6 Ways To Look After Your Teeth & Gums During Lockdown

With the country still in lockdown and most dental practices closed, it’s becoming more important than ever to take good care of your teeth and gums. 

We appreciate that most of you have had dental appointments canceled or postponed during this time and are worried about your oral health. But while we are waiting for the country to resume normal services, here are some great tips to keep your teeth and gums clean, healthy and pain-free. 

Brush twice a day and use floss/interdental brushes

We know, brushing and flossing your teeth daily seems pretty obvious, but it’s essential that you stay on top of your oral routine in order to consistently remove plaque build-up and prevent the development of gum disease. It can take as little as 24 hours for plaque to turn into hard calcified tartar or calculus that begins to cement onto the gum line if left untreated. So it’s best to remove plaque in the beginning stages when it’s soft and fragile.

 Your toothbrush will not reach in between the teeth, so using floss, or small interdental picks or brushes will ensure all surfaces are suitably cleaned.

Faraj Edher, DDS, a prosthodontist in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada says:

“If you haven’t already, make the switch to an electric toothbrush — and brush your teeth for 2 minutes…this has shown to offer the highest levels of oral hygiene, which is crucial at a time when you aren’t seeing your dentist or hygienist for cleanings and checkups.”

Keep your immunity strong with immune-boosting foods

Keeping your immunity in tip-top shape is one of the most important things you can do when it comes to keeping disease and infection at bay. And the best way we can keep our immune system strong is by eating a healthy, balanced diet.

A healthy diet is essential to maintaining good oral health. Numerous studies show a direct correlation between what we put into our bodies and what shows on the outside. Most of the time when disease begins to develop in our body or health issues arise, it can be traced to a nutritional deficiency and poor diet that causes the immune system to become less effective.

We need our immune cells to be strong enough to fight off invading bacteria and keep our teeth and gums healthy. Check out our article, ‘8 Excellent Immune Boosting Foods’, and stock up on as many of these foods as you can next time you go to the grocery store.

For an extra immunity booster, why don’t you add some immune-boosting supplements to your daily routine? Check out our article, ‘Top 5 Immune Boosting supplements’. Remember, supplements work best alongside a healthy, well-balanced diet and should not be relied upon solely to provide what your body needs. Out of all the recommended supplements, our favorite is vitamin C. This essential vitamin is not only one of the best immunity boosters for your overall health, but it also nourishes the soft tissues that are the most vulnerable in the body – hence why it’s a true hero when it comes to healing your gums!

Relax

Things may seem a little tense right now for most people. The fact that we don’t know how long the pandemic will last is causing a lot of anxiety and agitation around the globe. But stress is one of the biggest factors of health deterioration. 

“Your constant state of agitation and anxiety hinders the immune system’s ability to ward off gum disease. Stress causes inflammation in the blood vessels, which breaks down the soft tissue in the mouth, inhibiting its ability to heal’” – Romak, The Denture Centre

Stress increases inflammation in our bodies, therefore, making our gums more susceptible to swelling, bleeding, and disease. When the body goes into stress, our immune system pretty much shuts down. This makes it harder for our bodies to fight off infections and heal effectively. 

Take a look at our article, ‘Relax. Stress could be causing your gum disease’, for more information about this. Our article, ‘3 breathing exercises for stress, tension, and anxiety’, also offers some fantastic relaxation techniques to help you de-stress. 

Get Adequate Sleep

As we explain in our article, ‘Why your body loves sleep‘, sleep is absolutely essential for healthy immune function, stabilizing blood sugar levels and body repair.

While we sleep our body works to repair itself:

• Stem cells regenerate to form blood cells in the body, which help keep bone tissue strong.
• Hunger hormones leptin and ghrelin are rebalanced, which help you keep your eating habits under control. 
• Most importantly, while you sleep, your immune system produces infection-fighting proteins called cytokines that protect your body from dangerous intruders in the form of viruses and bacteria.

Sleep is, therefore, essential for helping gum tissue repair as well as helping heal and repair every other part of your body. And the bonus to a good night’s sleep is that you look and feel absolutely fabulous!

The recommended amount of sleep for an adult is between 7-9 hours per night.

Cut down on sugary snacks

We get it. You’ve been confined to your house with the only fun weekly outing being a trip to the supermarket – of course binge eating sugary treats seems like a good idea!

But while that cookie jar is extra tempting at the moment, it’s even more important that you cut back on your sugar consumption. As many of you know, sugar is the number one cause of our country’s dental health problem. Sugar is literally a magnet for ‘bad bacteria’ in the mouth, making dental plaque so acidic that it attacks tooth enamel. If you’d like some help cutting back on sugar, then check out our article, ‘5 easy ways to cut down on sugar’.

But hey, you don’t have to deprive yourself completely of all your favorite sugary delights. It’s all about moderation. And consider looking at some healthy swaps (we will be writing a blog about healthy sweet treats soon). Something like honey and yogurt can really help to satisfy your sweet tooth without running the risk of tooth decay.  Take a look at our article, ‘How to eat sugar and not get cavities’, for some great tips on how to remove sugar more quickly from your mouth so it has less chance to feed the bacteria that cause decay.

Use Good-Gums all-natural tooth and gum powder after each meal

Our 100% natural tooth powder is packed full of all the essential nutrients needed for optimal teeth and gum health. Good-Gums soothes sore gums and strengthens tooth enamel, while also counteracting acidity in the mouth and neutralizing bacteria that cause plaque buildup.

Our unique formula is designed to absorb into your gums, putting back all the vital nutrients that are necessary to get your gums back in tip-top shape.

If you’re already a Good-Gums user then we recommend using it once or twice more a day, preferably 30 minutes after every meal. 

This will ensure your gums are receiving maximum nutrition so they’ll be stronger, tighter and less prone to infection.

Click here to try some of our herbal tooth and gum formula.

Would you like to know about some other natural remedies for teeth and gums?

Check out some of our articles below…