So, why are only 1 in 8 of us doing so since lockdown?

A recent study has indicated that during and following the easing of lockdown, only one in eight of us have been brushing our teeth twice a day.

Perhaps equally worrying are the findings that nearly half of those asked admitted that they only brushed their teeth once a day at most and nearly 20% admitted to not brushing their teeth regularly on a daily basis at all!

Although we appreciate that lockdown disrupted our lives in many ways, it appears that some of this may have lingered on for longer afterwards, and probably into the future as well unless we change our habits.

As dental professionals, we find these results a little staggering. It is common knowledge that brushing your teeth is the single most important thing that you can do to protect your teeth on a daily basis. It appears though, that there are still some significant misunderstandings about how important this is. For the benefit of the Woking patients of Synergy Parkside, we attempt to address some of the likely issues below.

The ‘once a day is enough’ myth

It seems that some people believe that you only need to brush your teeth at night and that the mornings are much less important. The logic for this, we presume, is that this follows a day of eating, whereas, in the morning, you haven’t eaten anything since you went to bed so there is no need to brush. Whilst this might seem logical, it is a big mistake.

Although it may be true that you haven’t eaten whilst you slept, this is a time when potentially harmful bacteria can build up in the mouth, and in significant numbers, especially if you have a dry mouth. This can lead to both gum disease and tooth decay.  It is thought that over 3/4 of millennials have undetected tooth decay, and this could be one of the reasons why.

Not only will these bacteria accumulate overnight but, if you don’t brush your teeth in the morning they will stay with you for the rest of the day. This lengthy period means that a lot of damage can occur before you eventually brush your teeth at night.

Changing your habits

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Synergy Parkside dentist, Dr Dani Sharma, offers advice for those difficult teenage years

As parents, it can be hard to let go, but let go of our children we will inevitably do at some stage. As our children start to grow up and gain more and more independence, they will almost certainly make a number of decisions that we are not entirely happy about.  This is all a part of the process of growing up of course, but some of the decisions that they take may affect them for many years to come.

This is often particularly true when it comes to how they look after their teeth and gums. It may have been a long time since we were able to stand in the bathroom singing ‘row your boat’ whilst they cleaned their teeth under our supervision, but that doesn’t mean that we care any less about how they look after them.

Teenage years

As our children grow older, they naturally want less interference from their parents, especially in those day to day things like cleaning their teeth. As we know though, teenagers are not generally great at organising their life to do the more mundane things, instead always looking forward to going to see friends or playing the latest games on their X Box. In addition to perhaps neglecting to clean their teeth as well as they should, a teenager’s diet is likely to be high in sugars as they eat snacks that give them quick energy, or alternatively, tasty, but often unhealthy, ‘junk’ foods. A combination of these factors means that their teeth, which we had managed to help them keep healthy for so long, are now at risk.

Rotting teeth and sore and bleeding gums are a real possibility if care is not taken. Add in the possible addition of smoking, alcohol and even, regretfully, drugs, as they reach their later teenage years and there could be a lot of problems in store that could potentially leave them with poor quality teeth throughout their adult life.

How can you help?

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Welcoming patients back for treatment

It has probably felt like an eternity for some, and especially those of you who have suffered dental problems that did not qualify for urgent emergency care.

Troublesome teeth can seem all consuming and even a relatively short wait for treatment can seem like forever. For those who have had to wait almost three months, it has probably been a very difficult time indeed.

The good news is that we have now opened our practice again following the lockdown. This means that you can finally start to receive treatment again and we look forward to seeing you all as we try to catch up on lost time. There will, of course, be some changes with how we operate and we will cover some of these factors in today’s blog.

Appointments

Our reception team is now awaiting your phone calls for appointments but please do bear in mind that we may not be able to see you as quickly as we did before the pandemic. There are a lot of operational changes being made which are likely to reduce the number of patients that we are able to see each day. Our Woking dental practice team will obviously do all that they can, but the safety of our staff and patients must come first.

We will also be doing our best to see those of you who are in more urgent need of dental care. We certainly don’t want you to suffer unnecessarily and will do what we can to treat you as a priority. To the rest of you, please bear with us whilst we work our way through the most urgent cases. We are sure that you would want us to do this if it was yourself that was suffering.

PPE

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Synergy Parkside Dental looks at the possible oral health consequences of ‘lockdown stress’.

Although there is no formal news about dental practices opening yet and it may still be a little while away, things do seem to be slowly improving in the Covid-19 crisis and some shops are now gradually planning to re-open (with appropriate distancing and other precautions) in the near future.

We are also hopeful that the government will look at the options for opening dental practices soon as there will be an increasing number of people who are suffering with fairly uncomfortable oral problems.

Whilst treatment is available in special dental units for the most serious cases, even a moderate toothache can be very distressing even with the use of painkillers. There will be other problems too that people will be having to deal with without professional dental support.

All of this will add to the general stress of the restrictions that have been placed on us. In today’s blog, we take a look at some of the ways that this stress may have affected your teeth and gums.

Reduced home dental care

Even if unintentionally, it is quite possible that some of us will not have brushed our teeth as often or as well as we used to do. This is likely to apply more in the morning as we are out of a routine. Even a small reduction in this could have an effect on our teeth and gums, leading to possible tooth decay and gum disease. If you suspect that you may have been ‘guilty’ of this, remember that it is not too late to start to improve this now with regular brushing and flossing.

Increased snacking

There have been reports that, perhaps unsurprisingly, there has been an increase in snacking during lockdown. Whether this is through boredom or stress doesn’t really matter in terms of the result. Any snacking over a period of time is not good for the oral health of our Woking patients. Even relatively healthy foods, if consumed in this way, can be harmful as there is insufficient time in between snacking for our saliva to clear the mouth of food particles and excess bacteria. In addition to this, many ‘snack’ foods tend to be high in sugar, a well known problem for our teeth.

If you do snack; in addition to brushing and flossing, try to drink water after your snack, swilling it around your mouth before swallowing. This will help to remove some of the offending food particles.

Bruxism

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