Dental Care During Coronavirus
Dental care during coronavirus is essential. With the coronavirus going on, there has never been a better time to invest in proper dental cleaning and care at home. You want to do everything that you can to keep your mouth healthy and avoid infections. Ensuring that you brush and floss correctly will negate the need to travel out of your house for medical attention and put yourself at risk of contracting COVID-19.
Are you looking for more information on how to care for your teeth during the coronavirus? Take a look at these dental cleaning guidelines.
Brush With Flouride Toothpaste
Brushing with fluoride toothpaste should be standard procedure, even when global pandemics are not raging. But with COVID-19 infecting many people, it is even more critical. You need to bolster your body’s defenses and avoid bacterial co-infection.
Fluoride is a special chemical because it has the unique ability to safely dispose of the bacteria that cause disease while strengthening teeth and gums. Always ensure, therefore, that you use fluoride-containing toothpaste.
Wash Your Toothbrush
Researchers believe that most COVID-19 infections are spread by droplets in the air that you breathe in through the nose or mouth. But it can also transmit from person to person via the so-called fecal-oral route. Thus, a person with COVID-19 can spread the infection when they visit the bathroom.
Before the outbreak became an international crisis, researchers already knew that toothbrushes accumulate fecal bacteria. When you flush the toilet, the action of the water pushes microbes into the air. They then settle on all of the surfaces in your bathroom, including your toothbrush.
The best solution here is to keep the lid closed on the toilet when you flush and place your toothbrush in your medicine cabinet or a closed container.
Use Dental Care In Emergencies Only
Without a vaccine or effective antivirals, social distancing is the best way to combat the coronavirus right now. For that reason, everyone needs to reduce their trips out of the house as much as possible.
Dental emergencies, however, will still occur, regardless of the prevalence of COVID-19. And they still require urgent attention. If you have a broken tooth, swelling, an abscess, or terrible pain, then you should visit your dentist as soon as possible.
If you have a usual toothache, the current advice is to manage the pain using over-the-counter medications. Research suggests that these tend to be more effective than prescription-only opioid-containing painkillers.
Adjust Your Diet
Besides your dental cleaning routine, what you eat has a tremendous impact on the overall health of your teeth and gums. The reason for this has to do with the type of bacteria different items foster. Sugary and starchy foods, for example, tend to result in the growth of bacteria in our mouths that produce acid. This substance then dissolves the enamel coating on our teeth and attacks the tissue on the margin between the teeth and gums, leading to gingivitis.
The biggest culprit is “non-fiber” carbohydrates – foods that either contain sugar or have been refined, such as white pasta and bread. These foods are what dentists call “sticky” because they tend to remain in the mouth for longer than their fiber-containing counterparts. This property means that bacteria have more time to grow and multiply.
Where possible, stick with whole foods – things like rolled oats, beans, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. These foods tend to clear the mouth rapidly, providing bacteria with fewer opportunities to do damage.
Shifting your diet at this time of pandemic is probably a good idea anyway. Evidence suggests that COVID-19 – the disease that coronavirus causes – becomes more severe in people with poor underlying health. Eating more beans, vegetables, and whole grains, therefore, is an excellent way to improve your defenses.
Finally, if you wear dentures, have a crown, or any other form of prosthesis, you may want to avoid hard foods for a while, like rock candy, nuts, and seeds. These can cause damage.
Keep Flossing Your Teeth, Even Though You’re Isolated
Even though you’re isolated, it is still imperative that you continue flossing. Flossing helps to remove all the gunk that accumulates between teeth that you can’t remove with regular brushing.
If you want to take things up a notch, you may want to swap to using interdental brushes. These are toothpick-shaped brushes, with tiny bristles that fit between teeth. It is a highly effective way to remove plaque and keep the gaps between your teeth hygienic.
Just be careful when flossing, though. Scrape from side to side, not top to bottom down to the tooth bed.
Contact Children’s Braces and Dentistry Now!
Coronavirus presents new challenges for dental cleaning. But with the right approach, you can protect yourself from tooth decay, gum disease, and COVID-19. We hope you found our blog about dental care during coronavirus helpful. If you would like more information, you can visit our Children’s Braces and Dentistry website. If you have concerns please give us a call.