A Cedar Park Dentist Shares How to Keep Your Teeth Safe this Summer

Summer is the perfect time to go outdoors and have fun, whether you’re young or old. Unfortunately, increased summer activity also means increased chances of damage occurring to you or your children’s teeth.  

Here at Reveal Dental, our Cedar Park dentist sees plenty of cases relating to summertime trauma. Some of these aren’t entirely avoidable, but it’s important to always keep your teeth in mind when enjoying the outdoors. So, we have a few tips to help you make the most of your summer fun.

Common Dental Issues During the Summer

1. Brown stains when swimming

If someone spends a lot of time swimming in heavily-chlorinated pools, such as public pools, there’s a chance they may begin to develop yellow or brown stains on their teeth.  This happens when pools are so heavily-chlorinated that they actually dissolve the mouth’s saliva, causing the proteins in saliva to bind to the teeth.

Limiting exposure to such pools to less than six hours per week is the only prevention here. Otherwise, the stains are non-harmful, but will require a professional teeth cleaning to remove.

2. Buy a mouth guard for outdoor sports.

Ask almost any dentist, and they’d agree that more sports should require mouth guards. Even supposedly non-contact sports, such as soccer, still realistically involve plenty of contact. All it takes is one accidental thrown elbow, or hit to the face with a ball, to cause major dental damage which can require expensive reconstruction.

Mouth guards already prevent hundreds of thousands of dental injuries per year, and those numbers would only go up if more were used. So if you or your child enjoys outdoor sports, talk to your Cedar Park dentist about having a custom-fit mouth guard made. It’s an investment that can very easily pay off.

3. Scuba and snorkeling related dental problems.

Unsurprisingly, an activity which requires constantly biting down on a foreign object can easily bring dental issues. Most often, this is either jaw pain, or what’s called “tooth squeeze” – pain in teeth caused by pressure changes.

Generally, scuba doesn’t cause dental problems so much as it exacerbates existing issues. Attempting to keep one’s bite on the mouthpiece as loose as possible can help. Otherwise, visit your Cedar Park dentist for a checkup before engaging in any extensive scuba-diving.

For more summertime dental advice, services and options, please contact Reveal Dental today.