Are you ready for the holidays? Halloween is a scary time for your teeth.
Now is the beginning of the end…the holiday season is almost upon us and the parties are already beginning! Even if you have your shopping, baking, and candy bowls ready to go, Halloween is a scary time for your teeth, and if they could scream, they probably would. Your teeth and the teeth of your kids are starting a 3-month long losing battle against your taste buds and all of the candies, treats, rich foods, and festively flavored drinks. It all starts with Halloween.
The 4 Scariest Tricks the Holidays Play on Your Teeth
- Chocolates: Sweet, rich chocolates that melt in your mouth leave their sugary residues all over your mouth, seeping easily into the crevices between your teeth and gums. With each bite, the residue thickens, creating plaque that will harden and become increasingly resistant to brushing. Plaque causes:
- Bad breath (Halitosis)
- Gum disease (Gingivitis)
- Cavities (pits eroded into teeth)
- Tooth decay (infection in the pulp of a tooth)
- Abscesses (infection inside of a tooth or jaw-bone)
- Flavored Drinks: Everything from homemade rootbeer to pumpkin flavored coffee can take a toll on your smile. Even more than creamy candies, sugary and alcoholic drinks fill your mouth and touch every part of every tooth. The drinks you enjoy not only add to the sugary film on your teeth, but they also can embed their color in the enamel of your teeth and change the pH-balance of your mouth.
- Chewey Candies: Gum, taffy, caramel and other chewy candies not only cause plaque, but they also attack your teeth in real-time and can cause immediate damage. Sticking and clinging to your teeth, these candies not only deposit their sugary-slime on and around your teeth, but they also pull on your teeth. They have been known to pull off:
- Fillings
- Loose teeth
- Braces brackets
- Veneers
- Crowns
- Hard Candies: Hard candies can do everything that chocolates can do, but like chewy candies, there is more. The human mouth has the strength to break its own teeth, given enough misplaced determination, and that’s the kind of thing people do with hard candies. If you have naturally weak teeth, or teeth weakened by cavities, you are at a higher risk of cracking or breaking a tooth on hard candy. Hard candies should be sucked not bitten when they aren’t avoided outright.
4 Ways to protect your teeth through Halloween and beyond
In order to protect your teeth this Fall and Winter, you can consider some recovery measures every time you indulge:
- Drink Water: Give yourself enough time after eating to rinse your mouth by drinking water. Water will rinse away loose food, residue, and will neutralize the pH-balance in your mouth.
- A pocket toothbrush & toothpaste: As your gumline is where the most plaque will be accumulating, make sure you brush at a 45-degree angle, toward the junction between your teeth and gums.
- A pocket-sized floss or floss stick: Brushing alone won’t clean between your teeth. Make sure you get in between the teeth and gums around every tooth, to make sure that you don’t have any plaque stuck on your teeth or anything stuck between your teeth.
- Breath freshener: Don’t freshen your breath with mints…they’re just a different type of candy, more sugar than mint. To ensure that you have fresh breath and protection against plaque, you can get a pocket mouthwash spray or mouthwash breath strips.
As the holiday season progresses, the danger to your teeth increases. We can help. Come in before the holiday season hits to make sure that your teeth are in the best shape possible!