A healthy smile doesn’t take much to stay healthy. Yet, if your hygiene routine is lacking, then you’re at a much greater risk of experiencing issues that require more extensive treatment. Visiting your dentist regularly for professional checkups and cleanings is vital to your good dental health, but so is effectively keeping your teeth clean and healthy between visits. Today, we look at how you can improve your hygiene to ensure that harmful plaque and tartar have a minimal chance of harming your teeth and gums.
Cleaning Your Teeth
Brushing and flossing your teeth keeps harmful oral bacteria from clinging to your teeth for too long. Because bacteria constantly form plaque, you have to constantly clean it away by brushing your teeth at least twice a day and flossing at least once, before it can calcify into tartar. Once it does, it can’t be removed, and the oral bacteria within it have more time to affect your teeth and gums before your dentist can remove it.
Eating Healthier
Like the rest of your body, your teeth need a healthy supply of essential minerals and nutrients to stay healthy. The highly resilient layer of enamel that surrounds them, for instance, is made almost entirely of calcium, which your body doesn’t produce naturally. To ensure that your teeth receive enough calcium and other nutrients, eat a healthy diet consisting of plenty of dairy products (or lactose-free alternatives), green vegetables, and fruits.
Visiting Your Dentist
As you improve your hygiene routine at home, be sure to keep up with regularly scheduled checkup and cleaning appointments at least once every six months. Even excellent hygiene and a healthy diet can only keep your teeth healthy for so long. If you miss a spot of plaque between your teeth or along your gum line, then you may not notice it calcify into tartar, and skipping an appointment could lead to higher risks of dental health concerns.
Learn to Make the Most of Your Hygiene Routine
Your dentist plays an important role in your good dental health, but good hygiene at home is the cornerstone of maintaining it. To learn more, schedule a consultation with Dr. Keller by calling Cedar West Family Dentistry in Richfield, MN, today at (612) 861-7188.
