Say “Goodbye!” to those Altoids and Tic Tacs. The best way that you can prevent bad breath is by practicing proper oral hygiene, and keeping your biannual appointments with Cambridge’s Dental Restorative Group for a dental cleaning!
How Can a Dental Cleaning Prevent Bad Breath?
Believe it or not, there’s a lot of science behind bad breath. And we’re here to break it down for you.
You see, during Cambridge dental patients’ day to day lives, bacteria breeds in their mouths. This isn’t caused by doing something unhygienic, but just by simply eating and drinking beverages. Food debris stays on our teeth, turns into bacteria, and if not properly brushed and flossed away (and let’s face it, even the best dental patients can’t reach all the nooks and crannies in between their teeth), plaque forms. While you can brush plaque away, untreated plaque turns into tartar, which can only be scraped away by your dental hygienist using a scaler during a dental cleaning.
It’s important for Cambridge dental patients to get biannual teeth cleanings for a variety of oral health reasons, but when it gums to preventing bad breath, the main reason is to protect yourself from gum disease. You see, if plaque and tartar are left on your teeth for months and months on end without intervention by your dentist, you’ll begin to develop the early stages of gum disease, also known as periodontal disease. You may already have gum disease if you notice that:
- Your gums are red or inflamed
- Your gums are swollen or puffy
- Your gums bleed easily, especially when you brush or floss your teeth
Another one of the telltale signs of gum disease – bad breath! You see, as the bacteria in your mouth begins to infiltrate your gums, it causes that unpleasant, halitosis odor. You may try to pop as many breath mints as possible or rinse with mouthwash several times a day to treat it, but those at-home remedies just won’t suffice. What you really need is a professional dental cleaning by one of our Cambridge dentists, and perhaps advanced periodontal care depending on what stage of periodontal disease you have.
Preventing Bad Breath in Between Dental Cleanings
While biannual teeth cleanings by our Cambridge dentists treat the plaque and tartar build up that lead to bad breath, there are things you can do at home to prevent plaque and tartar from ever accumulating at all. These include:
- Brushing your teeth every morning and every night
- Flossing your teeth at least once a day
- Using an antibacterial mouthwash at least once a day
It’s Okay to Schedule an Appointment If You Haven’t Seen The Dentist in a While
At Dental Restorative Group, we know that a variety of factors can cause a patient to skip teeth cleanings, including dental anxiety or just the hustle and bustle of daily life, whether you work, go to school, or stay home with the kids. We get it. But just because it may have been a while since your last teeth cleaning, doesn’t mean you can’t come in now. We want to help you get back on track to practicing proper oral hygiene, and they’ll be no lectures from our dentists.
When you choose Dental Restorative Group to care for you, you can trust that we’ll always put your overall and oral health first, we’ll treat you with kindness and compassion, and we’ll do everything we can to make you as comfortable as possible during your dental appointment.
To schedule your next teeth cleaning, call our offices today at (617) 489-1470.
