In terms of promoting great oral health, protecting the enamel on your teeth may be the most effective means to avoiding tooth decay. Tooth enamel works to protect your teeth from decay and other forms of damage. However, enamel can’t protect your teeth if you don’t properly care for it and a variety of factors can wear it down. What’s more concerning, though, is you can’t restore your tooth enamel. As it begins to erode, no matter the cause, it’s essential you do what you can to strengthen tooth enamel before matters get worse. Otherwise, you’ll need to seek further and more extensive treatment.
Here at Quality Dental Care, we strive to ensure each and every one of our Omaha patients maintains proper oral health. While we can do a great job of taking care of your teeth in our office, we don’t have much control when you’re at home. However, we can still provide our patients with helpful information so they can properly care for their teeth on their own time. With this, take a look below to see how you can strengthen tooth enamel and why it’s so important to do so.
A Brief Overview of Enamel
As mentioned, tooth enamel is essential to the health of your teeth. As the outermost layer of your teeth, enamel is actually harder than your own bones. However, unlike your bones, tooth enamel doesn’t possess regenerative cells. In other words, once your enamel has begun to erode or wear, there’s no rebuilding it. A variety of factors can wear down enamel, too. From the foods and drinks you consume to brushing too little or even too hard, avoiding these factors is crucial.
While there are treatments to keep your teeth protected when enamel erosion is severe, your best bet is to properly maintain and strengthen tooth enamel—whether or not enamel erosion has occurred. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways you can protect your tooth enamel.
5 Ways to Strengthen Tooth Enamel
Like we said, you can do plenty to keep your enamel protected from erosion, and therefore, keep your teeth protected from decay and physical damage. Regardless of whether or not erosion has already become a problem, protecting tooth enamel is good practice for every patient. In fact, it’s absolutely necessary in promoting oral health. Take a look at the tips below to see how you can strengthen tooth enamel:
- Refrain from consuming foods and drinks known to wear down enamel. These could be anything from candy, sugary treats, and bread to sodas and sports drinks—all of which can demineralize enamel.
- In addition to avoiding the foods above, you should also aim for a diet full of foods that help remineralize your teeth like whole grains, vegetables, and proteins.
- Ensure you’re brushing properly and effectively. You should be brushing twice a day, keeping your brush at an angle to get in between gaps and grooves. Also, ensure you brush for two minutes each time.
- Promote saliva production by staying hydrated. Saliva is constantly working to expel bacteria and harmful substances from the surfaces of your teeth.
- Using fluoride toothpastes is also key to strengthening tooth enamel.
Protect Your Teeth with Quality Dental Care!
While you can’t restore or rebuild your tooth enamel, you can surely strengthen it before it progresses into a more serious problem. In short, your enamel is necessary in preventing cavities, decay, and physical damage to your teeth. Having said that, the importance of strengthening tooth enamel is clear.
One great way to promote oral health and strengthen enamel is by visiting your dentist at Quality Dental Care twice a year for regular checkups and dental cleanings. If you’d like to schedule an appointment, you can contact us here or give us a call at 402.431.8844.