If you have dental restorations, you’ve invested a lot of time and money in your smile.
After all of that effort, you’ll want to do everything you can to maintain it! And luckily, that’s usually pretty easy.
Most often, maintaining dental restorations comes down to basic dental hygiene practices. Regular brushing and flossing (seriously, don’t skip the flossing!) are the best thing that you can do to keep your dental work in good condition, but here are a few more tips:
Be Gentle
Brush and floss gently, taking extra care around the edges of crowns, veneers, and fillings to avoid loosening, chipping, or dislodging them. Also, take it easy on your gums. Brushing too hard may lead to receding gums, which can pull away from a veneer or implant and reveal too much of the underlying natural tooth or even implant. Also, be gentle when you’re eating and drinking to avoid chipping and cracking – avoid hard or very sticky foods and chew carefully. If you grind your teeth, wear mouth guards at night to protect your restorations.
Prevent Discoloration
Certain types of veneers, crowns, and fillings may be resistant to staining, but that makes it all the more important to maintain your natural teeth. Avoid discoloration of the natural tooth and unseemly contrast between the tooth and the restoration by limiting staining or acidic foods, drinking lots of water, flossing, and brushing regularly with whitening toothpastes.
Take Care of Your Gums
Gum disease is a concern for everyone, but preventing it is especially important for patients with implants. Infections can develop easily without regular brushing and flossing, leading to gum inflammation. Chronic inflammation can cause to bone loss, which may result in the loss of the implant. Because patients with this condition may not notice any pain, regular dental appointments are especially important. Pay attention to your gums, but be gentle in order to avoid causing them to recede, as we mentioned above.
Don’t Skip Your Checkups
Once you’ve had dental work done, it’s especially important to keep up with regular office visits. Natural, healthy teeth are more resilient and have better structural integrity than restorations. Even though your crown, fillings, or veneers fixed a problem, they still leave your teeth more susceptible to tooth decay and gum disease than all-natural choppers are. With dental implants in particular, regular visits to the dentist are essential for long-term health, because serious issues may not be accompanied by pain as they would with natural teeth (see above). Once your implants have fully healed, they may also need cleanings more frequently, in the range of 2-4 times per year.