Keep Your Teeth Safe from Holiday Treats
Tips for enjoying holiday treats without harming your teeth
What’s your holiday weakness? Christmas cookies, gingerbread, pumpkin pie, candy canes, eggnog, roasted nuts, dried fruit, and even grandma’s fruitcake…there are simply so many high-calorie treats to choose from it can be hard to avoid indulging a bit more than you mean to.
You may very well lose the battle with your waistline this holiday. But this doesn’t mean your teeth need to lose the battle with these holiday treats too! Here are some simple tips that will help you keep your teeth clean and healthy this holiday and beyond.
Don’t Snack
You don’t have to give up sweets entirely to protect your teeth from the damaging effects of sugar. What you should do is avoid snacking all day long.
From your teeth’s perspective, it doesn’t really matter if you have one cookie or ten—so long as you eat them all at the same time, you’re only getting your teeth dirty once. Your oral bacteria will only get one feeding of sugary crumbs and will only be spurred into one session of tooth-enamel-eroding acid production. But if you ate a cookie every hour, you’d be giving those same bacteria regular feedings, making them produce more acid and likely do more damage.
Drink Water or Chew Gum
You may not be able to rush off to the bathroom to brush your teeth after every treat this holiday. But you can help keep your teeth cleaner by drinking water or chewing sugarless gum after your treat. Either option will help wash away food residue, depriving bacteria of their food supply and helping to prevent tooth decay, gum disease, and bad breath all at the same time.
Avoid Excessive Crunching
Teeth are not tools. You should not be using your teeth to try to open hard-shelled nuts or pulverize hard candy. Try to avoid chewing ice too. All of these habits put excessive stress on your teeth and could result in a tooth breaking or cracking, which would be painful and definitely put a damper on your holiday spirit.
Keep Brushing & Flossing
You might get a small vacation from school or work around the holidays, but you can’t let your oral hygiene routine slack off or go into vacation mode. It is always important to brush twice a day and floss at least once a day, especially if you have been eating a lot of sugary, sticky food during the holidays.
Visit the Dentist as Needed
If you have a toothache or unusual sensitivity, don’t postpone a visit to the dentist just because it is the holidays. Dental pain does not just go away on its own. It is a sign of a larger problem that will only get worse if it is not treated promptly.
With 7 locations to serve you, California Dental Group makes it easy to get the care you need when you need it. Please contact the location of your choice ASAP if you need dental care this holiday.
