We are living in strange and unprecedented times right now as I write this blog. I genuinely hope you’re all keeping well both physically and mentally. Spending a lot of time indoors and separated from loved ones is horribly horribly tough, so thankyou so very much for staying home.

Now, more than ever good oral hygiene is paramount because right now we aren’t seeing you guys for regular hygiene visits or check ups so the ball is very much in your court. In this blog we’ll discuss what should be in your oral hygiene routine at home, how you can manage some less serious conditions at home, and what to do when things get a little more serious, so without further ado we’ll get right too it.

The Gold Standard Oral Hygiene Routine

Less plaque, less problems.

Use something to clean in between your teeth, at least once a day, if not twice a day.
This will help remove plaque bacteria from areas that your toothbrush just won’t get to. Use whatever you have to hand, interdental brushes are gold standard, floss is great for front teeth but whatever you have is great. Remember you can rinse and reuse an interdental brush more than once, up to about a week usually, just rinse under cold water and replace the hygienic cap when you’re finished.
Clean your tongue.
Cleaning your tongue once a day with a tongue scraper to help keep your mouth as bacteria free as possible.
Use a fluoride toothpaste.
Fluoride helps prevent cavities and is also a desensitiser, so using a fluoride tooth paste twice daily is a must if you’re happy to. You can check out my favourite toothpastes on my blog post here.
Brushing your teeth for 2 minutes, ideally timed, twice a day.
Routine is good in times like this and your oral hygiene routine should still be a staple, especially if you are working different hours, longer hours, or working from home. Brushing your teeth before breakfast will help you feel ready to start the day. Brushing before you go to sleep is the most important time to brush, especially if over this period of social distancing you’ve mad a bit of a sweeter tooth or snacking more than usual. Make sure you’re not brushing too hard, but make sure you’re angling your toothbrush properly at about 45 degrees towards the gum line.
Don’t rinse directly afterwards.
Not rinsing will keep fluoride and other desensitising agents around your teeth for as long as possible, if you absolutely have to rinse it should be with a fluoride mouthwash and definitely not with water from the tap.

Remember you should be changing your toothbrush or electric toothbrush head every 3 months. I know a lot of you guys use your dental hygiene appointment as a little bookmark for changing your toothbrush so have a think back to the last time you changed the head, count forward the three months and put a reminder in your callender or on your phone to make sure those bristles are always cleaning where they should be cleaning.

A great way to check how your brushing is going is to use disclosing tablets which you can get pretty easily and reasonably online - remember they’re not just for kids or if you’re at home with kids even better! They will LOVE it!

Managing Some Dental Problems at Home

Some dental problems will 100% mean that you will need to see the dentist, but there are some situations which you might be able to manage at home.

A Sensitive Tooth

Tooth sensitivity is usually a sharp pain that goes away quickly. Usually the easiest, cheapest and fastest way to manage tooth sensitivity is with a sensitive toothpaste. My two favourites for this are

Having said this any toothpaste that says sensitivity should give you a bit of relief so I would just get whatever you can get hold of. Just rub the toothpaste on the area(s) that are sensitive and don’t rinse off afterwards. Tooth sensitivity can happen at any time so I would add a sensitive toothpaste to your shop especially if its going to be harder to get out to the shops or the pharmacy.

Pericorinitis

This means inflammation, pain and tenderness around a wisdom tooth. This happens to me ALL THE TIME. For this we need to think of a two pronged approach, prevention and cure.

Prevention

Keep this area clean using a water flosser, a single tufted brush every single day to stop plaque and food gathering. You need to really irrigate this area with the waterflosser or get the bristles of that single tufted brush right around the whole circumference of your wisdom tooth. Sometimes there can be a little flap of gum sitting over the top of the tooth which can be a major food trap Also careful with your dietary choices, popcorn flares my pericorinitis up massively also eating a lot of sugar can cause a flare up

Cure

An antibacterial product will work best for you here. The classic way to treat this would be with a chlorhexidiene based mouthwash like Corsodyl treatment mouthwash (the one in the brown bottle). Just make sure you check for allergies, remember it can cause staining and you shouldn’t be using the Corsodyl mouthwash in the brown bottle for more than 2 weeks. A gel based antibacterial I find to be the best product for me when my wisdom tooth flares up. My favourite at the moment is the Perio Plus Focus gel by Curaprox. It has a small amount of chlorhexidiene but its main antibacterial agent is in the form of Citrox which extracted from bitter oranges and is all natural. You can buy this product on the Curaprox website, but if you find it harder to get Corsodyl gel will also work really well. If you can’t get any of these, nothing works better than warm salty mouth rinse my loves.

The trick with Pericorinitis is either preventing it or catching it early, if left without cleaning or antibacterial treatment for long enough an infection can occur so if you have a temperature, swelling around the area or limited opening you will need to see your Dentist. Don’t ignore it, if its starting to feel tender give it a good clean and treat with something antibacterial just to be on the safe side. If in doubt telephone your dental practice.

A Mouth Ulcer

A general apthous ulcer should resolve in about 3-5 days but some whoppers will last for up to 10 days. Apthous ulcers can be painful, antibacterial mouth rinse, gels and if in doubt warm salty mouth rinse will help with this too. Sometimes a lost filling or a broken tooth with a sharp edge can cause a traumatic ulcer if this is the case I would treat as above and contact your dental practice. You should also contact your dental practuice if you have an ulcer that has been present for 3 weeks.

Mouth ulcers have been related to poor nutrition, stress and even having a foaming agent called SLS in your toothpaste too so check out each if these things too.

The product I recommend to my patients most for mouth ulcers is Iglu. It works the best if you dry the ucer slightly before you apply it.

Bleeding Gums

Always remember kids that bleeding gums are not normal. There are however, lots of different situations in which gums will bleed. Usually though this is due to plaque building up at the gum line. Make sure you are cleaning right to the gum line with your toothbrush and a fluoride toothpaste twice a day and using something in between your teeth on a daily basis as we discussed above. Please don’t be put off if your gums do bleed a bit while doing this (especially if you haven’t done it for a few days) the more you do it the less bleeding there will be. You can read more about bleeding gums on my blog post here.

Stress can make your gums bleed and this is a stressful time. Trying to manage stress with exercise, yoga, reducing the amount if time you spend watching the news and get as much sleep as you can hopefully will help with this.

Nutrition is also really important for gum health, in this time at home remember to get plenty of fruit and vegetables where you can and take some multivitamins as well if you have them especially vitamin C. Also as we mentioned above watch out for how much sugar you are eating, remember no more than 30g sugar a day which is going to be super hard at this time. Finally carefully with that extra glass of wine or two when our schedules go out the window as this can also effect our gum health, I’ve got a whole blog on it which you can check out here.

Antibacterial mouthwashes and gels can also be good here either applying the gels to interdental brushes before you use them in between your teeth or rinsing with a mouth rinse 30 minutes after brushing, again just take care when it comes to allergies and some have the potential to cause staining. Again if in doubt a warm salty mouthrinse will help.

Just as a side note, if any of you guys have stopped smoking - which you 100% should do to reduce your risk of being severely effected by covid-19 and for your gum health, general health and risk for oral cancer - your gums may start to bleed. This is not uncommon, its because nicotine makes your blood vessels tighter, so as the level of nicotine in your body reduces your gums will start behaving more classically if plaque is present and should resolve by following a gold standard oral hygiene routine in a few days.

A Lost Filling

Occasionally fillings can become loose and fall out. If you are in pain it is important to contact your dental practice. If not a temporary filling kit might be a good option, so having one of these in the house or adding one to your online shop might not be a bad idea. These are usually pretty straight forward to use with good directions and fairly cheap to buy. Temporary fillings help reduce sensitivity and keep the area where the filling has been lost clean by helping stop food sticking in there and causing sensitivity and a bit of a wiff later.

When You Should Contact the Dentist

At the moment dental practices in the UK should only be seeing patients on an emergency only basis. We will not be seeing patients for routine hygiene appointments or dental health checks. PLEASE DO NOT ATTEND YOUR DENTAL PRACTICE. Instead you should phone the practice and tell the reception staff your symptoms. The Dentist will then triage your emergency and phone you back. If 100% necessary your Dentist will then give you a time to attend the practice to minimise the amount of people that are in the practice at the one time.

You should PHONE your dental practice if:

You are in pain
You have swelling
Limited opening
Uncontrollable bleeding after an tooth extraction
Throbbing pain
Dull pain that gets worse if you lean your head back
A temperature along with any of these other symptoms
If you have had a mouth ulcer for 3 weeks +

Thankyou so much for reading my blog, remember look after your teeth and they will look after you <3. Remember if you’re feeling unwell your teeth and gums can be effected so I’ll leave a link about what to do in that case here. Huge love to all of my dental colleagues, friends and patients I haven’t forgotten you, please don’t forget me :). Also a huge thankyou to everyone working in the NHS and essential services you are so appreciated.

*gifted products