The end of the year is usually when I end up taking my vacations.  I enjoy being in the fresh air and usually in warmer climates during the cooler months.  This is why I and my family like to pack up and head out to enjoy the warm weather for a little longer.  Usually, we head south and start out with a crazy road trip.  What happens on these trips for my family is we end up buying 40 dollars of snacks from the grocery store before we go.  That means a whole lot of sweets, crunchy things, and many dental nightmarish gummies have been packed up for our trip.  This can be a problem because we usually don’t even think about it.  But what we are doing is adding months of tooth decay on our teeth basically overnight if we don’t take care of it.  So this vacation we are not going to just cut back on snacks and fun things, but we are all going to take some dental precautions to keep healthy and safe on our trip.

Now, preparation is key and that is why I went ahead and got us all some really cool toothbrushes at the local big box store.  Yes, I love themed toothbrushes and my kids do as well.  Well most of them do after they are done fighting over the coolest one.  But getting something fun for the trip that only cost about 10 bucks for all of us is a great way to get excited about brushing our teeth.  We all try to do it a little differently on trips and we will do a lunch brush on our first rest stop to eat.  These are travel toothbrushes and we all just put them in a little pouch to carry with us in the restaurant.  It takes like 3 minutes to do at the end of the meal and it keeps the plaque off our teeth once we are done eating and it puts a protective coating of fluoride on our teeth for the trip to come.  This is step one of our vacation and it is brushing three times a day.

The next part of our trip is to make sure we are brushing the right way and for the correct amount of time.  You do know those small toothpaste travel things will work for the whole trip right?  Yes, they certainly will.  What you need to know is that most people use 4 to 10 times as much toothpaste as they need. So many dentists in 2020 are coming out and saying you really only need a tiny amount and if you brush your teeth for 2 minutes or so it will do the exact same thing.  So that is how we brush our teeth in our family.  If you need to set an alarm, go ahead and do it. But you can cut down on toothpaste costs by simply brushing the correct way even if you are brushing twice or three times as much!

Now one important part of our trips is to drink enough water along with our snacks.  Water is a natural cleaner and can help you cut out and clean out some of the sugar from your trip. I like to keep a lot of bottles and our kids end up drinking as much as we do. So that is how we do vacation now!

This is one of my favorite times of the year.  I love the holidays and all the fun they bring.  The weather gets a little cold to be outside so instead, we all just head in together and chat it up.  This is a tradition for most people in the United States and it brings families, friends, and colleagues together year after year. One thing also seems to follow along with these get-togethers and that is most people end up drinking and eating more seasonal foods and drinks during this time.  It is the part of the year where people indulge a little more and one thing that they don’t consider as much is the damage that is gone to their teeth.  I have found that my teeth have suffered over this time of year and my dentist laid it all out for me.  That helped me to work on my own holiday tradition and it has been to increase my dental health during this time of year because I know I am going to indulge a little more than normal. 

One of the things that I am going to start doing this holiday season is simply drinking more water.  I have found that water is an amazing way to keep your dental health on track.  What water does is rinse your mouth and also hydrate you.  This can be incredible when you are drinking sweet or acidic liquids.  It can be wise to drink some water right after so it helps to rinse those harmful things off your teeth and out of your mouth.  It is amazing how fast those harmful particles can start eating away at your teeth and start creating plaque.  But rinsing it out right away is an amazing way to fight that from happening.

As an added benefit water also helps to hydrate your body.  What this does intern is to help your own body create more saliva.  This is your body’s natural mouth wash and by staying hydrated you are creating more of it.  So drinking water can actually clean your mouth in a few different ways.  So this is why I am picking up a few fashional water bottles to take with me to my holiday parties and work get-togethers to insure that I am drinking enough water.  I love that you can get cool and top notch looking bottles for not too much money that fit right into to the holiday. 

Now it is also obvious that you should be keeping up with your regular dental routine during this time.  But I think it is wise to add in an additional brushing to your day to make sure you are taking advantage of the easy preventatives you have.   I like to add in a third brushing during this time of year to help protect my teeth even more and to also get the extra food and liquid out of my mouth.  Most of these seasonal food is not good for your teeth and can hurt your health more than normal food.  So taking an extra step to ensure my own health is a great thing to do. It may end up saving me from having to see the dentist for an emergency session after the holidays.  That is a big deal to me and I plan on staying nice and healthy this year.