Home-Cleaning Solutions for your Retainer

If you have spent hundreds of days and dollars correcting your smile with braces, you had better be wearing your retainer! After prolonged use, your retainer may begin to show some signs of build-up that looks very similar to the tartar that collects on unbrushed teeth. Worse still, this build-up may begin to smell vaguely like rotting fruit, indicating some serious bacterial action. The good news is that you do not need to choose between proper hygiene and retainer use. For best results, review the following tips on how to give your retainer a proper home cleaning. 

What you will need:

• A toothbrush. Choose a spare manual brush for this task. A denture brush is also suitable.
• White vinegar. You can buy this food-grade distilled vinegar in any local market. Be sure that the variety you choose is rated at a mild acidity of roughly 5%.
• Small bowl and warm water. It is important not to use boiling water, though you may be tempted in thinking it will have a greater cleaning and sterilization effect. Boiling water can damage your retainer.
  

How to proceed:

First, you combine equal parts warm water and white vinegar in a bowl. Soak your retainer in this solution for 20 minutes. This soaking stage allows the barnacled tartar to weaken and loosen.

Next, you should brush your retainer with the toothbrush. Use small, circular strokes with slightly more force than you would apply while brushing. This should remove the majority of the calcified tartar.

Mix another solution of white vinegar and warm water, and repeat the soaking process you undertook in the first step. You have the option of extending the time frame of the soak past 20 minutes, even leaving it in the solution overnight if you desire.

Many patients wrongly believe that soaking their retainer in an Efferdent cleaner will suffice, but a manual debridement is required. In fact, some dentists caution against Efferdent cleaners, which can dry out both the mouth and retainer because they contain alcohol and Sodium Lauryl Sulfate.

Easing Your Child into Their First Dental Check-Up

Getting your child to cooperate with any new experience can be a tricky task, so a trip to a dentist's office filled with whirring electrical tools, needles, and strangers is often problematic for parents. The good news is that you are not alone. All parents struggle to get their kids to the dental office peacefully. You can be sure that your child's outburst is not the first tempter-tantrum that your dentist has seen. 

Many parents wonder about the best way to prepare their child for their first trip to the dentist, and sometimes turn to sugary bribes or outright lies to get them in the chair without any fuss. Read on for some healthy and helpful hints about the best ways to prepare your child for their first dental check-up.

Start early!

It is extremely important to get your child into the dentist's office as early as possible. Most professionals recommend doing so no later than age 1, or at the emergence of your child's first tooth.

By getting your child into the office early in life, you are building a positive association as the foundation of their understanding of the dentist's. This means that your child will be more comfortable as procedures intensifying, and that their peers' horror stories and phobias will have no effect.

Keep your talks simple and honest.

It is important to discuss what to expect prior to your child's first visit, and to set their expectations in a healthy and positive way. Going into gruesome detail about cavity procedures is obviously a mistake, but lying about the experience can be even more damaging. Lying to your child causes a loss of trust in you and in their dentist, allowing future anxieties to multiply with little hope of reassurance. Stay positive with your child, and make uplifting vocabulary choices, framing the visit to the dentist as a way to get "strong, healthy, and good-looking teeth."

Introduce the dentist through play.

Preparing your child for their trip to the dentists can be as fun as you want to make it. A variety of picture books are available involving some of your child's favourite TV characters, and these are all excellent options for introducing dentistry in a fun way. Playing dentist with your child is also a great way to build a positive association with their upcoming check-up. This can involve role-playing, holding a mirror up to check their smile, and reviewing brushing technique.

You can read more about kid's dentistry here. 

Oral Hygiene Tips to Beat Bad Breath

Known formally as halitosis, bad breath plagues a good portion of the population, as demonstrated by the commercial success of the chewing gum and breath-mint industries. Blamed for everything from bad interviews to sour dates, unpleasant breath can be a real turn-off, but more importantly, it is often an embarrassing indication that something is wrong. The causes of bad breath are extensive, and range from sub-par dental hygiene and gum disease to more serious systemic infections in the lungs or gastrointestinal tract. The following hygiene tips will solve bad breath problems for most people, but a medical professional should be consulted in the case that they persist. 

Clean your mouth thoroughly!

Bacteria and rotting food particles are two of the most common causes of bad breath, both of which can be taken care of with a strong cleaning routine consisting of brushing, flossing, and rinsing with mouthwash.

It is important to recognize that there is a difference between cleaning your teeth and cleaning your mouth. While the teeth are important, they constitute only a small portion of your mouth as a whole. Your tongue is a biological shag-carpet that picks up all sorts of bacteria and food residue. Using a manual toothbrush, the edge of a spoon, or a specialized tongue-cleaner device, you should scrape your tongue to remove bacteria as part of your brushing regimen. You should also include the sides of your cheeks in your routine.

Leave your morning breath in bed.

Morning breath is caused by having a dry mouth, as saliva production is naturally slowed while we sleep. Bacteria loves dry mouths that do not threaten to wash it away. Increasing your saliva production physically washes away bacteria, and also taps into saliva's natural antiseptic properties. Mouth-cleaning gums are often little more than saliva-production stimulators. You can lessen the severity of bad breath simply by chewing sugar-free gum between meals, and by drinking as much water as possible throughout the day to keep your mouth moisturized. 

Gum Disease Prevention Primer

Gum disease is extremely common, with roughly 70% of Canadians experiencing it to some degree at some point in their lives. Many of these cases go undiagnosed until they have progressed to the point where a periodontal specialist must be called in. This occurs because mild forms of gum disease are often painless, with early symptoms difficult to spot by the untrained or uninformed eye. For this reason, prevention is extremely important, and awareness is the first step in the fight. 

How does gum disease begin?

As with many dental afflictions, gum disease is the result of improper oral hygiene. When plaque forms below the visible gumline and is given the chance to harden into tartar due to negligent brushing habits, bacterial infection can occur. In its early stages, this bacteria infection is known as gingivitis. Reddened gums may be visible at this stage to indicate the onset of infection, but many untrained eyes struggle to identify this redness in the pink-hued gums.

How does gum disease progress?

If left untreated, and further worsened by poor cleaning habits, tiny pockets of infection begin to form, causing the gums to become puffy. The gums will become more prone to bleeding during brushing and flossing, but will still be relatively pain-free. The lack of pain is perhaps the most sinister component of gum disease, as it allows the infection to creep along unnoticed until it is too late. By the time you are feeling pain, the infection will have begun to destroy the gum tissues, which can result in loss of teeth.

How do I fight gum disease?

The first step in preventing gum disease is the basic upkeep of healthy oral care habits. Flossing and brushing as advised by your dentist go a long way towards fending off this creeping gumline affliction. Booking and having your child attend regular appointments with your dental professional is also crucial for early identification. If your child is already in the early stages of gum disease, the best treatment is a professional cleaning to remove built-up calculus that cannot be accessed with brushing and flossing alone.