When you're sick with a cold or the flu, it can be difficult to focus on keeping up with your oral health. It's important, however, and often makes people feel more healthy while sick. Here are some tips on how to keep up:
Keeping up with oral health
- Brush your teeth: When you're stuck in bed and sleeping more than normal, it's easy to forget to brush and floss your teeth. However, it's an easy way to help yourself feel a bit more normal. Just simply trying to brush your teeth on a semi-normal schedule is best. And, of course, brushing twice a day is vital towards fighting plaque build-up on your teeth!
- Stay hydrated: This is an important step for you to take for your entire body when sick, but it's also important to preventing dry mouth. Since many medications used for colds and flu work to dry out your system and offer some relief, you have to add some fluids back to your body. However, you also want to make sure you aren't just hydrating with sugary drinks either. Water is always your best choice, and hot tea is another great option to avoid added sugar, and stay hydrated at the same time.
- Care for your teeth after vomiting: Unfortunately, sickness often brings on vomiting. While you may be tempted to brush your teeth right after this occurs, it's actually better to simply rinse your teeth, which helps remove any acids on your teeth. Instead, brush your teeth 30 minutes to an hour later.
- Choose sugar-free cough drops: Added sugar in anything can be bad for your teeth, and being sick is no exception. It's common for people to choose sugary cough drops or even hard candy to relieve a sore throat because they often taste better. However, it's much better for your oral health to go for the sugar-free options, and avoid using hard candy when sick.
Visit your Birmingham, AL dentist
If you have any questions, give our office a call today. We are always welcoming new patients, and we look forward to helping you achieve a healthy, happy smile!