as evidenced by the toothbrushes for kids that play a song that lasts for the time they need to spend brushing their teeth).

If you have questions about going beyond the basics of dental hygiene, don’t hesitate to talk with your dentist and hygienist - after all, they are there to help you to learn more about brushing, flossing properly and making sure that you are able to keep you mouth - your teeth and gums - healthy and well cared for.

We all want our best for our children. We want them to grow up healthy and big and stong so we feed them the right diet and make sure they excercise but one of the most commonly neglected health issues with children these days is their dental hygiene.

You might think that dental hygiene is not as important with children because they lose their baby teeth anyways but you could not be more wrong. Their overall oral health when they are younger, determines how healthy their adult teeth will be when they begin to come in at age 6. In fact, good dental hygiene habits should begin before their first baby tooth even pops up by wiping their gums with a soft damp cloth after feedings to help prevent the buildup of bacteria.

Once the teeth begin to appear, you can start to use a soft children’s toothbrush twice a day. When your child reaches preschool age, you should start using toothpaste with their brushing, using the same ammount as the size of a pea. Children tend to swallow most of the toothpaste which is why you don’t want to put too much on the brush. Too much fluorides can be bad for them as well.

Children can get cavities and tooth decay just like adults can and are higher risk if they are born premature or are fairly light weight. They can also be at higher risk if they have any special health care needs or have white spots or brown areas on their teeth. If any of these are the case, you want to make sure that they visit the dentist regularily. To help prevent cavities in children, avoid giving them anything but water to go to sleep with. If your child has a snack or a meal that is particularily sticky or full of sugar, add an extra brushing in and make sure that you get all of that type of stuff off of their teeth as soon as possible.

Treat you childrens teeth as carefully as you treat your own and if you have any questions, make sure that you talk you your dentist. They will be able to tell you everything that you need to know about keeping your child’s teeth as healthy and strong as possible!

Have you ever wondered what causes cavities? Its not actually the food that you eat, although it does have a factor. Instead, Cavities are caused by different bacteria which are difficult to get rid of because they are so similar to the other harmless bacteria that live in your mouth. There are several different kinds of cavity causing bacteria including the following.

Lactobacillus acidophilus bacteria - This type of bacteria resides in the pits and fissures on the chewing surfaces of your teeth. They tend to cause a lot of tooth decay in young children in both their baby teeth and their permanent molars.

Streptococcus bacteria - This type of bacteria attacks the smoother surfaces of the sides of the teeth. They usually cause cavities to spread to the adjoining teeth and are hard to detect visually. Most times, the only way to detect them is through x-rays.

Odontomyces viscoses bacteria - These live on the back of the tongue and attack the hard outer layer of the tooth root, also known as the cementum. This type of bacteria tends to be worse on older patients and patients with gum disease because their tooth roots are more exposed.

If you want to know more about different cavity causing bacteria, ask you dentist for more details.