New Look Dental December 2011 Newsletter

This Holiday season let’s get rid of some of bad oral habits that will cost you.

We all know that dental care is expensive. Although some of bad oral habits can be prevented. Not biting your nails, smoking or grinding your teeth may save you from extensive and costly dental work

A Lifelong Habit:
A majority of our bad habits start when we are children, or even infants. For example,. Innocent bedtime drink can damage a child’s mouth, known as “bottle mouth”.
Another common bad habit in children is thumb sucking. Over time, they end up wearing braces. Later on breaking the habit of thumb sucking can be difficult as be careful not to use drastic solutions such as putting cayenne pepper on the child’s thumb; this can cause great harm to your children. Instead, contact a pediatrician for gentle and safe alternatives.    

Grown-Ups Do It, Too:
It’s important to catch problems when children are young, because bad oral habits often continue well into adulthood.

Nail biting: This is bad for your nails and hard on your teeth. Of course, it can also contribute to the spread of disease.

Smoking: In addition to the damage it does to the rest of your body, smoking leads to yellow teeth, bad breath, receding gums, bone loss, mouth lesions and oral cancer. Switching to chewing tobacco, pipes or cigars will not reduce the symptoms
The “big daddy” of listed bad habits – smoking – is never good for you, not even in moderation. Smoking causes such a wide variety of health complaints that quitting is often described as the single greatest step you can take toward improving your health. Although smokers know they have to do it, smoking is still one of the most difficult habits to break Tell friends and family that you’re quitting so they can support you

Emotional Eating: Those Who struggle most with their weight in times of high stress or when they’re feeling particularly angry or sad might be indulging in the bad habit of emotional eating. Most people associate foods with certain moods. If you find yourself regularly turning to the fridge as a way to get over a bad day, you might have a problem with emotional eating.
You can try to deal with that emotion in a way other than reaching for a bag of chips: perhaps by calling a friend going shopping at the mall, enjoying a movie, visiting the gym or taking a brisk walk around the block. Encourage yourself by starting eating a more balanced diet and get out and exercise more.

Biting hard objects: If you chew your pens, pencils, eyeglasses and so on, you could be causing irreparable damage to your teeth. In addition to causing stress fractures on your teeth, you could be irritating your joints and chewing muscles. Gum-chewing can also cause damage to your chewing muscles. 

Bruxism: This is the technical dental term for clenching or grinding your teeth. This could be causing irreparable damage to the muscles and joints, called TMJ, in which the joints of the mouth are in chronic pain. If you have these symptoms, contact your dentist to discuss possible solutions.

Although your family dentist can help you fix many problems, keep in mind that no dentist is a miracle worker. It’s best to quit any bad oral habits that you might have now while you’re ahead.