Keeping Your Mouth Healthy During the Sweetest Month

Happy October and Happy National Dental Hygiene Month! With Halloween looming (and our signature health and fitness event Mac Monster Mania just around the corner) we want to spotlight some of our favorite tips for oral health.

Mac Monster Mania is a 5K and Health Fair showcasing local health resources including dentists and oral health specialists, physical therapists, blood pressure screenings, and more. Two of our sponsors this year – All About Smiles and Dr. Adam Diesburg DDS – shared with us some of their top tips for healthy mouth care.

Did you know?

The average person will spend 15 to 23 days brushing their teeth throughout their lifetime.

Wow! While this may seem like a lot of time, just a few minutes of brushing each night will help keep your teeth healthy and strong. As our friends at All About Smiles family dentistry say, “you only have to brush the teeth you want to keep and that prevention is the best insurance.”

Brushing your teeth is just the first step. There are other ways you can help protect your mouth get and stay healthy.

It’s important to protect your mouth because it has so many important jobs. You use your mouth to smile, talk, laugh, drink and eat. One of the biggest roles your mouth plays is provide food to your stomach. Teeth help you chew and digest your food properly. They work to bite, tear, grind, and mash the food that you eat before you swallow it. Teeth are even stronger than bones – with their protective layer of enamel, they are the hardest part of your body.

Choose foods that build and strengthen your teeth. You can help your teeth and other parts of your mouth stay healthy by providing them with the ingredients that make them up and by avoiding the ingredients that break them down.

- Eat foods high in calcium and Vitamin D, such as milk and foods made from milk (like cheese and yogurt). There’s also calcium in corn tortillas, almonds, beans, broccoli and other vegetables that we call greens.

- Limit foods that are sugary or sticky. Every person’s mouth has bacteria that helps produce important substances for your body, but eating too much of certain foods helps those bacteria multiply and form plaque on your teeth. When your mouth bacteria get lots of this, they form acids that begin to wear down the hard outer layer of your tooth called enamel (also known as tooth decay).

Halloween is a special event – have fun!

It’s okay to have sweets once in a while. As Dr. Diesburg DDS says, "always remember: Brush your teeth, every night, no matter what. If you do eat something sweet, be sure to rinse your mouth out with water afterwards."

Both All About Smiles family dentistry and Dr. Diesburg are sponsoring Monster Mania this year and will be there to provide more information about the importance of oral health and regular dental checkups. We all hope to see you and your pearly whites there!