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AFTER FINISHING LUNCH AT WORK, DO YOU BRUSH YOUR TEETH? A survey reveals that despite knowing that a healthy, attractive smile affects both personal wellness and professional image, very few people are brushing at the office.

The survey, carried out by The Academy of General Dentistry and Oral-B Laboratories, polled more than 1,000 full-time employees about their oral care habits and the importance of a healthy smile at work. Their findings were very interesting.

The Importance Of A Healthy Smile At Work

• 96% of respondents thought a smile was very or somewhat important to a person’s appearance.
• 40% ranked “smile” as the first thing they noticed about a person at work.
• 32% cited “bad breath” as their co-workers’ least attractive trait.

Office Eating And Brushing Stats

• 3/4 of respondents ate twice or more a day at work.
• Only 14% brushed their teeth!

Changing When You Brush

The sugars and starches in the food you eat can cause an “acid attack” on tooth enamel. Even after the visible evidence of food disappears, plaque bacteria continues to grow. If you don’t brush, those workday meals, snacks, and beverages stay on your teeth and can increase the likelihood of tooth decay and gum disease. So brush! Let’s adjust the when of brushing just a bit, to your advantage: brush your teeth after breakfast, after meals at work, and before you go to bed.

Helpful Tips For Brushing At Work

• Leave a toothbrush at work and increase your likelihood of brushing by 65%!
• Step it up at home—the better you brush at home, the better you’ll brush at work.
• Take extra care to clean braces after (and store retainers while) you eat.

Suggestions?

If you already brush your teeth regularly at work, do you have any suggestions to help the rest of us, who may not be as valiant? Let us know in the comments below or on our Facebook page.

If you would benefit from a new toothbrush to bring with you to work, ask us at Gorczyca Orthodontics about our easy travel oral hygiene kit. Your oral hygiene and dental health is our top priority. It is important to brush after lunch, especially if you have braces, Invisalign, or retainers.

Stay healthy, happy, and brush after lunch.

See you soon at Gorczyca Orthodontics, in Antioch, California. Your smile is our inspiration.

IT ISN’T VERY OFTEN that we get a chance to extend a big virtual hug to you, our valued patents and friends, for the trust and confidence you demonstrate in us each time you recommend our practice to your extended family members, neighbors, friends, and coworkers.

Thank you. And thank you again.

The new patients who discover our practice through their own trusted relationships (you!), and their circles of influence tend to become our very best new patients. Whether you’re fairly new to our practice yourself or a long time patient, we hope you already know how much we love what we do and how much we appreciate you. We hope you sense that every time you visit us. If there is ever anything we can do to make your visits even more pleasant and comfortable, please never hesitate to ask.

We Invite You To Share

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below and we will respond quickly. Also, by clicking on the Facebook link to your right, you can send us a direct message on Facebook any time. We appreciate your 5 star reviews on Yelp and Google.  We also enjoy learning your suggestions for our practice.  Please take a moment to fill out the customer service survey at our front desk.

The highest compliment Gorczyca Orthodontics can receive is your referral of a family member, neighbor, coworker, or friend. Thank you for choosing Gorczyca Orthodontics in Antioch, California for your braces, Invisalign, and retainers.

Your smile is our inspiration.

WE’VE ALL SEEN IT: that little piece of spinach that gets stuck between the upper front tooth and lateral incisor. Real friends tell friends when they have spinach teeth. Here’s why it happens and what we can do to prevent it.

Spinach contains oxalic acid. This substance, when combined with saliva, produces calcium oxalate crystals that stick to your teeth.

Make Sure You Have The Right Tools

To prevent spinach teeth, drink water vigorously to flush away spinach after eating. If necessary, floss your teeth after eating spinach. If you are a spinach lover, you may want to carry floss in your purse or pocket to avoid that spinach tooth moment, especially if you are on a date or at an important dinner event.

Avoid picking at spinach teeth with a toothpick in public. This can damage your gums and can be impolite. Excuse yourself from the dinner table and visit the rest room to use floss to remove spinach. This is safer, more effective, healthier, and better etiquette.

Overcrowding Helps Spinach Stick

Straightening your front teeth will also help you avoid spinach teeth.

Eliminating crooked front teeth will give spinach fewer nooks and crannies in the dental arch in which it can get stuck. Straight teeth can be accomplished quickly by an orthodontist using either braces, Invisalign, aligners, or spring clip aligners (Inman retainer).

Gorczyca Orthodontics Can Help!

If you have questions about how to avoid spinach teeth with orthodontic treatment, visit us at Gorczyca Orthodontics in Antioch, California for a free orthodontic exam. Call us at (925) 757-9000 or find us at www.clubbraces.com.

There’s no reason for your teeth to go green. Let us help you avoid spinach teeth.

Your smile is our inspiration.

Top image used under CC0 Public Domain license. Image cropped and modified from original.

TO SOME, IT MIGHT seem like the benefits of having straight teeth are purely cosmetic. And those benefits certainly do exist. Studies have shown that people tend to perceive someone with straight teeth as wealthier, happier, and more dateable than someone with crooked teeth. But there are plenty of other important benefits as well.

Consequences Of Crooked Teeth

There are many different ways crooked, crowded, or misaligned teeth can negatively impact a person’s health and quality of life. Let’s take a look at a few of the big ones.

Difficult To Clean

When teeth overlap each other in ways they aren’t meant to, they can be much harder to clean with brushing and flossing than straight teeth. If teeth aren’t getting cleaned as effectively, then they become more vulnerable to tooth decay.

Impede Clear Speech

Underbites, severe overbites, and other teeth alignment problems can interfere with a person’s ability to speak clearly, leading to lisps and other distortions in articulation.

Interfere With Healthy Digestion

Chewing is a critical part of the digestion process. Our saliva begins to break food down on a chemical level while our teeth break it apart into more manageable pieces. Crooked teeth can make it difficult or even impossible to chew food enough, which forces the rest of the digestive system to pick up the slack. This can lead to a number of unpleasant GI consequences, and it can even make it harder to lose weight!

Can Interfere With Healthy Breathing

If your teeth don’t fit comfortably together, you might keep them apart instead of closing your jaws when resting. This can lead to mouth breathing, which has many negative health effects. The two most connected to oral health concerns are chronic bad breath and dry mouth.

Can Cause Jaw Problems

If there’s something wrong with your bite, that can result in temporomandibular joint (TMJ) syndrome. Symptoms include a clicking jaw joint, jaw pain, and frequent headaches.

Do Your Teeth Need Straightening?

Having straight teeth eliminates or greatly reduces all of these problems. This, paired with the cosmetic advantages and the boost in confidence, makes orthodontic treatment a very worthwhile investment. If you think you could benefit from orthodontic treatment, schedule an initial consultation with us so that we can find out what will be best for your smile. In the meantime, keep brushing, flossing, and scheduling your regular dental appointments!

You deserve the best for your teeth!

Top image used under CC0 Public Domain license. Image cropped and modified from original.

The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.