Oral Health Recovery Following Illness

Whether Coronavirus, flu or any other virus, your oral health can suffer

Naturally at the moment, a great deal of focus is on the Covid-19 virus. Hopefully the pandemic is now coming under control with the focus now leading towards keeping the numbers of illnesses and deaths as low as possible until a vaccine and/or treatment is found. This is obviously a very dangerous virus but is not the only one of course. Flu can also be very dangerous and kills thousands of people each year and, although less dangerous, even a bad common cold can make us feel under the weather for a period of time.

Hopefully, our Burton and Ashby patients have managed to avoid Coronavirus, but for those that have had it and recovered, or for those generally recovering from any illness, Alexandra Dental Care offers some advice about getting your oral health back on track in the weeks that follow.

Can a virus affect your teeth?

Directly, a virus should have little or no effect on your teeth at all. But the problems stemming from having a virus for a week or two is that your teeth will almost certainly suffer from neglect to some degree. When we have a virus, our bodies go to work to try to eliminate it. We will tend to sleep more and many of us will also feel very tired and lethargic much of the time. With this lethargy often goes poor oral health care and a less than healthy diet.

When we feel like this, we might be tempted to skip cleaning our teeth or perhaps just swill mouthwash to freshen our mouth. In addition to this, we may well eat more foods that are high in sugar which, as we know, is very bad for our teeth. Over a period of time, our teeth and gums are likely to suffer, so once we have recovered, we need to work on restoring our teeth to good health again.

Getting back on track

The first thing to do when you have recovered from a virus is to replace your toothbrush or head of an electric one if that is what you use. Whilst viruses should be inactivated quite quickly outside of a host, it is best to be on the safe side and it is a good idea to take this opportunity to purchase a new brush.

You should start to brush your teeth properly again. Take the opportunity to start from scratch and time yourself for 2 minutes to make sure that they are brushed for long enough. Angle the bristles so that they reach beneath the gum line where they can more effectively remove bacteria and food that has accumulated there. When you have finished brushing, spit but don’t rinse so that the fluoride in the toothpaste has time to strengthen the tooth enamel and improve protection. Add dental floss to your regime if you don’t already do so and maybe use a reputable video to show you how to do this.

Get back to eating more tooth friendly foods. You can’t turn the clock back on what you have eaten but you can improve this going forwards.

With a little care and attention for a few weeks, you should be able to get your oral health more or less back on track. In addition to your home care though, we also recommend having your teeth and gums cleaned by our dental hygienist. Unfortunately, at the moment we are closed due to the Covid-19 situation and don’t know when we will be able to open again, but hopefully soon. When we do re-open, we will be prioritising  cases which need treating as soon as possible. If you have suffered from any chipping, broken teeth or have had a mild toothache, do make sure to see us as soon as possible after we re-open. We will of course be making appointments for general check-ups and hygiene sessions as soon as we can.

Unfortunately the team at Alexandra Dental Care can’t see you face-to-face at the moment, but we do want to help you keep your mouth healthy at this difficult time.

Our phone lines are open for advice so if you need guidance about your oral health, please call our usual number – 01283 216347. One of our team will be on hand to help.

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