Tips for Your Travel

Staying on track with your healthy oral health-care routine can be hard. It can be even harder when you are trying to relax on vaycay! Help yourself with these travel tips to stay healthy in the mouth.

Keep it Handy!

When traveling, a good travel tip is to find convenient places you can stash your dental supplies. For example, the glove box! What is more irritating than taking a break at a rest stop on your road trip and having to dig through your suitcase for your toothbrush?

Air Dry for Freshness

We all appreciate having a travel case for our toothbrush.  Afterall, it keeps it from touching unclean surfaces and prevents us from losing our stuff! However, storing our brush in these cases when wet can be a breeding ground for moist environment loving bacteria! Instead, allow your brush to air dry before putting it back in its case.

Carry-On is Best

When flying, keep a small tube of toothpaste in a quart- size seal-able plastic bag, along with your toothbrush and floss. Airplanes allow each container to have up to 3.4 oz of liquid or gel.
In this way, you can keep your health smile despite being stuck on a long flight or any layovers.

But First- the Dentist!

If you are experiencing any issues, even minor ones, before your trip, get it checked! There is no better way to ruin a vacation than to have that toothache that you had been ignoring flare up!
According to Delta Dental, “Air trapped in your teeth can expand or contract at extreme altitudes, causing pain, inflammation and even loose fillings, crowns or dentures. This condition, called “tooth squeeze” or barodontalgia, can also occur while scuba diving.” So a pre-trip check by your dentist of any restorations in your mouth is a good idea!

Relax, but Not on Your Routine

Remember, germs don’t go on vacation while you’re away! Keep up your daily brushing and flossing. After all, you want a nice smile in those vacation pics!

As always, Dr. Perry is your go to dentist! Let him take care of all your pre-trip dental check ups and take these travel tips to heart!