Easy Practices to Avoid Oral Trauma

Our dental team at Bellefontaine Family Dental is eager to help our patients enjoy lifelong oral health. In addition to encouraging routine oral hygiene habits that lower the likelihood of tooth decay and gum disease, we also encourage steps to protect your smile from oral trauma. Below we highlight some important lifestyle habits that can help you avoid dental trauma so that your smile remains in good shape.

If you find yourself engaging in daily harmful habits like chewing on ice and pens or opening packages with your teeth, we encourage you to stop. These habits can cause you to develop fractures, cracks, and chips in your teeth and gum lacerations.

Involvement in contact sports or other energetic activity should be accompanied by a sports mouthguard to prevent oral trauma that many athletes suffer when hit in the face. Our dentist would be happy to provide a mouth guard recommendation for you.

A habit of grinding your teeth at night could lead to the development of cracks and chips in the tooth enamel. For this reason, you may need to wear a nightguard, which is custom-fitted to fit over your teeth and protect your mouth during sleep so that the pressure and friction of grinding don’t break your smile.

It’s important to keep a first-aid kit on hand that contains travel-size oral hygiene items like floss, toothbrushes, and topical anesthesia in case you encounter an emergency situation and need to care for your smile.

The occurrence of an oral accident in St. Louis, Missouri, means you should call Bellefontaine Family Dental at 314-741-5133 as soon as possible to schedule a visit with Dr. Sam Cigno and our team.