Having healthy teeth isn’t a gift, it isn’t a lucky thing either, it is a by-product of having a healthy attitude to oral care. That attitude is best taught when someone is a child; eating habits and dental hygiene are an important part of our education. We teach our children the rights and wrongs of life, so if we exclude dental care we aren’t doing our jobs properly as parents. There’s an old saying that goes “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for life”, what great wisdom there is in that saying. If we take the literacy of that and apply it to dental and oral care, we will be doing our children a great service. Not only will they have their teeth longer, but we won’t have to sit outside the dentist room so often, while they get treatment that could be avoided with a little common sense. Eating the right food isn’t only good for our diet, but it is also good for our teeth. When we eat food we chew it first, and in this process we produce saliva that helps us swallow and break down the food into energy. However, this process also produces bad bacteria that damage our teeth, often beyond repair. Teeth aren’t only just for childhood; they can be for life if we use a little common sense, and an early learnt routine of oral care. Oral care isn’t just about brushing, flossing and mouth washes, it is also about healthy eating and keeping bad bacteria to a minimum. Fish, fresh fruit and vegetables as well as sugarless drinks will help us to keep tooth decay to a minimum, as well as those expensive dental bills as adults.

Halitosis, or bad breath, is an embarrassing problem. The majority of people with bad breath aren’t even aware of it. Visit your London Dental Clinic if you think you have, or know that you have, bad breath. Your London dentist will help to find the cause and the cure of your bad breath problems. Certain foods can cause bad breath; including onions and garlic. Even after you feel the food smells have gone away, they may not have, as these food smells linger on until they are completely metabolised and expelled through the lungs. Mouthwashes and brushing your teeth are only temporary fixes when you have halitosis.
Good oral hygiene; brushing and flossing twice daily for 2 minutes at a time, and brushing your tongue is very helpful in preventing bad breath. Food debris usually remains in your mouth after you eat. Proper oral hygiene removes this debris as well as the bacteria and plaque that form on your teeth and gums. This build-up of bacteria, plaque, and food debris, is the beginning of your problem. Dryness of your mouth is another cause of halitosis, as foods and bacteria cannot be washing away if your salivary flow is really slow. If this problem exists, you should have some sugarless gum or sugarless candy to use to combat this problem. Smoking and drinking alcoholic beverages can also increase the risk of bad breath, as well as certain medical problems. Your London dentist may refer you to a physician if it a felt that this is the problem. So visit your London Dental Clinic for your bad breath problems, as well as other dental needs.

I love mouthwashes! Doesn’t it give your mouth a really pleasant zing after you rinse out? Most London dentists don’t really recommend any particular mouth wash brand but they don’t really advice you against it either. Let’s take a closer look at what is present in most mouthwashes.• Almost all mouth washes contain a large amount alcohol and its really drying on the oral mucus membrane. The only way you can reduce the odor in your mouth is to kill the sulfur -producing organisms in your mouth. But most mouthwashes just dry out your mouth further exacerbating the problem.
• Almost every mouth wash contains a foaming ingredient which is universally used and is supposed to cause canker sores; this ingredient is called as Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and is a prominent feature of almost every mouth wash.
• Saccharine is another really useless ingredient use to sweeten the product to make it more palatable.
• Some mouth washes also contain Sodium chlorate to oxygenate the mouth. But it does not work as well as it is supposed to inside the mouth so many countries have banned the use of it in their oral products.
• Benzalkonium Chloride is also commonly used as a preservative to preserve the ingredients in mouthwashes but recent research has proved that the ingredient has been though to cause allergic reactions.

Whew! That’s enough to put me off mouthwashes totally!