Why January is the Best Time to Schedule Your Next Dental Appointment

From Halloween through the New Year, many Americans live a life of abundance, sugar abundance that is.

The average American consumes over 150 pounds of sugar each year with more than half of that being consumed between Halloween and the New Year.

When broken down into daily intake, the average American eats 47 teaspoons of sugar per day.

With all of the Halloween cookies and candies, Thanksgiving feasts and days of leftovers and numerous Christmas gatherings, we are bombarding our teeth with sugar during a small three month window.

Halloween is when the gluttony begins for most of us.

Americans spend $2.08 billion dollars on candy during Halloween. That translates to about 600 million pounds of candy!

Here’s the most telling statistic: The average American eats 3.4 pounds of candy during Halloween.

Adults with children, tend to eat more due to “hiding” and “disposing” of all of the candy their children get on Halloween.

Every time you eat a single piece of candy, you are giving the bacteria that live in your mouth food for fuel. Bacteria use the sugar in candy to create acid. The acid is the byproduct of the bacteria consuming the sugar. The acid then sits against your teeth and eats away at your enamel.

When the enamel on your teeth is compromised, cavities form.

Thanksgiving is the second big event during our short period of celebration.

While many Americans celebrate togetherness with huge feasts and big family and friend dinners, we eat tons of cakes, pies and other carbohydrates.

After crafting huge delicious dishes, we often graze on the food throughout the day and over the next few days.

That means we are constantly replenishing the food supply for the bacteria and most people do not make it a point to either rinse their mouths out or brush their teeth after these small, frequent snacks.

Lastly, many Americans celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah.

Both of these holidays are filled with delicious foods and overindulgence.

Between making cookies for Santa, sufganiot (deep-fried doughnuts) during Hanukkah and baking holiday treats to share as gifts, we finish out the year with tighter pants and sugar-filled mouths.

By the time January 1st rolls around, our teeth and tummies are in great need of some care and restraint.

That makes it the perfect time to schedule your appointment with your dentist and clean off all of the tartar that has built up during your three month splurge.

There is one more benefit to scheduling your next dental cleaning in January.

Many of us have trouble remembering when to schedule certain things. By scheduling your Dental Hygiene appointment at the beginning of every year, it might make it easier to remember January and July! Those are the months when I get my teeth cleaned! Begin the New Year off with a beautiful, clean smile.

So, don’t let another day go by. Schedule an appointment to get your teeth cleaned today!