Life is busy for many Oklahoma City residents. At times, it’s impossible to get all the “gotta do’s” done and many are delayed or dropped altogether. Sometimes your car has to wait another 500 miles for an oil change or you are a month late replacing your furnace filter or you realize that you’ve had a leaky faucet since the Clinton administration. Many important things get put on the back burner, but we appeal to you not to get careless about crucial dental care.
Here are some typical dental care shortcuts. Are you guilty of any of them?
Rushing Through Brushing
Your teeth deserve a careful two minutes or more. Slow and methodical beats quick and dirty. Use a process to make sure you get every tooth. Playing one of your favorite two- or three-minute songs may help you go the distance.
Only Seeing Your Dentist When You Feel Tooth Pain
We hope none of our patients put off evaluations and cleanings. When you feel tooth pain, it may be way too late to prevent a filling or even a root canal.
Neglecting Professional Cleanings
When softer plaque turns to calculus, you can’t brush it off with a toothbrush. Six-month cleanings help get rid of the calculus or tartar before it can hurt your enamel or irritate your gums.
Using Floss Picks Instead of Dental Floss
While it’s better to floss with a floss pick than to not floss at all, it’s important to know that floss picks can only clean a part of the tooth’s surface. A floss pick holds just a small length of floss stretched in a straight line. Looking down, a tooth is shaped somewhat round or oval. A straight piece of floss just doesn’t make sense geometrically because it doesn’t conform to the contours of the tooth as well as traditional floss. When you wrap a string of floss completely around the circumference of a tooth, you can more thoroughly clean that crucial area around and just below the gumline. We have seen patients who are dutiful floss pick users who developed decay in a minuscule crack the floss pick skipped over day after day.
At OKC Smiles, we encourage our patients to practice preventative dentistry to guard their smiles for life. We deliver the full spectrum of general and cosmetic dental procedures including general dentistry, Invisalign, sedation dentistry, porcelain veneers, and restorative dentistry. For more information, call OKC Smiles today at 405-634-7303 or visit https://www.okcsmiles.com/about-us/.
Contact OKC Smiles:
405-634-7303
Location (Tap to open in Google Maps):
13900 S Western Ave, Suite 300
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
73170
