Preventative Care
Our goal is to help you to maintain a healthy mouth for a lifetime, possibly preventing the need for any future dental work. This is accomplished by practicing proper, thorough home-care, in combination with regular check-ups at our office. Maintaining oral health should be viewed as a team approach between the patient, dentists and hygienists. Below and throughout our site, you will find tips, ideas and products that we recommend to help you achieve this goal.
To ensure optimal health of your teeth and gums:
- Use proper brushing techniques twice a day, or after each meal. Our practice recommends using a Sonicare®, which gives you a much more thorough cleaning due to the ultrasonic action of the brush.
- Proper flossing techniques once a day to remove plaque from in-between teeth not cleaned by brushing
- Proper at-home irrigation of pockets using a countertop irrigator (Viajet, Waterpik®), delivering and anti-bacterial solution into areas not reached by brushing.
- Recommendation of proper toothpastes, salves and rinses. We recommend a mixture of salt (antiseptic), baking soda (alkaline to counter acidic by-products of bacteria) and hydrogen peroxide (anti-bacterial). Other recommendations may include fluoride-free, herbal-based pastes and rinses including essential oils, known to have effective anti-bacterial properties.
- Proper supplementation, such as the intake of vitamins and supplements to support ideal hard and soft tissue health.
- Leading a healthy lifestyle will not only have a direct positive impact on your teeth and gums, but will also lead to better systemic health, which in turn supports a much healthier mouth. Eating a proper diet, one that is low in consumption of processed foods (refined flour and sugar) and high in natural, whole foods is foundational for a healthy lifestyle. Consumption of acidic foods and drinks, such as soda (diet or regular), energy drinks, sports drinks, etc., can have a damaging, irreversible impact on tooth enamel. Use of tobacco products can lead to inflammation of the gums and put you at risk of developing periodontal disease.
