Oral Health

A bad mouth ulcer or toothache will usually ruin our day.  As such, we need to do what we can to reduce such occurrence. 

According to dentists, flossing is more effective than brushing, as flossing reaches in between the teeth to remove plaques.  Plaques are the things that allow bacteria to grow and lead to tooth decay, and they form within hours after we eat.  When the bacteria hits the nerve in our tooth, that's when pain coms. Make it a habit to floss before brushing every evening, and we will save a ton of money at the dentist. [Check on line video for proper flossing technique]

We can do the fingernail test.  Use our fingernail to scrape the sides of our teeth, especially the molars (the innermost teeth).  If we see white substances on the nail, that's plaque.

Common procedures that will cost us a lot of money if we do not take care of our teeth:

§  Root Canal (drilling into the tooth to remove the nerve, to remove the pain)

§  Bone Grafting (adding bone materials to prepare for tooth implant)

§  Tooth Implant (replacing a tooth with an artificial implant)

§  Tooth Crowning (caps the tooth after root canal or tooth implant)

Mouth ulcers can be due to self-infliction like accidental biting the tongue or the inside of the cheek, or due to the type of food that we eat, or even from stress.  I have found effective ways of reducing getting mouth ulcers to a large extent.

Strategy 1: Whenever an ulcer comes, write down possible triggers on a log book (from the food that we recently took and on our mood in the past day).  After a while, it will be easy to deduce the culprit.  For my case, it is mainly chocolates and ‘heaty’ food. As such, I limit my chocolates intake to a small amount each time, and like once a month.  [In Chinese medical terms, "heaty" food are food that warms up the body and tips the balance]

Strategy 2: Drinking honey.  Whenever I feel that an ulcer is coming (it is a feeling in the mouth that we can learn to recognise), I will have a glass of honey drink.  So far, it helps.  The ulcer feeling would be gone, and no ulcer outbreak.  Will have a post just on the honey soon.

I haven't had a mouth ulcer for a long long time [touch wood!].