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Planning and Preparing for Dental Procedures: Your Questions Answered


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Planning and Preparing for Dental Procedures: Your Questions Answered

Making decisions about your smile can be confusing. Should you have a tooth pulled or get a root canal? Should you get adult braces or stick with a retainer? Should you use at-home whitening remedies or have your teeth professionally whitened? If questions like these are keeping you up at night, you've come to the right place. I used to stress out over routine dental procedures, and as a result, I did loads of research on everything dental-related. To help others, I'm using this blog as a place to collect, review and share what I've learned through the years. I hope you can use the information here to help you plan and prepare for your next dental appointment.

Rinse and Pull - Tips for Whiter Teeth

Heading to the dentist for a teeth whitening is something many people do in order to take a step closer to having that perfect white smile. However, with the popularity of tea, coffee, red wine and other dark and colourful beverages it can be hard not to stain your teeth without reverting to just drinking water. Here are a couple of simple rinsing tips to help you to enjoy the things you love whilst keeping your teeth whiter and cleaner.

Rinse and Spit with H20

The first tip may seem obvious but is often overlooked, especially when people are enjoying their beverage of choice and having a good chat with friends. Simply rinse your mouth out with water and spit it out as soon after drinking as you can. This will help to remove excess beverage and reduce the chance of it staining your teeth, particularly in cracks and crevices where it can settle and darken the enamel. Water is a good choice because it is more PH balanced than many other drinks and is kinder to your teeth. 

Coconut Oil 

Coconut oil has been praised for many years as being a superfood; one which has anti-fungal, anti-microbal and anti-bacterial properties, as well as being a source of healthy saturated fat and an excellent skin care product. However, in more recent years the practice of coconut pulling has become really popular in western society. It's an ancient Indian practice which requires you to use coconut oil as a prolonged mouthwash. The idea is to swill the coconut oil around your mouth, covering the teeth and gums, and pulling it through the teeth for up to 20 minutes before spitting out and rinsing with warm water to remove any residue. The concept is designed to remove bacteria which can cause plaque and gum disease, but more importantly than that it encourages people to take a serious look at their own oral hygiene. Whilst it wasn't designed to whiten teeth, many report improvements in colour of the enamel, in part because of the removal of stain causing bacteria.

Rinsing is a great way to clean your teeth, especially after eating acidic food which can soften the enamel. Rinsing will help to remove food particles and debris without damaging the outer enamel layer, this in turn will reduce the amount of microscopic pits and holes covering the tooth which can harbour more and more food and drink particles over time. This can give teeth their yellowing appearance which can be difficult to get rid of without harsh chemicals.