Should you brush your teeth before or after breakfast? What about before or after flossing?

It's well known that you should brush at least twice a day and floss once a day, but in what order and when should you do it?

 

Specifically, let's pose a couple of questions:

• Should you brush your teeth before or after breakfast?

• In most cases, you should actually brush your teeth before breakfast. It might make sense to brush your teeth after you eat in order to clean your teeth of all the breakfast food you just ate, but if you ate an acidic breakfast that could actually be damaging. Acidic breakfast foods like orange juice, coffee, and fruit can weaken enamel and brushing right after could damage your teeth while the enamel is weakened.

• If you do brush your teeth after breakfast, it's better to just rinse your mouth and maybe drink some milk or eat some cheese to reduce the acidity inside your mouth. Then you can brush your teeth after about 30 minutes once your saliva has helped re-mineralize your enamel.

• Should I brush first or floss first?

• According to a recent study conducted in 2018 by the Dental Materials Research Center, flossing before brushing reduces whole plaque and increases the amount of fluoride between teeth.1Along with this, brushing after flossing can help clear all of the particles that were dislodged by the floss.

Here at Denti-Pal, we care about helping you save your teeth before they even get cavities. The order of brushing your teeth can help in the preservation of your teeth, but the most important thing is remembering to brush and floss every day!

1Mazhari F, Boskabady M, Moeintaghavi A, Habibi A. The effect of toothbrushing and flossing sequence on interdental plaque reduction and fluoride retention: A randomized controlled clinical trial. J Periodontol. 2018 Jul;89(7):824-832. doi: 10.1002/JPER.17-0149. Epub 2018 Jul 20. PMID: 29741239.

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Keep Having Cavities? These Factors Show It May Not Be Your Fault...

Some people can brush and floss twice a day but get multiple cavities while other people can never brush their teeth and not have a single cavity at all. So where are these cavities coming from? Here are the factors affecting your teeth that are not necessarily your fault: 

• Diet: Yes sugar causes cavities, but that is not the only thing that could ruin your teeth. Acidic foods are also dangerous. So when you have sodas like coke that are both sugary and acidic, make sure brush afterwards.
• Eating Frequency: When you eat, your pH of your mouth becomes lower, making your teeth more susceptible to a cavity. In addition, increase sugar exposure is more dangerous than the quantity of the sugar itself. By cutting the times you snack, you can also cut your cavity count.
• Bacteria in the Mouth: Everybody’s mouth is an environment of bacteria, and some mouths have a worse bacteria composition than others. This is why you need to be care with mouth to mouth contact, as you can transfer bad bacteria around! Many parents nonchalantly transfer their bacteria to their own kids. 
• Genetics: Some people are just more prone to getting cavities. Every person and every tooth is different and you might notice that your family has to visit the dentist more often than other families. While you cannot do anything to prevent this factor, being aware of your inherited cavity susceptibility can help you in prepare your habits better. 
• Dry Mouth: Saliva is one of the most important protective factors of your teeth and the lack of it can lead to numerous, fast developing cavities. Dry mouth can be caused by symptoms such ad Sjogren’s Syndrome, taking multiple medications, or even wearing a mouth appliance. Make sure to be aware and take care of your teeth, as having dry mouth can lead to destructive results if left uncheck. By using Denti-Pal Extreme Risk Kit customized just for you, you can target all the cavity risk factors and keep your mouth protected. 

What to Do After Getting a Temporary Crown

What to Do After Getting a Temporary Crown

After getting a prep done for your new crown, you will have a temporary crown place on the tooth. This is to protect the tooth structurally and ensure the tooth doesn’t move while you are waiting for the final deal. And if your temporary comes off, it can be a bit of a hassle to put back on. What should you do to avoid the temporary coming out?

 Getting a temporary crown can change your lifestyle a bit

When cleaning your teeth, make sure not to pull up when flossing the temporary crown. When you floss, push down on the temporary with a finger and pull the floss from the side.

While eating, you will want to 

Here are the kinds of foods to avoid:

1.    Hard Foods: Your temporary crown definitely has limits on durability. Avoid hard foods like raw vegetables, shelled seafood, and dry nuts.

2.    Sticky Foods: These temporary are supposed to come of from stress. Make sure not to chew on things like taffy, sticky rice, or anything that feels adhesive to the teeth. These can pull the crown right off!

3.    Hot and Cold Foods: This is for teeth that have not gotten a root canal. Due to the thickness of the temporary crown and how it is not as thick as your new upcoming crown, you might few sensitive if you eat hot or cold foods. Take your coffee and tea at room temperature. 

If you are having trouble deciding what to eat, here are a following recommendations:

1. Liquid Meal Replacements: Drinking nutrition shakes and meal replacement drinks like Soylent will make sure that you have a safe, room temperature way of getting your nutrients in.

2. Smoothies: Creating a smoothie is fun way to get your food in too. Make sure that you don’t add ice to your smoothie if you want to avoid cold sensitivity. 

3. Eggs: Eggs are great soft foods that you can cook almost anyway. Don’t eat the shell of course.

4. Pasta: Pasta is tasty and safe to eat! Feel free to eat spaghetti and raviolis!

5. Soup: Clam chowder, corn soup, chili, all are great options to have when at moderate temperatures!

Toothache or Sinus Infection?

With the start of winter coming, many people are getting sick. Coughing, sneezing and stuffy noses are common. But what most people don’t know is that there teeth can start to hurt too.

The sinuses are four pairs of air-filled spaces found in the facial bones near your eyes, forehead, and behind your cheekbones. Sinus infections (known as sinusitis) cause the tissues in these spaces to be inflamed. This creates pressure that can be felt by the teeth in the back.

(Pictured: The Maxillary Sinus. Notice the roots of the teeth are making contact with the sinus.)

If you do feel like you have a toothache all of a sudden, here are a few things to look for:

·     Are you feeling sick or having a fever?

·     Is the pain located around your back upper teeth? (These teeth are the ones that can have roots in the sinus)

·     Does the pain feel worse when jumping, bending over, or tapping on the tooth?

·     Do you suffer from other symptoms such as pressure or tenderness around your nose, eyes, or forehead?

If you have answered yes to the following questions, your toothache is most likely 

For relief, you will want to treat the sinus infection first!

·     Stay hydrated to thin the mucus and reduce pressure.

·     Use hot steam or a hot shower to open nasal passages.

·     Use a nasal spray or flush to help moisturize the sinus.

With the sinuses relieved, the pain in your teeth should start going away! 

For more tips and products to protect your teeth, visit Denti-Pal.org!