Do you want pearly brights like Pauly D?
Mouth health is important, but how important? Chicago based dentist, Dr. Sam Ciccarelli, gave Emme the scoop on the best whitening product, foods that cause discoloration, and what your teeth reveal about your overall health.
What are the best products to use when whitening your teeth?
Well there’s about 22 products on the market for teeth whitening. We usually recommend Crest Whitestrips. They tend to do a good job.
Once I used a gel whitener, and it hurt my teeth.
A lot of the time the gel is too strong. We don’t want to do too much whitening, then you can have sensitivity that doesn’t go away.
What foods/drinks stain your teeth the most?
Coffee, tea, red wine, all the stuff that we like! They tend to stain your teeth the most. With kids, even apple juice can stain your teeth. But you can’t stay away from it. Just get your teeth clean, and brush and you should be fine.
Are diet drinks harmful to your teeth?
The carbon dioxide made for the bubbles makes acid which can be harmful to your teeth. The drinks that are really bad are things that contain citric acid. We’ve found that clearer drinks (Mountain Dew, 7up, Gatorade) have a lot more citric acid than colas. It’s the acid that causes the breakdown that causes decay. The sugar breaks it down to make acid. But, if you already have acid, that’s not good.
So basically, avoid pop?
You can have it, but not a lot of it. It’s when you drink it constantly.
What do teeth reveal about your overall health?
Your gum health reveals a lot. It’s a mirror of what your body is going through. We can tell if people have diabetes and other diseases by the way their mouth looks. If people have cardio vascular disease, and poor oral hygiene, it can cause more bacteria to go into your system and that can make that condition worst. Inflammation is the worst. If you gums bleed, there’s a problem. If you brush your teeth and your gums bleed, that can get into your blood stream which can cause strokes and heart attacks. If we keep the inflammation down in our mouths, we can keep it down in the rest of our bodies.
Dr. Ciccarelli’s website:
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