Foods That Create Dental Emergencies And What To Do About These Situations
Dental emergencies are frequently caused by car accidents, falls from great heights, and getting slammed in the face with force. What you might not expect is for the food you eat to cause a dental emergency. Yet, many dental emergencies are caused by various foods. Here are just some of the dental emergencies that might cause you to run to the dentist and what to do about these situations.
Hard Candies, Suckers, and Jawbreakers
There is a reason that these hard syrup and compacted sugar candies are sucked and/or licked. By sucking on them, you extend the pleasure of enjoying something sweet or tart much longer than a chewy or soft candy.
However, hard candies such as these are the most common causes of broken teeth. It only takes one hard bite down on the wrong fragile tooth, and you have a gaping, sharp-edged mess where a tooth used to be. If you absolutely cannot live without hard candies, suck on them until they are just little slivers in your mouth before you attempt to crunch them up; do not bite them half-sucked.
Bone Chips
You do not intend to chomp on bones like your canine friend, but sometimes you cannot avoid it. A lot of ground meat frequently ends up with a bone chip or two in it. That is particularly nasty in and of itself, but it gets worse when you bite down on the bone chip and the chip is wedged hard into your gums or between your teeth. As you bleed and try desperately to pick or floss the chip out, you realize you can only manage this with the help of your dentist. Additionally, the bone chip has to be removed right away, or you could develop an infection in your gums.
As far as bone chips are concerned, the only thing you can do is to grind your own meat. This requires purchasing a grinder and selecting boneless cuts of meat that do not have tendons, gristle, or hard rinds of fat. Grinding your own meat produces leaner burgers and other ground meat dishes with no bone chips.
Frozen Soft Candy
Whoever came up with this idea should probably be deported from his/her own country. It is doubly dangerous for teeth to try and consume frozen soft candy. For example, you walk into a convenience store and you see a bunch of candy bars containing nuts and caramel in the refrigeration case. You want to try it, so you buy one. The problem is, all of the ingredients in this candy bar were never designed to be frozen. The direct result is a candy bar you cannot bite without intense pressure and a modicum of pain as you try every which way to get your teeth through this frozen bar.
If you are lucky, you will not break several of your teeth on the nuts and caramel in the bar. Then the ultra sticky candy will just rot your teeth. If you are not so lucky, every attempt to bite through this frozen treat brings you closer to several broken teeth. If you want a frozen treat, opt for ice cream instead. It is less likely to shear your teeth in half.
Rinds of Fruits and Vegetables
In some parts of this country, and in many other countries, eating hard exterior rinds of fruits and vegetables is considered healthy. The rind of a watermelon still holds lots of water, and Southerners enjoy it pickled. The rind of a pumpkin has lots of beta carotene. Still, the rinds are very hard and not really suitable for your teeth. If you have to eat them, wash them well and then throw them in a blender.
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