Dr. Nammy Patel, founder of Green Dentistry in San Francisco, and author of the bestselling book Age With Style— A Guide to a Youthful Smile and Healthy Living, discusses taking care of your smile design.
I recommend for my patients who do a smile design is to make sure you’re coming in for routine cleanings, and I always recommend three months. The main reason for that is that you’re able to keep your teeth longer and the restorations longer and make sure that they’re looking good, and so that you’ll be super comfortable. The other thing that I recommend is making sure you use an electric toothbrush at home and also a Water Pik , which is great for getting rid of bacteria. Also, if you’re a mouth breather, I recommend you put some coconut oil or use something called Biotene so that your mouth is not dry, and I would urge you to start nasal breathing and opening up the sinuses and figuring out how we can do that for you.
The other thing that I also recommend for my patients with smile design, if there’s any underlying conditions like acid reflux or diabetes, anything along those lines, we want to make sure it’s controlled because it will have a huge influence on how long your beautiful smile lasts. Somebody with acid reflux can get decay a lot quicker. Somebody who has diabetes can get a lot of gum disease and can get decay underneath those beautiful veneers. So we really want to make sure that we’re addressing the whole you.
