Cleaning your teeth and maintaining their level of whiteness, isn’t as easy as it sounds… and we completely understand! Starting your morning without a warm cup of coffee and winding down without a glass of wine, just doesn’t sound as enjoyable.

To make things worse, it is not just coffee and wine that stain your teeth. There is a wide range of food and lifestyle choices that can inhibit you achieving the perfect level of whiteness.

Causes of yellow teeth:

• Eating foods with staining properties such as curries, tomato-based sauces and soy sauce. The rich colours and acidic nature of these foods are (no matter how delicious they are) can lead to dental stains due to the level of pigments and sugar in them.
• Drinking acidic beverages such as soft drink and white wine (red wines aren’t the only type of wine harmful to your teeth). The acidity in these drinks can eat away at the enamel on the surface of your teeth, eventually leading to decay.
• Eating other pigmented foods, in particular fruits such as blackberries, blueberries and pomegranates. The pigments in these fruits are extremely powerful, and were used to dye clothing not too long ago, so regular intake of these fruits without brushing can cause dental stains.
• Not drinking enough water. Water is not only important for hydration. It acts as a natural defence against build up and staining! It is recommended to drink water regularly throughout the day to wash away any substances lingering in your mouth, especially after a meal.
• Smoking. Amongst the endless reasons to quit smoking, dental stains are one of them, along with gum disease and oral cancer.
• Not brushing or flossing your teeth on a daily basis. As simple as it sounds, avoiding to brush and floss can lead to many dental issues down the track, and is one of the best ways to make sure your maintain your dental hygiene and colour of your teeth until your next dental appointment.

Obviously there are plenty more food and lifestyle choices that can stain your teeth. However, we are not here to advise you that in order to achieve the perfect white teeth you can’t live a normal life. Instead, we propose making the following changes to reduce the effects of the above!

How to stop teeth staining:

• Diluting your curries and sauces by using some sort of milk or water based addition to the recipe. By ‘watering’ them down, you can reduce the level of pigment in them and therefore reduce the degree of dental staining.
• Drinking acidic drinks through a straw. We know avoiding soft drinks completely can be difficult, so changing the way through which you consume them can reduce the amount of contact your teeth will have with the acids in the drinks.
• Drinking enough water before and after meals, as well as throughout the day to ensure you (and your mouth) is not dehydrated.
• Visit your dentist regularly for check-ups – in the case that there is an issue or concern with your teeth, the sooner it is identified the better.

At Terrigal Dental, we consider each patient part of our community and aim to provide a standard of treatment that we would expect for ourselves. We love educating our patients about their overall dental health as well as the options available to them to achieve the perfect smile – even those that they can incorporate into their daily routines at home.

For those that are finding their teeth to be victims of teeth staining, give us a call today to discuss the teeth whitening treatment we offer, or visit our website to make an appointment online!

Here is some information from the Australian Dental Association as well about aesthetic dentistry. We love making people smile.