Women Health and Environment

Eyes can be the window to the soul, but mouth is a window to the health, Dr. Aquila Shrestha from Healthy Smiles Dental Clinic said. Your oral condition can reveal much about your health and habit. Not only the laziness of brushing teeth, but also various diseases like heart disease, clogged arteries, stroke, and pneumonia, among others. Besides, bad oral condition can greatly reduce someone’s confidence. Dr. Aquila mandates a regular visit to dentist every six months.

However, maintaining your dental health is not only the dentist’s job. The most important parts of maintaining dental health are started at your own home. Here are some tips for basic dental care maintenance that you can do at home, routinely.

1. Brushing.
This is, of course, the most important part. If you have a chance, brush your teeth after every meal; breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If you can’t, at least brush your teeth every morning after breakfast and every evening before you go to bed. Spend at least two minutes here, and make sure you have reached all parts of teeth equally. Change your toothbrush every three months, and don’t wait until the bristles get ragged.

A good way to brush would be to tilt the toothbrush slightly, at a 45-degree angle against the gumline and brush with short gentle back-and-forth strokes. For the insides of the teeth and the chewing surfaces, use short front and backstrokes.
The brush can also be used to clean the tongue using gentle forward sweeping motion.

2. Interdental cleaning
Brushing can’t reach the deeper parts between your teeth, flossing does. Do this at leats once a day. Cut about 18 inches of dental floss and hold the floss tightly between your thumbs and forefingers. Guide the floss between your teeth using a gentle rubbing motion. Never snap the floss into the gums. When the floss reaches the gum line, curve it into a C shape against one tooth. Gently slide it into the space between the gum and the tooth and move the floss up and down swiping it against the tooth. Repeat in other parts.

3. Rinsing after meals
You can do this if you don’t have time to brush your teeth after meals. Rinse your mouth to flush away food particles and bacteria, as well as neutralize the PH of the saliva.

4. Diet
Pay attention to your diet. Crunchy fruits and vegetables like apple, pear, carrot, or guava is good to get your teeth into ‘practice.’ Calcium is good for your teeth, which you can get from dairy products, broccoli, and tinned fish. Sugary and sticky food can reduce your saliva’s PH for a while, as well as food or beverage with high acid like lime juice, soda and pickles; they can demineralize the enamels and increase the risk of decay. Non-sweetened chewing gums can assist irrigation flow in your mouth by stimulating saliva flow. Last but not least, drink much water.

5. Cut your smoke
Smoking has shown to cause a significant adverse effect on the oral health. Smoking is also the major cause for gum disease (periodontal disease) and loss of tooth. Research has shown that smokers are four times more prone to gum diseases than non-smokers but the good news is that quitting smoking seems to gradually erase the harmful effects of tobacco use on periodontal health.