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There are many reasons why people love autumn in Kearney, Overton or Gibbon. Crisp air. Jeweled leaf tones. Fall sports. Halloween and Thanksgiving.

But there’s one thing about autumn which never appears on anyone’s favorites list: it’s the start of cold and flu season. If you’ve fallen ill, we have some ideas for taking care of yourself—and your dental health—as you recover.

• Stay Hydrated

Proper hydration is vital for healthy skin, temperature, digestion, and other bodily functions. Sweating, fever, diarrhea, and vomiting—common symptoms of colds and flu—cause dehydration.

Dehydration also creates problems for your oral health. Hydration ensures healthy levels of saliva, and saliva helps prevent cavities by washing away bacteria and food particles and neutralizing oral acidity. Saliva bathes the teeth in minerals which keep tooth enamel strong. Hydration also supports healthy bone and connective tissue, which anchor our teeth.

Even if you don’t feel like eating when you’re ill, be sure to drink the liquids you need to stay hydrated. For your dental health, try to avoid overdoing sugary beverages and acidic drinks.

• Eat Healthy Foods

It’s always a good idea to eat nutritious foods, but it’s especially important when you’re not feeling well. Fatty and greasy foods are hard to digest. Processed, sugary, and fast foods filled with empty calories don’t provide the protein and nutrients which can encourage a speedier recovery. And studies suggest that sugar-filled foods can suppress your immune system, the network of cells and organs working together to prevent and fight infection.

A diet rich in proteins, vitamins, and minerals will help you recover when you feel up to regular meals again. Fruits and vegetables which contain vitamins A, C, and D and minerals including calcium and phosphorus are essential for tooth and gum health.

• Minimize Exposure to Germs—For Yourself and Others!

To help prevent catching colds and flu, be mindful that viruses and bacteria can live for hours and even days on non-porous surfaces like phones, keyboards, and doorknobs. Washing your hands with soap and water before touching your mouth, nose, or eyes, before brushing and flossing, and before you cook and eat will help you eliminate most of the germs which cause colds and flu.

If you do catch something, be mindful of your interactions with others. You can help stop the spread of germs by limiting contact with other people, masking, and covering your mouth and nose when you sneeze or cough.

Protect yourself and those around you by being careful with dental hygiene. Never share your toothbrush with others. Don’t let toothbrushes touch in a common container. Always let your toothbrush air-dry since germs prefer moist environments.

And, while it’s unlikely that you’ll re-catch a cold from your toothbrush, brushes are only at their best for three to four months. If yours is past its prime, post-illness is a perfect time to replace your old brush with a clean new one.

• Be Choosy with OTC Medicine

Many cough syrups and cough drops are filled with sugar. Consider sugar-free syrups, or, if you use cough or cold medications which include sugar, rinse or brush afterward.

Look for sugar-free cough drops, which won’t bathe your enamel in sugar as they dissolve. And never crunch down on cough drops. A chipped tooth or cracked enamel certainly won’t make you feel better!

• Keep Up with Your Brushing and Flossing

Even when you feel weak and tired, it’s important to brush and floss as usual—with one exception.

Vomiting brings up harsh stomach acids which weaken the mineral bonds keeping tooth enamel strong. Brushing right away can spread these acids around your mouth and your enamel. If you vomit, rinse your mouth with water and wait 30 minutes before brushing to allow your enamel to come back to full strength.

• Stay Home When You’re Sick

You’ll get better faster when you take care of yourself, which includes getting the rest you need to recover. And beyond doing something for your own health, you won’t be risking the health of the people around you.

If you have an appointment scheduled with Dr. Herrmann, Dr. Jones, Dr. Kugler, Dr. Loschen, Dr. McClenahan, and Dr. Downey, reschedule as necessary. Your dental team at Prairie Meadows Dental will be happy to accommodate you to prevent the spread of colds and flu and to make your appointment a more comfortable one.

Don’t let cold and flu season ruin one of the most beautiful times of the year! Follow your doctor’s advice, take good care of yourself when you’re ill, and visit Dr. Herrmann, Dr. Jones, Dr. Kugler, Dr. Loschen, Dr. McClenahan, and Dr. Downey again once you’re feeling better for proactive and restorative dental care.

Want to make Halloween a bit less frightening? Just a bit less, mind you! After all, Halloween wouldn’t be Halloween without ghosts, witches, skeletons, and the whole ghoulish crew.

But while the eerily unexpected is half the fun of Halloween in Kearney, Overton or Gibbon, unexpected dental problems are no fun at all. That’s why we’ve come up with some fiendishly clever ideas to help you enjoy Halloween treats without tricky consequences.

Beware These Bites

You don’t need a crystal ball to decide which treats are the most sinister for your dental health—hard, sticky, and sour candies are frightful choices for good reasons.

• Hard candies, jawbreakers, lollipops, candied apples, and other candies with hard surfaces take a long time to dissolve in your mouth, exposing your teeth to sugar over a longer period. Even worse, you may be tempted to bite down on them, which can lead to chipped and cracked teeth.
• Sticky and chewy candies like gummies, candy corn, jellybeans, caramels, and fruit chews stick to your enamel and between your teeth, again exposing your teeth to more sugar over a longer period.
• Sour candies, whether they take the form of hard candy, gummies, chews, or straws, are especially bad for your enamel. Candies are sour because of their acidity, and acids erode enamel strength. Weak spots on the tooth surface are the first stage of cavity development.

Avoid Unnerving Orthodontic Events

If you wear braces, eating the wrong treats can come back to haunt you. Chewy foods can pull a bracket right off your tooth. Hard and crunchy foods break wires and brackets. Sticky foods pull on your braces and can be hard to brush away.

Damaged braces mean extra trips to the orthodontist for repair, and can even delay your treatment if the damage is significant and you can’t see your orthodontist right away. Eek!

Instead, talk to Dr. Herrmann, Dr. Jones, Dr. Kugler, Dr. Loschen, Dr. McClenahan, and Dr. Downey about which foods are safe options. Treats like peanut butter cups, mint patties, soft chocolate bars without nuts, and other braces-friendly options will let you enjoy a sweet Halloween night without braces-frightful consequences.

If you wear aligners, always remove your aligners whenever you eat to protect them from warping, cracking, bending, and staining. If you go out, remember to bring your protective case. The night’s no fun if your aligners have *disappeared* at the end of the evening.

And don’t let the time get away from you! Most aligners need to be worn 20-22 hours each day. While you won’t turn into a pumpkin if you party too long without your aligners, you could delay your orthodontic progress if you don’t get your scheduled hours in regularly.

Timely Treating

We can’t wave a wand to vanish cavities, so prevention is key. When you enjoy holiday treats (or any desserts), it’s good idea to eat them in moderation and with a meal. This way, your teeth are exposed to sugars and acids over a limited period. And, as you eat, saliva production increases, which helps neutralize destructive acids and wash away food particles before they can harm your enamel.

Water Works Like Magic!

Water has many bewitching qualities.

• Healthy hydration supports healthy oral tissues and saliva production.
• Water contains no sugars or acids which can damage enamel.
• Drinking water is a great choice if you wear braces, because water helps wash food particles from brackets and wires when you can’t brush.
• Water is the only good beverage choice if you’re wearing aligners. Sugary and acidic beverages which collect in your trays bathe your teeth in those sugars and acids. Some darker drinks can stain your aligners—and your teeth!

Vanishing Food Particles and Plaque

Halloween is meant to be extra. And brushing and flossing are extra important this time of year to make sticky, sugary food particles and plaque disappear ASAP.

Make sure you brush for two minutes at least twice each day and floss once a day to prevent extra Halloween sugars from lurking around your teeth and gums. In fact, it’s a good idea to brush soon after any sugary treat to deprive cavity-causing bacteria of their favorite source of nourishment.

Proactive dental care isn’t magic. Communication and effort are all it takes! Talk to your dental team at Prairie Meadows Dental about the best way to celebrate Halloween without conjuring up problems for your teeth and gums. And when you’re out sharing your holiday spirit, don’t forget to treat your friends to your boo-tiful, healthy smile!

What a milestone! The transition from bottle to sippy cup is one of baby’s first steps toward toddler independence. And like all first journeys, some helpful guideposts come in handy. That’s why Dr. Herrmann, Dr. Jones, Dr. Kugler, Dr. Loschen, Dr. McClenahan, and Dr. Downey and our team have several recommendations to help you navigate this transition, making sure your baby’s dental health is protected along the way.

Choosing a Sippy Cup

Sippy cups are often a parent’s first choice for this big step in baby’s development. While sippy cups offer a variety of child-safe materials, lively colors, and comfortable handle options, the feature of interest from a dental perspective is lid design.

Sippy cups curb spills because their lids don’t allow liquids to flow out freely, ensuring that drinks make it into baby’s mouth instead of onto furniture or floor. Cup lids might incorporate:

• Built-in straws
• A drinking edge around the rim of the cup which seals when your child isn’t drinking
• Soft spouts
• Hard spouts
• Spouts with valves to prevent liquids from leaking out. (Spouts with valves work like a nipple, which means baby is sucking instead of sipping.)

Which design is best? For short periods, any of these designs can work for you. Over long periods, spouted cups could have the same effects as prolonged thumb-sucking and pacifier use, potentially affecting a child’s tongue positioning, tooth alignment, bite, and speech development. Your dentist will be able to suggest which cups are best for your child’s dental health both short and long term.

What to Put in a Sippy Cup

Once your baby has begun drinking from a cup, it should only hold tooth-friendly drinks.

• Pediatricians generally recommend breast milk and/or formula until your child is 12 months old. You can switch to regular milk (or a healthy milk alternative) once your child is a year old with your doctor’s okay.
• Water can be introduced when your pediatrician thinks your child is ready, usually around the age of six months.
• Because even natural fruit juices have lots of sugar, dentists and pediatricians suggest giving your baby small amounts only—or feed your child fruit instead!
• Skip the sugared drinks, sports drinks, caffeinated drinks, and sodas. They aren’t healthy for little bodies or little teeth.

Help Prevent Tooth Decay

Just like adults, babies can suffer tooth decay, too—and for the same reasons. The bacteria in plaque use the sugars found in our diets to create acids, and acids erode tooth enamel.

When a toddler totes a sippy cup around all day, even filled with healthy drinks, those baby teeth are constantly exposed to the natural sugars found in breast milk, formula, and, for older children, milk. Drinks with more or added sugars, such as juices or sweetened drinks, cause more damage to tooth enamel. Use a sippy cup wisely:

• Offer the cup with meals and snacks, when increased saliva production can help wash away sugars and neutralize the acids which cause cavities.
• Offer water between meals.
• Don’t let your baby take a sippy cup to bed. Some spill-proof cups are designed to be sucked like bottles, and, like bottles, sugary liquids can pool in babies’ mouths as they sleep.
• Get into a tooth-cleaning routine as soon as your child’s teeth start to arrive.

And, while we’re talking about healthy teeth, please don’t let your child toddle around with a sippy cup. A fall while drinking can injure a baby’s mouth and teeth.

Partner with Your Child’s Dentist

The journey from baby to toddler can seem overwhelming sometimes for both you and your child, but you have expert help available! It's a good idea to make a first dental appointment at our Kearney, Overton or Gibbon office sometime between the appearance of the first baby tooth and your child’s first birthday. This initial visit is an opportunity for Dr. Herrmann, Dr. Jones, Dr. Kugler, Dr. Loschen, Dr. McClenahan, and Dr. Downey to:

• Check your child’s overall dental health and development.
• Look for signs of early decay.
• Talk about proactive dental care, including how and when to clean your child’s teeth.
• Answer questions about how you can support your child’s dental health, including the advantages and disadvantages of sippy cups.

Used properly, sippy cups can be a helpful transition on your child’s journey from bottle to cup, and from baby-who-relies-on-you-for-everything to take-charge-toddler. Dr. Herrmann, Dr. Jones, Dr. Kugler, Dr. Loschen, Dr. McClenahan, and Dr. Downey and our team are an ideal guide as you and your child chart this path together.

A dental emergency can strike anywhere, anytime, and without warning. Perhaps you’re playing a game of touch football on Thanksgiving and your brother-in-law decides to up the ante and tackles you, accidentally knocking out your two front teeth. Or maybe you’re on vacation somewhere in the tropics and decide to go deep-sea fishing, but when you’re climbing onto the boat you slip on the dock, fall, and chip three of your teeth. From misplaced fly balls to bagel seeds causing a painful bout of inflammation, there are all kinds of dental emergencies.

Here are the five most common reasons for emergency care visits.

1. Somehow you've managed to knock out a tooth. Whether it's the result of a sports injury or because of decay, when you lose a tooth, you need emergency dental care. If the tooth is salvageable, then it can be reattached to the socket, but this needs to be done within a one- or two-hour window.
2. A chipped tooth is the most common dental emergency. Small chips can be caused by food (chicken bones and nuts have sent many people to the dentist); however, it's usually some sort of accident or injury that more often causes a chip. While you might be embarrassed to walk around with a gaping chip in your front tooth, it is easily fixed with a bond, crown, or veneer.
3. A broken tooth is more severe than a chipped tooth. When a tooth breaks, it might be due to a small or hidden chip. However, chances are the pain and discomfort will be more severe.
4. It might seem comical, but getting a piece of food lodged in the wrong place can result in a dental emergency. If something gets stuck deep in a crevice, it can cause pain and inflammation.
5. The loss of a filling happens more often than you think. When you lose a filling, you need to receive emergency care immediately. If you don’t, you risk further damage to your tooth.

When you injure your teeth or mouth, you need to seek emergency care as soon as possible. In the event of a suspected emergency, don't wait. Contact Dr. Herrmann, Dr. Jones, Dr. Kugler, Dr. Loschen, Dr. McClenahan, and Dr. Downey immediately.