Best Cheats of 2023 (Part 2)

The three critical elements to good dental health are diet, home care and the quality of your dental care - in that order of importance. A good diet (see best cheats of 2023 – March edition of inouch) can significantly overcome a lack of home care. Likewise, the combination of good diet and home care can significantly overcome some lack in the quality of your dental care. At Belledental, we encourage good diet, simple and effective home care and back this up with quality, conservative dental care: this is how we get the results we do.

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What does simple and effective home care look like?

It involves cleaning between your teeth with either interdental brushes or floss (or both) followed by thorough, gentle teeth brushing with an extra soft toothbrush. This program needs to be done once a day thoroughly. If you’re cleaning your teeth twice a day, the other time can just be a thorough brushing.

The starting point for this is a thorough professional cleaning of your teeth and an examination. I know many patients that tell me they just had a “free” cleaning and examination at various large clinics.

A 10-minute cursory “free” clean, without x-rays and without demonstration of home care routines tailored to you, will be totally inadequate as a dental clean– especially if you want to set yourself up for long-term success.

Don’t kid yourself.

If your dental cleans are thorough and you implement the demonstrated home care, you are likely to get bleeding. Bleeding gums are the clinical indicator of active dental disease, but if you follow the above routine for 2-3 weeks, the bleeding will stop.

Congratulations: You’ve achieved healthy gums!

If you are thorough with your flossing/ interproximal brushing three days a week, followed by tooth brushing, many patients can maintain a good level of gum health (still maintain brushing every day).

If you get bleeding, revert back to the daily routine until the bleeding stops - then, you can start to cheat again. If you’ve got more advanced gum disease, I would not recommend this cheat – but it will work for many – check with your dentist or make an appointment at Belledental on 4946 9122.

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intouch contributor DR ALEX HUSZTI BelleDental

Alex has had a career focused on low-biologic cost reconstructive cosmetic dental care – common sense teeth for life.