How to Take Care of Your Teeth During Lockdown and Isolation

You might not be able to visit a dentist for a while because of the lockdown, dental service restrictions and your own concerns about your health and safety. Non-urgent treatment is likely unavailable to limit movement and help flatten the curve in the spread of COVID-19.

However, we should still take care of our oral health so that we won’t need dental treatment in the first place. It’s still uncertain how long the situation is going to be and what will be the changes in the practice. As a result, it’s best for now to take care of your teeth and gums on your own.

How to take care of your teeth during lockdown and isolation

First, it’s about protecting your teeth and gums from infection and decay. Our teeth hurt perhaps because of a gum disease or a cavity. The nerves get infected or irritated which in turn causes the inflammation and pain. To help prevent that, a sure way is to practice good oral hygiene. Even just brushing our teeth twice a day does wonders in slowing down tooth decay and bacterial growth.

However, many of us might now have irregular schedules and activities. Because of the lockdown and quarantine, many of us lost the daily structure provided by work or school. As a consequence, our eating habits changed and this might have also affected our oral care. Perhaps sometimes we forget to brush our teeth or we’re munching on something all day long because of stress. This is a natural response because of the uncertainty and something always has to fill our vacant time.

That’s bad for our teeth and gums though. One way to still practice good oral hygiene is to create a structure for our days. For example, breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner should be set on specific hours. In between we can schedule catching up with the news and government advisories, learning a new skill, keeping ourselves occupied with movies and games, exercising and planning for the future. With that clear structure especially when it comes to eating, it becomes easier to make sure we’re still caring for our teeth and gums. That’s because things become more predictable and manageable now (plus it’s easier to remember whether we’ve brushed our teeth or not).

It’s about sticking to good habits every day so that things also fall into place. It’s especially the case with our oral health where most of the dental problems are the result of daily and long-term bad habits. The acids from food and beverages plus the 24/7 operation of bacteria make our teeth and gums vulnerable all day and night. But if we adopt good oral habits, in this time of great uncertainty we can still be certain that our oral health remains well.