How Do I Take Care of My Smile During Cancer Treatment?

If you want a strong and healthy smile during cancer treatments, then you need to take good care of teeth and gums everyday to ensure their health and strength. Unfortunately, there are many side effects of cancer treatments that affect the smile. Those side effects include dry mouth, cavities, mouth sores, gum disease, sensitive gums and infection. To help you keep your smile in tip-top shape during treatment, our dentist, Dr. Duke Kim, encourages you to do the following things:

• Keep up on your oral hygiene: This means you need to brush, floss and rinse regularly. In fact, you should brush twice a day, floss once a day and rinse daily. These things can help you maintain strong, healthy and clean teeth and gums.
• Visit your dentist: Regular checkups will help you maintain good oral health, especially because the treatments involved help you keep gum disease at bay. So, make sure to keep up with your checkups every six months.
• Watch what you eat: Your smile can become fragile during treatment, so it’s best to avoid foods and drinks that can harm the teeth and gums, like crunchy, spicy and acidic foods as well as acidic drinks and alcohol.
• Drink water often: Drinking water can wash your smile throughout the day, it can keep you hydrated and it can help you prevent dental issues.

Call Ballston Dental Arts today at (703) 291-3111 if you have any questions or if you would like to know more. Our dental team in Arlington VA, will be more than happy to tell you all you need to know. We look forward to helping you!