When we think about good health, what comes to mind is the overall human body only. We even go ahead to regularly participate in health and wellness activities like eating healthy, gym and aerobics. However, the health of one key area of the body, the mouth, is most often neglected.

In another exciting episode of Time with the Dentist, Pepsodent Ghana’s Dental TV show, Dr Gwendolyn Amarquaye-Bayitse, a dentist, stipulates a few simple and good tips that can improve our oral hygiene and possibly prevent diseases.

The first oral health tip by Dr Gwendolyn is that we should “rinse our mouth with water immediately after eating. She calls this process switch and swallow. You first switch with the water in your mouth and swallow afterwards. This will reduce the number of food particles that stay in your mouth after eating”.

Her second tip to maintaining good oral health care is to change our toothbrushes every three months. Toothbrushes must be kept in reasonable condition all the time to enable them to clean the teeth very well.

“Always remember to brush your teeth twice every day, day and night in the morning and just before bedtime”, Dr Gwendolyn Amarquaye-Bayitse said as her third tip.

She goes on further to emphasize the need to stay away from unhealthy, acidic and sugary foods. These do more harm than good to our teeth. Instead, we must endeavour to eat crunchy foods and also foods that contain vegetables.

She advises we make sure to drink a lot of water throughout the day since water is a good cleanser and helps reduce the plaque on the teeth.

According to Dr Gwendolyn, let us not “use our teeth for non-eating activities like opening bottle tops. The teeth are hard, but they can break with such activities”.

Finally, we must ensure to visit the dentist every six months or at least once a year, remember to choose a soft-bristled toothbrush and change it every three months, brush twice daily, day and night and always invite your family to brush with you. Take charge of your oral health today!

These are just some tips from Pepsodent and Dr Gwendolyn but do you have any of your own to share? Please share them on Pepsodent’s social media pages and enlighten a friend.

Time with The Dentist is a dental TV show by Pepsodent in partnership with the Ghana Dental Association. The show seeks to educate Ghanaians on basic oral hygiene routines, care for the teeth and some myths and facts about maintaining good oral hygiene.

It shows weekly on TV3, Adom TV, UTV, MX24 and GHOne TV.