Spring is finally here, which means that it’s also the season of spring cleaning! If you’ve been neglecting some of your household chores over the winter, now is the perfect time to start taking some of those things more seriously.
If you’ve been doing the same thing with your oral health, it might be that you also need to do a spring cleaning for your teeth. Here are a few things you can try to get your oral health back on track.
Start a Flossing Habit
One of the most important things you can do for your oral health, if you aren’t already, is to floss thoroughly each day. No matter how well you brush, there are large plaque deposits in between your teeth that you can’t reach by that method alone. If you aren’t careful, you could even wind up with cavities in between your teeth!
Shift your Diet
One of the best ways to reduce the amount of cleaning that you have to do is to adopt a diet that is a little bit better for your oral health. If you’ve been hitting the sweets and starches pretty hard, you may find that you have a lot of plaque on your teeth that you have to deal with.
You could also incorporate some foods that may actually support your oral health. Crunchy vegetables, like celery and carrots, will both provide you with necessary nutrients and scrape away plaque as you eat.
See your Dentist
Even with flossing, there are some areas of your mouth that you can’t reach on your own. You’ll need professional cleaning to reach these areas of the mouth, and if you haven’t had one in a while you may have substantial tartar buildup in those areas.
The best spring cleaning you can get is from your dentist, who can help you not only clean in hard-to-reach areas, but advise you on how best to care for your oral health on your own time.
About the Author
Dr. Michael Byars is a dentist who is proud to be able to make use of the latest techniques in oral medicine to help his patients get a beautiful smile as comfortably as possible. There’s nothing that brings him pride more than being able to not only better someone’s health, but their confidence as well!
Dr. Byars received his DDS at the University of Missouri – Kansas City, then completed a one-year residency in complex restorative dentistry. If you have any questions about the benefits of preventive care, he can be reached at his website or by phone at (816) 781-8222.