Healthy Teeth During The Holidays

Halloween has passed, and it’s almost Thanksgiving, which means holiday feasting is right around the corner. December holidays feature a lot of sweets, from eggnog to Santa’s cookies to jelly donuts. December is dreadful for your dental health. Take our advice and learn how to maintain healthy teeth during the holidays.

Healthy Teeth During The Holidays

The American Dental Association offers advice on having healthy teeth during the holidays. The ADA’s recommendations include:

• If you eat sweets, eat them after meals
• Avoid sticky or starchy sweets that stick to your teeth
• Don’t drink too much alcohol, which dries out your mouth
• Eschew hard candy that damages your teeth
• Don’t open gifts with your teeth

Another good tip is to keep up your regular dental routine. With so many tooth-rotting sweet foods and drinks available, brushing and flossing become crucial. Visiting the dentist also helps in having healthy teeth during the holidays. Signature Smiles provides many dental cleaning services with a smile on our faces — and yours.

Why Sweets Aren’t Sweet For Your Teeth

People generally understand that sweets prevent healthy teeth during the holidays. What people don’t know is the chemical basis for this widely-known fact. Sugars allow plaque and bacteria to build upon and around your teeth, slowly rotting them. Starchy food that you eat sticks in your teeth, causing plaque. Many starchy holiday foods also contain sugar, compounding the problem. Acidic drinks like soda or sweet drinks like eggnog linger in your mouth. Lingering drinks give bacteria more time to damage your teeth.

Ways To Ensure Healthy Teeth During The Holidays

The government fluoridates the water supply for a reason. Fluoridated water, at the dentist or from the tap, helps prevent tooth decay and wash away sugars. If you buy bottled water, buy fluoridated water. Conversely, avoid sugary drinks, from cocoa to eggnog.

Another way to ensure healthy teeth during the holidays is to chew sugarless gum after meals. Gum improves saliva flow, and saliva helps prevent cavities by washing away food particles.

Give Yourself The Gift Of Healthy Teeth During The Holidays

When you give a gift, you want the person receiving it to use it, right? No gift is more useful than health, for your teeth or otherwise. Give yourself or a loved one the gift of healthy teeth during the holidays.

You may ask, for example, “how much does dental cleaning cost”? Professional dental cleaning generally ranges in cost between $75 and $200.

The best way to keep costs down is to enroll in a dental insurance plan. Many insurance policies cover twice-annual cleanings at 75 to 100%. Insurance coverage keeps final costs from under $20 to $50. Some plans offer full coverage, meaning you don’t pay anything for a dental cleaning. You can also explore other options to bring costs down. These can include a dental discount plan. To learn more about which plans your dentist accepts, review new patient information.

Signature Smiles’ Services

Signature Smiles wants to help you have healthy teeth during the holidays. Come on in for a dental cleaning and ring in the season with clean teeth. If you know the holiday temptation is too powerful, visit us during and after the season. Only your dentist knows specifically what service you may need. 

Along with general dentistry, other dental services Signature Smiles’ services include:

• Oral surgery
• Fillings
• Dental implants
• Dental Crowns
• Lumineers (a special type of porcelain veneer)

Contact Signature Smiles Dentistry online or call now to schedule your visit. Having healthy teeth during the holidays makes the season and your smile bright!