An earlier post i saw on here concerning teeth has got me thinking of a few questions i have.
What’s the best thing to use for repairing softened enamel?
What’s the best thing to use to whiten teeth?
What is the easiest way to quit drinking soda pop…i desperately want to stop…but i don’t have the drive. Is there a way i can trick my body into thinking i’m getting the caffeine and sugar while taking in much less corrosive substances?
Iced tea or coffee, but it’ll stain your teeth, too.
You could just not buy it when you go to the store. You may still get it when you go out to eat or whatever, but you won’t have it around ALL the time. This will probably cut back the intake a great deal. The plus side is that thirty seconds of resistance will last until the next time you go to the store.
If you need something to drink in its place, you might consider juice of some sort, or chocolate milk.
There’s no better drink than plain water. Imagine yourself dying of thirst after baking in the sun for 9 hours in a desert. At that point in time, a drink of water would be the sweetest, most thirst quenching thing on Earth. Develop that image in your mind each time you drink water and you will develop a taste for the healthiest, best possible drink for you: water.
They’re just as bad, they are sugary drinks too. In fact, I’m pretty sure fruit can have even more sugar than a bottle of cola.
I used to drink like 8 sodas a day. The way I broke the habit was by just forcing myself to break the habit and drink only water. Its a really hard habit to break, I used to open other people’s sodas and just smell it. :eek: I hated the taste of water but after forcing myself to drink it I now love it. I never drink soda now except for occasionally in an alcoholic beverage. There is also this fluoride mouthwash called ACT restore I think that is supposed to strengthen enamel, just take it once a day and don’t eat or drink for thirty minutes after.
Yes, that’s what my dentist recommends. He says use it right before bed and don’t rinse it off.
Eat whole pieces of fruit. Their sugar is fructose, not sucrose (which, if I understand correctly, has a lower Glycemic Index , meaning it digests slower in the body). And they are good sources of fiber, along with vitamins. To me, fruit is like candy, and it satisfies my sweet cravings enough that I don’t feel the need to eat (or drink) sugary junkfood.
Start by switching to diet soda. Then alternate regular and caffeine-free sodas. From there you could go to sparkling mineral water with juice or just flavored (no sugar) sparkling mineral water.
Best thing for “repairing” softened enamel is Fluoride > you can get it from toothpaste (look for “anti-cavity” in the label or from liquid sources like ACT;
**please note that conventional Listerine while being good for your gums, does not provide any F (they have a new kind of Listerine that does)
As far as whitening teeth, I would recommend that you start slow: buy a toothpaste that has “whitening” in it and try it for 2 weeks, see if you like the results; If you want more whiteness, switch to Crest whitestrips or something similar;
Carpe dentum!
If you need to compensate for the kick the sugar gave you, they do have sugar-free Red Bull. 
I quit soda cold turkey a number of years ago and started drinking water pretty much exclusively. I’ve recently started drinking sugar free Kool-Aid, as well as continuing to drink water. I find it helps to curb my sweet cravings. Or rather, I can give into my craving for something sweet for only 5 calories a glass! Maybe that could be a substitute for soda.
I went cold turkey about 10 years ago. I switched from having soda to water. Now I can’t even stand the idea of having a soda, and those times that I have tasted them they are way too sweet for me.
You can try having water mixed with juice. I use Newman’s grape juice because it doesn’t have any added sugar. For a 16 oz glass I might pour 1 oz worth of juice and the rest water. It still tates like juice, there’s just not as many calories.
My husband’s dentist told him to brush his teeth after drinking staining drinks like tea and coffee (he doesn’t drink soda). He said if my husband couldn’t get to a toothbrush, he should at least rinse his mouth thoroughly with water immediately after drinking tea and coffee. He does this religiously and it seems to help with reducing staining.