It’s common knowledge that brushing, flossing, and coming in for regular dental cleanings are all excellent ways to support your oral health. That said, there are even more ways you can easily improve your oral health, and drinking water can be one of them.
Water With Fluoride Can Strengthen Your Teeth
Fluoride is often considered one of the easiest ways a person can strengthen their teeth and help prevent and fight tooth decay. If your water contains fluoride, you can passively protect your oral health just by drinking water.
Water Helps Clean Your Mouth
A good way of maintaining or improving your oral health is to ensure your mouth is clean after eating a meal. When you wash down your meal with sugary beverages, they will often leave a coating of sugar behind.
The bacteria in our mouths that cause cavities thrive off of sugar. As they eat the sugar, the bacteria produce an acid that wears away at your enamel. Tooth enamel is that hard outer shell that helps protect your teeth from decay. Even drinks with added acids like malic acid, phosphoric acid, or citrus are known to erode enamel.
In contrast, water helps to clean your mouth every time you drink it. It helps wash away leftover food particles and doesn’t leave sugar behind for bacteria to feast on.
Water is also able to dilute the acids bacteria make in your mouth. This can be helpful at any time, but it can be especially helpful to drink water as a way to clean your teeth between brushings.
Water Keeps Your Mouth From Drying Out
A dry mouth can negatively affect your oral health. Your body’s first defense against tooth decay is your saliva. It serves various purposes such as helping to dislodge and wash away leftover food, so bacteria have less to consume.
When you’re not properly hydrated, you may find your mouth feeling dry as your saliva supply runs low. A lack of saliva can put your teeth at risk for tooth decay. If you chronically suffer from a dry mouth, drinking water can help you protect your teeth as you look for a long-term solution.
Water Can Fight Bad Breath
No one wants bad breath, but did you know it can negatively affect your oral health? Bad breath is often caused by bacteria. Since dry mouths are more likely to have an excess of bacteria, drinking plenty of water can help reduce bad breath.
A cup of water in the morning as well as drinking water throughout the day will keep your mouth moist, keep bacteria down, and help you maintain your oral health.
What Else Can I Do To Improve My Oral Health?
Get Dental Cleanings and Exams
Drinking water is great and important, but it doesn’t replace coming in for your routine cleanings. Routine cleanings can get rid of plaque before it turns to tartar, but we can also safely remove tartar, which is something patients aren’t able to safely do on their own.
Coming in regularly will also help us catch issues early, which can save you a lot of time and trouble down the road.
Get Fluoride Treatment and Varnishes
Fluoride treatment can be a helpful preventative for many patients. This naturally-occurring mineral is even able to help reverse a cavity if it’s caught early enough.
Our office provides fluoride varnish treatment, which helps coat and protect your teeth for a longer period of time. This non-invasive treatment can be done in less than 10 minutes and is easy to add to your regular dental hygiene appointment.
Before we carry out this treatment, we can assess your teeth to determine your cavity risk. We usually recommend that patients with a low cavity risk receive this treatment once a year, while patients with a higher risk level may benefit from more frequent treatments.
Be Mindful of Your Diet
When you come in to visit us, we can give you nutritional counseling and recommendations on food that’s beneficial to your oral health. We can also offer advice on ways you can protect your oral health without completely giving up your favorite treats.
For instance, if you enjoy soda, we would recommend you drink it along with a meal rather than sipping at it throughout the day. That can make the soda less harmful to your teeth.
How Can I Help My Kid Drink More Water?
If you’re reading this on behalf of your child, you may be wondering how to encourage your kids to drink enough water. Sometimes water can seem boring, but some tips can help parents make drinking water more exciting for their kids:
Use a Special Cup
Young kids may find sweet drinks like juice more exciting than water. By having a special “water cup,” you can help make drinking water something they look forward to. Encourage them pick out a fun and exciting cup from the store or give them a cup with their favorite movie character on it.
You can tell them that this particular cup is only for drinking water. That way, if they’re excited to try it out, they may be more willing to drink water so they can use it.
Use a Goals Chart
Stickers tend to be a big hit with young kids. You can use a colorful chart and their favorite type of stickers to celebrate when they reach their water goals.
Sweetening the deal with weekly or monthly rewards, like a new book or a fun activity, could help make the process even more exciting. Many office supply stores or teaching shops carry charts you could use for this purpose.
Lead by Example
If your kid sees you drinking plenty of water, they may be more willing to do it too. Kids often enjoy mimicking others, so seeing that you drink plenty of water can help them realize that this isn’t just a “kids” rule; this is good for everyone. Maybe you and your kid could even pick out special water containers together.
Explain the Benefits
Sometimes it’s easy to forget how much kids can understand. It’s a good idea to explain to your kid why drinking water is important. Knowing the health benefits may not be enough of a motivator on its own, but older kids, in particular, may appreciate having a better understanding of why it’s important to protect their oral health and overall health.
Take It a Step Further
If your child is asking for more reasons why water is important, it can be helpful to explain that since our bodies are made of 60% water, it makes sense that staying hydrated can benefit our health in many ways. It can help keep your muscles working properly, support good skin health, and get rid of waste.
There are many good reasons to keep hydrated, both dental and otherwise, but sometimes our teeth do need a little extra help.
Are You Searching For A Martinsburg Area Dentist For You Or Your Family?
If you’re searching for an experienced dentist please feel free to contact us online or call our Martinsburg, West Virginia dental office directly at 304.267.6059 to schedule your appointment. We provide a wide range of general dentistry care as well as more involved dentistry services for patients throughout the Martinsburg area and look forward to you joining the Cornerstone Dental family.
