Why a healthier mouth can mean a healthier you during virus lockdown
Staying on top of oral health during lockdown is as important as ever, explains dentist Dr Gurpreet Sachdeva.
Here he shares five ways to stop the rot during the COVID-19 crisis.
He says that we’ve all cautiously been forced to adopt a new normal. Understandably during this pandemic, there is already a lot of worry surrounding our health and wellbeing.
Hopefully Good Oral Health habits haven’t been compromised. Most people usually breeze through their brushing on autopilot, but now it is more important than ever to be more attentive to your oral health, especially since dental practices have been instructed to close for the unforeseeable future – except for the emergency hubs seeing emergency patients in pain only.
Your toothbrush can pick up a whole host of germs, saliva and blood. You should never share your toothbrush. Change your toothbrush every two to three months and always replace your toothbrush (or toothbrush head, if you own an electronic one) when you’ve been unwell.
Your tongue is the largest muscle in your mouth, made up of many crypts, cracks and irregular surfaces – making it an ideal site for bacteria/bugs to grow. It may be worth investing in a tongue scraper to add to your collection of brushes, rinses and pastes to keep your mouth clean.
To avoid any unpleasant surprises during this time, avoid sticky and chewy things like toffees, which can aggravate sensitivity of teeth, and also risk the lifting off of compromised crowns and fillings.
With the current climate, there is a lot of uncertainty at the moment, which can exacerbate stress. Stress can lead to an increase in the frequency and/or force of clenching teeth, resulting in muscle pain and breaking heavily filled teeth.
With face to face dental appointments suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic, it would be sensible to have painkillers at home in case you do develop dental pain.
Paracetamol, Co-codamol and Ibuprofen (if not displaying covid-19 symptoms) are all effective painkillers to alleviate common dental problems. It would be advised to purchase a temporary filling dental kit.