tooth erosion

When it’s mixed with something, lemon is one of the most refreshing flavors out there. There’s nothing like sipping on a cold glass of lemonade under the sun, or drinking a cup of hot lemon water on a rainy morning. Unfortunately, your enamel doesn’t think lemon is as tasty as your tastebuds do. In fact, your teeth react to it pretty sourly. Though lemon juice can taste good and has some health benefits, it’s pretty bad for your teeth if it comes into contact with them. Let’s take a look at why now.

Why Is Lemon Juice Bad for Your Teeth?

Lemon juice is one of the most erosive ingredients out there. During a study comparing fruit juices and beverages published in the Journal of Endourology, lemon juice had the highest citric acid content of all the juices studied. Acids are your enamel’s biggest enemy. When you eat a lemon or drink lemon juice, the acids from the juice stick to your teeth and wear away your enamel. The acids also help feed bacteria to form plaque and tartar, which lead to cavities.

So What’s A Lemon Good For?

Just because lemons are bad for your teeth doesn’t mean you should avoid them forever. Lemons are very nutritious. Lemon juice contains pectin fibre, calcium and potassium, and is a great source of Vitamin C.

According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, Vitamin C is essential for the growth and repair of tissues throughout your body. It’s also an antioxidant. Antioxidants may help to fight off physical aging and health issues including cancer, arthritis and heart disease. Lemon juice also improves digestion, according to Global Healing Center.

How To Stop Your Teeth From Going Sour Because of Lemon Juice

Because we love your teeth so much, we recommend switching to regular water instead of a beverage with lemon juice for your everyday drink of choice. Lemon juice really can do severe damage to your teeth over time, and you can get the nutrients from someplace else!

If you continue to drink lemon juice regularly, you can easily limit the damage it does to your teeth. Here are just a few ideas!

• Use a straw while drinking beverages with lemon juice. Try to make sure the liquid goes directly into your throat rather than sitting in your mouth. The goal is to keep it from coming into contact with your teeth.

• If you do drink a beverage with lemon juice without using a straw, drink water too. The water should wash away some of the acids that are trying to stick onto your teeth.

• Don’t brush your teeth right after you’re done drinking lemon juice. Since your enamel is weakened by the lemon’s acids, brushing can easily damage your teeth. Instead, wait about 30 minutes to an hour before brushing.

• Immediately rinse out your mouth with water or mouthwash. Since you shouldn’t brush your teeth after consuming lemon juice, washing out your mouth is the next best thing. Swishing with water or mouthwash after you’re done will help to wash away the acids.

• Visit a dentist to see if your lemon juice habits are affecting your teeth. This way, you’ll know whether you should stop. If lemon juice has already significantly damaged your teeth, we can help with Enamel Remineralization Treatment!

Got any more questions about lemon juice and your teeth? Contact Chicago’s number one general and cosmetic dentistry! We’d love to help you keep your teeth as healthy and strong as possible.

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

From teeth erosion revealing a little girl’s possession to shiny and strong pearly whites indicating fierce power, teeth play a surprisingly important role in many scary movies. With Halloween quickly approaching, we thought we’d document the scariest chompers from horror movies to set the mood for the most haunted night of them all. You might want to turn on the lights for this one.

Regan MacNeil from The Exorcist

If you want to see a set of bad teeth, look no further than Regan MacNeil from The Exorcist. She’s a prime example of what you don’t want to happen to your pearly whites. Regan’s rotting teeth represent her rotting soul due to demonic possession. This is the movie to watch if you need motivation to brush and floss your teeth.

Jack Torrance from The Shining

Unlike Regan, Jack Torrance from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining has a beautiful set of teeth. However, we only really get to admire them when he falls into madness. As Jack becomes more heavily influenced by the supernatural forces in the isolated hotel he is staying in, he begins to bare his teeth like an animal, showing aggression towards his innocent family.

Dracula

Dracula’s teeth are probably the most iconic in the world. Though his character has been reproduced several times over the years, Dracula’s incredibly white teeth and fierce fangs never cease to provoke horror in his audience. We dentists wish he had been a teeth model rather than a bloodsucking murderer.

Great White Shark from Jaws

As the title suggests, the shark from Jaws takes the crown for the biggest set of teeth on our list. Steven Spielberg’s classic thriller stars a man-eating great white shark that is rarely seen. But when the shark does burst into the shot, his massive and admirably white chompers take the audience’s focus.

Austin Powers

Though not thought of as a horror movie to most, dentists like us cringe at Austin Powers’ hideous set of teeth. Not only are they crooked and protruding, but worst of all, they are discolored, showing years of neglect. These are the teeth of a man who has not taken proper care of his teeth. Behave, Austin.

Just because something is good for you doesn’t mean it’s good for your teeth. There’s a wide variety of food that nutritionists would consider healthy for you, but that can damage your teeth if you’re not careful. Here are the top 6 healthy foods that are surprisingly bad for your teeth.

Citrus Fruits (Grapefruits, Oranges and Lemons)

While fruits like oranges, lemons and grapefruits are jam-packed with vitamin C and other important nutrients, they’re not so good for you teeth. Citrus fruits are very acidic and can erode your teeth’s enamel if not completely washed away.
Solution: You don’t have to stop eating citrus fruit to keep your mouth healthy! Immediately after eating a citrus fruit, wash your mouth out with water. Then, 30 minutes later, gently brush your teeth and use mouthwash to completely get rid of the acids.

Tomatoes

Like citrus fruits, tomatoes are highly acidic, causing enamel and tooth erosion. And it isn’t just raw tomatoes that can do your teeth harm. Unfortunately, tomato sauces, soups and pizza can cause tooth erosion due to tomato’s acidity.
Solution: Mix tomatoes with other foods so that your teeth aren’t solely exposed to tomato acids. You can also immediately wash out your mouth with water, and then gently brush your teeth and use mouthwash 30 minutes after eating tomato-based foods just like you can do with citrus fruits. This way, you’ll get rid of the acids before they cause serious harm.

Pickles

Acid is actually used in the pickling process to give pickles their trademark sour taste. This high acid content causes pickles to be closely linked to tooth erosion, according to this 2004 study.
Solution: As long as you don’t eat pickles daily, it’s unlikely that they will cause any serious problems for your teeth. If you do eat pickles regularly, wash your mouth out with water after you’ve finished eating and try to brush your teeth 30 minutes later to avoid serious harm to your teeth.

Apples

While apples have been found to be good for your teeth in some ways, they can also cause teeth erosion. Dental experts have found that apple’s acidic structure and increasingly high levels of sugar can cause erosion, according to The British Dental Association in a Daily Mail article.
Solution: Like with the other acidic foods, wash your mouth out with water after eating apples and brush 30 minutes later. You can also eat them with other food to minimize damage, and try eat your apple in one sitting instead of snacking on one for a while.

Dried Fruit

Though an easy snack, dried fruit is sticky and full of sugar. When it gets stuck to your teeth, which is inevitable, it creates a breeding ground for bacteria to eat away at the fruit’s sugar and your teeth.
Solution: Stick to fresh fruits if you can. If you do eat dried fruit, make sure to floss and brush away the dried fruit as completely as possible 30 minutes after you eat it.

Dark Teas

Black tea has a long list of health benefits, including fighting off free radicals and providing your body with antioxidants, according to TIME.com. It has even been found to fight off cavities. Still, tea has been found to potentially stain teeth even worse than coffee thanks to its higher tannin content, according to Colgate.
Solution: Drink water during and after you’re done drinking tea to reduce the likelihood that it will stain your teeth, and brush immediately afterwards. You can also switch to herbal tea, white tea or green tea, which are much less likely to cause stains and still provide health benefits.
Though these healthy foods may be bad for your teeth, it doesn’t mean you should stop eating them. Just make sure to follow our solutions and you’ll be on track to having healthy and beautiful looking teeth for years to come. Feel free to contact us with any questions! We would love to help.

With long sunny days outdoors and exotic vacations, ‘tis the season for love. And with love comes lots of smooching! When you’re in the moment with your loved one, we’re guessing that you aren’t thinking about how your kisses are affecting your mouth. Interestingly though, kisses really do impact your oral health, both positively and negatively. Our experts are here to tell you how exactly kissing does this with juicy detail. We’ll start with the bad news first.

The Ugly Oral Health Side to Kissing

Unfortunately, kissing can cause some bad stuff to go on in your mouth. Let’s take a look at a couple of the most common ways kissing can go wrong.
You can get herpes from kissing. You don’t need to go any further than kissing to catch an STD. Herpes infection viruses can be spread through your saliva, causing cold sores or blisters on your lips, around your mouth or even inside your mouth. Though they are typically harmless, they can get pretty annoying. Worst of all, there’s no cure. So be careful who you kiss!
Bad bacteria can increase your chance of developing gum disease. If your kissing partner has gum disease, or periodontitis, you’re getting their bad bacteria inside your mouth when you kiss. In fact, you’re sharing around 80 million bacteria with them! The worse the bacteria in their mouth are, the worse it will affect your mouth.
Don’t let these two issues scare you away from kissing. As long as you and your partner take care of your mouth and teeth, and communicate any oral diseases that you have, you shouldn’t be surprised with any unhealthy oral developments. In fact, kissing is typically great for your oral health, as you’ll see below.

Healthy Kissing is Good for Your Teeth, Gums and Mouth!

Your dentist orders you to keep kissing your partner! Well, as long as they have good oral health. Here’s why:
More saliva means fewer cavities. While you’re kissing, your salivary glands begin producing more saliva. Saliva is made up of water, electrolytes, mucus, glycoproteins, enzymes and antibacterial compounds that do lots of good things, including neutralize acids in your mouth, fight off bacteria and wash away food particles. All of these changes will lead to less tooth erosion, which means your dentist should find less cavities in your teeth.
Saliva protects your tooth enamel. Saliva is amazing. Along with fighting off bacteria and acids, the mineral salts in your saliva help rebuild the minerals in your tooth enamel, protecting your teeth from erosion and cavities.
More salvia means healthier cheeks and gums. Your gums and cheeks typically heal more quickly than your skin thanks to your saliva. According to Discover Magazine, proteins like vascular endothelial growth factor help to trigger the formation of blood vessels, which boosts your mouth’s healing processes.
Sharing kisses boosts your immune system. During a quick, 10-second kiss, you transfer as much as 80 million bacteria to your partner. But don’t let that stop you from smooching. It’s actually good for you! According to a study from the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, sharing these bacteria during a kiss boosts your immune system, keeping you healthy.
So there you have it! You have our approval to keep kissing a healthy mouth all summer long. If you or your partner needs a cleanup before a smooch session, feel free to stop by Water Tower Dental Care on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile! We’ll not only make your mouth sparkling clean, but we’ll also make sure it looks picture perfect for your partner with our cosmetic dentistry treatments.