Summertime Tips for Caring For Your Smile!

At Grand Avenue Dental Care, we love summertime. It usually means fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables, spending more time outside and enjoying refreshing beverages with friends and family. While summer is an enjoyable season and much of what it offers is delicious, some of it can raise a concern for your teeth.

Because much of what we eat and drink can be a bit more on the acidic side of things, it’s important that we take care to balance what we eat and drink to best protect our smile. An acidic environment in our mouth can make our teeth more prone to cavities, so if we can try to keep our mouth’s environment less acidic, it will help in the prevention of decay.

With that in mind, here are our three summer tips on how to care for your teeth:

1. Drink water! Both between meals and between drinks, be sure to drink water to help neutralize acids in your mouth and rinse away debris. Don't forget - this is also good for your skin and will keep you hydrated! 
2. Eat some cheese! Cheese naturally has a more basic pH level. So when eating or drinking something more acidic, adding a little cheese can help your mouth neutralize more quickly.
3. Take care when brushing. If you are using a manual toothbrush, be sure it is a soft bristle brush and don’t push too hard. Also, if you are eating or drinking something acidic, wait about 30 minutes before brushing so that your mouth as time to return to a neutral environment. Otherwise you risk eroding the enamel of your teeth. If you are ready for a change, make the switch to an electric toothbrush. It will not only time you to make sure you are brushing for the full two minutes, but it will alert you if you are pushing too hard!

It’s not that we can’t have all the delicious food and drinks that summertime offers, we just need to make sure we are taking the necessary steps to protect our best summertime accessory - our smile!

Have You Scheduled Your Child's Summer Dental Visit?

Summer is here! And it’s almost official (June 21!). So, it’s time for staying up late, bonfires on weeknights and crazy camp schedules, right? Well, yes. Many of us at Grand Avenue Dental Care have young children and understand the busy-ness of summer all too well. That is why we recommend that you schedule your family's dental visits right away. 

For some of us, we have young ones who are just starting 4k or kindergarten this coming year. For these kiddos, there is usually a dental examination that is required by the school district before registration. For others, we know that our kids are overdue for their cleaning or they might need some dental treatment to address some areas of decay. In both of these situations, you should call your dentist now and get these appointments scheduled. 

We all know how the summer can fly. Before we know it, it will be August 15th and we will have mere weeks before the chaos of the school year starts back up. This is the kind of situation that we want our patients to avoid. By calling to schedule your appointments now, you will reserve your ideal time, check another to-do item off of your list and be able to enjoy the rest of your summer as lackadaisically as you can. No rush involved. Sounds nice, right?

As a way to celebrate all that is summer, we are offering a Summer Sealant Special!  A sealant is a bit of material that is painted on to the biting surface of the tooth to protect the grooves of the tooth from decay. They are a wonderful thing for both kids and adults, but can be particularly helpful in preventing cavities in younger children who are still perfecting their brushing habits! 

From now until September 1st, 2018, all sealants will be 1/2 off! That’s a savings of over $25.00!

Call us today and take advantage of our Summer Sealant Special and get one more step closer to knocking that to-do list out of the park!