Some holiday habits can affect dental health. Discover the risks and learn tips on how to look after your mouth through the holiday season and beyond.
Some of the common Christmas customs can put our dental health on risk. Excess, unhealthy food and carelessness is a mix that affects the structures of the oral cavity and negatively affects the health of the teeth through the holidays.
During the Christmas holidays, oral care often takes a back seat. If we add to this frequent consumption of sweets, nuts, alcohol and soft drinks, our dental health will likely be placed on alert.
It is widely believed that through the holidays every part is allowed. We assume that nothing happens for a number of carefree days. However, neglecting your dental care habits can have serious consequences for the oral cavity.
Discover these 5 enemies of dental health through the holidays and discover what you possibly can do to have fun without damaging your smile.
1. Dental Health for the Holidays and Holidays: Sweets
Christmas is a time of many desserts, sweets, nougats, marzipans, panettone, chocolates, donuts, cakes and increasingly more sugar. All those Christmas treats they’ve a typical ingredient that threatens your oral health.
Sugar consumption tends to extend in most households around Christmas. According test making an allowance for the typical expenses of Spanish families through the celebration of Christmas, around 1 kilogram of sweet products is normally consumed through the celebration.
High consumption of straightforward sugars affects not only our overall health. This substance serves as a substrate for bacteria living within the oral cavity, which can use it to multiply.
When metabolizing sugar, bacteria produce acid that lowers the pH within the mouth and is able to demineralizing tooth enamel. This lack of minerals from the teeth is the explanation for tooth decay.
If oral hygiene is neglected and the consumption of sweets is increased, bacteria have free rein to multiply and destroy teeth. Tooth decay, gingivitis and tooth sensitivity are essentially the most common conditions that result from this dangerous combination.
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2. Snacking and snacking after dinner
Eating on the run is one other typical Christmas situation that threaten the health of our teeth. The table served for long hours invites you to always nibble.
Long conversations after dinner, chatting, always refilling glasses, countless handfuls of nuts, chocolates and desserts are a typical scene at Christmas parties. During this ritual, people rarely stand up to brush their teeth.
during meals, Biochemical there are changes in your mouth that will threaten your oral health. When we eat, the pH within the mouth drops, i.e. it becomes more acidic.
Our saliva is capable of neutralize this acidity and thus prevent tooth demineralization. However, getting back oral equilibrium lasts about 20 to half-hour.
If we eat on a regular basis our defense mechanism is out of balance and the mouth stays sour. Low pH for a very long time can demineralize teeth.
If we add to this that the majority of the products we eat contain lots of sugar, which increases the production of acids by bacteria, the issue is even greater. In addition, as we’ll say later, alcohol consumption also aggravates the situation by reducing salivation.
3. Alcoholic and carbonated drinks
As we now have already mentioned, the consumption of alcohol has a dehydrating effect on the oral cavity. This substance may reduce salivation and cause dry mouth.
A mouth with less saliva is less protected. Bacteria use this to multiply and produce acids that affect the teeth and irritate the mucous membranes.
In addition, a dry mouth generates discomfort when eating and causes bad breath. solution could be to drink water and increase hydration. However, through the holiday season, alcohol is usually combined with soft drinks and carbonated, sour and sweet drinks.
Carbonated drinks significantly lower the pH of saliva. Their sugar content and acidity predispose the teeth to erosion their outer layer, causing sensitivity problems, pain and an increased risk of tooth fractures.
In this sense, white wines and highly acidic sparkling wines are equally harmful.
On the opposite hand, red wines, which contain lots of tannins, could cause dark stains on the teeth – especially if oral hygiene is neglected at the identical time.
Finally, one other risk is added to the consumption of wines and sparkling wines: the potential for breaking a tooth when attempting to open a bottle along with your mouth. In such cases, to avoid accidents, it’s obligatory to make use of an acceptable tool to uncork the bottle.
4. Fibrous and hard foods
Thinking in regards to the enemies of dental health that appear around Christmas time, food texture is one other factor to contemplate. The texture of some foods may be conducive to the deterioration of dental components.
Fibrous meat eaten through the holidays, similar to Iberico ham or lamb, can get stuck within the spaces between the teeth. If proper oral hygiene is just not followed, the persistence of those residues promotes cavities and gingivitis.
Some very hard foods, similar to seafood, nougat or nuts, they may cause accidents when biting them. Fractures of teeth, removal of fillings, damage to orthodontics and dentures are possible.
To prevent accidents, it’s value explaining that oysters and nuts should never be opened along with your mouth.
5. Carelessness affects dental health while on vacation
Christmas parties can seem to be reason enough to neglect the hygiene routines and habits we maintain for the remaining of the yr. With this, the issues we now have already mentioned are getting worse.
Changes within the schedule, lack of routine and holiday rest make it difficult to keep up proper oral hygiene. Eating out or going to bed late makes it difficult to keep up brushing.
In addition, sometimes it is finished in a rush, without much attention, or is replaced by rinsing. Threading can be not used and food scraps accumulate conducive to bacterial growth.
Christmas may cause orthodontic patients to neglect treatment. Those who wear braces increase the danger of developing complications as a result of lack of look after the braces.
Those who wear removable braces find many reasons to remove overlays and stop using them to more conveniently attend events. This discontinuity makes treatment difficult.
Postponing tooth repair until after the vacations is a nasty idea. Problems may worsen and you might be prone to suffer from pain, sensitivity or infectious diseases that interfere with the celebration.
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Tips for keeping your teeth healthy this Christmas
While the bottom line is to limit your consumption of sweets through the Christmas season, this is you possibly can enjoy these delicacies and handle your teeth with certain precautions. Paying special attention to oral hygiene through the holidays will enable you to avoid the harmful effects of sugars in your teeth.
We recommend brushing your teeth with a fluoride toothpaste after each meal, especially after eating desserts, nougats and other sweets. In addition, you must complement your flossing and rinse your mouth with a fluoride mouthwash not less than once a day.
When it involves having fun with Christmas delicacies, try to decide on those which are less sticky and never as hard. In this fashion, you’ll prevent them from staying between the teeth for a very long time, fractures or fillings from falling out, damage to dentures or braces when biting.
Selection bitter dark chocolate that contain less sugar can be a superb strategy for a healthier sweet moment. It can be a superb idea to decide on non-alcoholic and sugar-free drinks.
There isn’t any need to remove the enjoyment of drinks; you they will go for fun and healthy fruit and vegetable smoothies. If you select alcoholic or carbonated drinks, rinsing your mouth with water after toast can counteract the harmful effects.
A dental check-up after the vacations won’t hurt. An expert will have the ability to detect any problems that arise and solve them before they develop.
Conscious celebration
Christmas Eve doesn’t need to grow to be an enemy of dental health. With the care we’re talking about here, you possibly can watch your teeth and luxuriate in the enjoyment of this season with peace of mind.
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