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Everyone in Chicago knows that the city’s winter weather can be hard on your commute, skin and nose. But extremely cold weather can also affect your teeth and mouth. Many Chicagoans experience uncomfortable sensations or even extreme pain in their mouth while in icy weather. Let’s take a look at why that happens and what you can do to keep your teeth and mouth feeling great all winter long!

The Effects of Chicago Winter Weather On Your Teeth & Mouth

Since teeth are naturally porous and sensitive, many people experience tooth sensitivity in the cold. Subtle irritation from time to time is normal and usually nothing to worry about. However, constant sensitivity in the same area of your mouth during the winter months may mean that the cold air is revealing a problem with your teeth.
If you have regular discomfort in the same area of your tooth, it could be caused by a variety of issues, including tiny fractures, bigger cracks, thin enamel, teeth clenching habits, or cavities. Each of these problems can lead to sensitive areas of your teeth being exposed, which in turn can cause teeth pain and discomfort all winter long.
Fillings, crowns or bridges that don’t fit your teeth anymore may also cause sensitivity.
Now let’s not let teeth take all of the spotlight here. Gum disease may be the culprit when it comes to your sensitive teeth and mouth. Gum disease can cause your gums to move away from your teeth, exposing your very sensitive roots. Two telltale signs of gum disease are sore and inflamed gums.
Surprisingly enough, a sinus infection can also be the source of your tooth pain. Swollen sinuses put pressure on the roots of your teeth, which can cause your teeth to hurt. This typically occurs in the back top teeth.
Finally, cold sores are known to wreak havoc during the winter thanks to the flu, stress, fatigue, and extreme weather conditions, according to Sitavig.

Tips To Keep Your Teeth & Mouth Feeling Better During The Winter

Now that you know what’s causing your teeth and mouth sensitivity during the winter, it’s time to get to the important part: how to make it better. If you’re experiencing regular irritation, you should visit a dentist to get to the root of your problem. It could be something serious, like gum disease. But until then, here are some tips to hold you over:

• Breathe in through your nose as much as you can. This way, the cold air won’t be able to reach sensitive areas in your mouth and cause irritation.
• Try not to clench your teeth when you are cold. Clenching can cause tooth erosion and more pain in cold weather.
• Drinking something warm, like tea, when you’re out in the cold should help ease any pain caused by low temperatures.
• Make sure you’re brushing your teeth properly twice a day and flossing once a day.
• Try using a fluoride mouthwash and toothpaste designed for sensitive teeth twice a day to create extra protection from the cold air.
• If you have allergies or think you might have a sinus infection, visit a doctor to find out how to treat it.
• Avoid stress, keep your lips moisturized and wash your hands during the winter months to minimize cold sore breakouts, according to Sitavig. You can also receive laser therapy for cold sores at our offices in Chicago! Laser therapy will help reduce the number of breakouts you have by destroying the herpes simplex virus.
• If your teeth sensitivity or mouth problems persist or feel abnormally bad, make time to visit your dentist. You may have a dental issue that needs to be addressed before it gets worse.

Want to get rid of your winter mouth and teeth issues once and for all? Visit Chicago’s top general and cosmetic dentistry! We’ll do everything we can to get to the root of your mouth discomfort and tooth sensitivity issues.

After you’ve worked so hard to make your teeth shine, the last thing you want is for your gums to cover them up. A gummy smile can make your teeth look stubby and short. But underneath those gums is a gorgeous set of pearly whites. Laser gum removal, also called laser gum recontouring, can reveal your complete smile. And best of all, it’s virtually painless, so you don’t have to worry about the laser gum removal treatment hurting.
Let’s take a deeper look at how exactly laser gum treatment can help your smile without hurting it.

How Does Laser Gum Treatment Work?

Back in the day, dentists used to use a scalpel to remove excess gum over the teeth. Needless to say, this was pretty painful and caused a fair amount of bleeding. Thankfully, laser technology has allowed cosmetic dentists to gently cut away and perfectly shape excess gums in a virtually painless treatment!
How does it do this? During the laser gum recontouring procedure, your dentist will numb your mouth with local anesthesic. This way, you won’t feel any discomfort. From there, your dentist will use the heat of a diode laser to remove excess gum tissue and shape a more uniform and smooth gum line that enhances the beauty of your smile. Lasers are incredibly precise and accurate, so the laser won’t target anything but the problem areas.
The treatment can be performed and completed in just one short visit to the dentists office.

What Are Laser Gum Recontouring Results Like?

After your laser gum recontouring treatment, your gums will be pulled back to a normal length and shaped to best compliment your teeth. Your smile should look better than ever! Take a look at our laser gum recontouring before and after pictures to see what Water Tower Dental Care’s results look like.

What’s Recovery Like?

Unlike scalpels, lasers cauterize, or burn, while they remove your excess gums. Though this might sound scary, it’s actually really good for your recovery! Cauterization means less bleeding and a massively reduced risk of infection.
Your gums may feel swollen or a little sore up to a week after your treatment. But this discomfort shouldn’t be too bad or interfere with your normal routine. Your dentist will give you a low-strength pain reliever to minimize discomfort. You’ll still be able to eat, work, drink and speak normally, but you’ll want to stick to eating soft food a few days after surgery.
Don’t wait to get the smile of your dreams. Laser gum removal can painlessly shape your gums to provide you with your most beautiful smile. If you’re in Chicago, look no further than Chicago’s #1 cosmetic dentistry for your laser treatment. Contact Water Tower Dental Care to set up an appointment with us today!

We’ve all been there. Eating lunch with a coworker or a friend and getting a big piece of food stuck in our teeth. They may point out that you have something stuck in between your pearly whites and you may quickly work to get it out. Or, even worse, you might notice it afterwards in the mirror and know that they were too hesitant to point it out.
Not only can getting food stuck in your teeth be embarrassing, but it can also be uncomfortable and even painful. Worst of all, leaving food lodged between your teeth to rot can cause serious dental issues, like cavities and gum decay. Here are some of the biggest food culprits that like to stay wedged between your teeth. Make sure to bring floss along when you’re planning to eat these food items.

Poppy Seeds, Sesame Seeds... Pretty Much All Seeds

Seeds are probably the most frustrating of all the foods on this list. You can’t really eat around them if they are in your meal or snack because they are so small. And once seeds are stuck in your teeth, it can be incredibly hard to dig them out of there because of their size. If you wear braces, it’s best to stay away from food that contains seeds. They can bend or break your wires if they get lodged in the right place.

Popcorn

The buttery, salty goodness of popcorn is the perfect companion during a comforting movie. But its aftermath is enough to put many of us off of it. Sharp kernel pieces can shove their way between your gums and teeth, especially in your molars, causing pain, discomfort and a dangerous space for bacteria to breed. Next time you eat popcorn, try to pay attention to how you’re eating it to avoid discomfort at best, and gum issues at worst.

Sticky Candy

Most of us love the sugary sweetness of caramel, taffies and gummies. But most of us also know that these candies pretty much always stick to our teeth in the most annoying spots. Bacteria love sugar, so leaving these candies stuck to our teeth for hours at a time can easily result in cavities. Try swishing water in your mouth and flossing after you’re done munching on chewy candy, and brush about 30 minutes after eating.

Raspberries

The real issue with these delicious fruits isn’t the raspberries themselves. Rather, it’s the hundreds of tiny seeds inside of them. Just like poppy seeds and sesame seeds, raspberry seeds can get lodged in the most inconvenient spaces, particularly in your molar region, which is the hardest to reach.

Chewy Meat

Now that we’ve covered the small bites, it’s time to take a look at the big guys: meats. Chewy strings from steak, rib, chicken and beef can easily make their way into tight spaces between your chompers. If you marinate the meat with acidic, seasoned liquid, these pieces of meat can attract lots of bacteria that will eat away at your enamel.

Tips to Keep Food Out Of Your Teeth

Just because these food options are likely to get stuck in your teeth doesn’t mean you should stop eating them. Here are some tips from our dentists to keep your smile food-free:

• Drink water while you’re eating
• Swish water around your mouth after your meal or snack
• Chew gum that contains xylitol after you’ve chowed down on sticky food
• Always keep toothpicks on hand
• Floss soon after eating these types of food, and brush 30 minutes afterwards

Keeping your mouth healthy and looking good isn’t limited to what’s inside of it. Though teeth and gums get the spotlight in most dentist offices, cold sores can be even more unsightly and irritating than any issue inside of your mouth. Thankfully, dentists have the technology to get rid of the viruses that cause cold sores on your lips and around your mouth in just minutes. This technology comes in the form of lasers.

How does a laser treat cold sores?

Unlike other cold sore treatments, like creams or ointments, lasers get to the root of the problem. They destroy the herpes simplex virus that actually causes cold sores. How do they do this?
Well, a trained dentist uses precise laser technology to heat up the cold sore. This heat is carefully controlled to one area and never touches the skin, so it won’t harm anything around the cold sore. The heat from the laser not only kills the virus, but it also triggers your body to heal itself more quickly. The treatment only takes about 15 minutes to complete and requires no downtime at all. You’re in the dentist chair, and then you’re out!

What are the results like?

Since lasers destroy the virus, they can stop the cold sores from appearing at all if you haven’t broken out yet. Pretty amazing, right? Once the virus is stopped, the cold sores can no longer appear on your face.
If you already have cold sores on your lips or around your mouth, lasers will significantly speed up the healing time and provide you with immediate relief of symptoms, like pain or itching. The breakout will also stop spreading. You won’t require another treatment.
Since her virus can’t be cured, your cold sores might come back. However, laser treatments extend the length of time between your breakouts. In fact, after several laser treatments in the same area, your cold sores might never come back! Best of all, laser treatments for cold sores are affordable, and may even be covered by your insurance.

How do you know if you have cold sores?

You can recognize cold sores by their appearance. Cold sores form in groups of small blisters. After the blisters form, they soon break open and release clear fluid. Finally, cold sores will crust or scab over and disappear within 2 weeks.
In order to skip all of this unpleasantness, the best thing you can do is get a laser treatment before the blisters appear. Look for signs such as itching, tingling or pain on your lips or around your mouth. Swollen glands, fevers, and sore throats are also signals that cold sores are developing.
When you start feeling the symptoms, you should see a dentist as soon as possible to receive a laser treatment. That way, the cold sores will never appear. At Water Tower Dental Care, we do our best to see patients with cold sores within 24 hours. We can often treat them on the same day that they call! Feel free to contact us immediately after you start feeling cold sore symptoms.

Why is laser treatment better than other cold sore treatments?

We believe that lasers are the best treatments for cold sores, as do our patients who suffer with the herpes simplex virus. Here are just a few reasons why:

• It only takes a few minutes to complete and requires no penetration of the skin, numbing or anesthesia.
• Though the technology is new, cold sore laser treatment is affordable and may even be covered by your insurance.
• Patients receive immediate and drastic relief right after the treatment is over.
• Over time, lasers can get rid of cold sore breakouts in a specific area forever.
• Lasers get to the root of the problem by killing the virus.
• Laser treatment can prevent breakouts before they occur and stops them once they begin.
• Healing time is much shorter after a laser treatment with no more symptoms.
• Cold sore breakouts will occur less frequently and intensely in the area treated.

Do you feel cold sores developing? Contact Water Tower Dental Care today, Chicago’s number one dental practice! We’re experts in laser technology, and can help you control your breakouts for years to come.