Need an excuse to eat more? Schedule dental surgery.
People should start eating 25 percent more when they get a dental infection or a week before scheduled dental work so they'll heal faster, says Dr. Winston Morris, an orthodontist-endodontist who lectures for the Academy of General Dentistry.Vitamin C, calcium and fiber have a tremendous effect on infections and tissue wounds, he said. Smokers should be even more conscious about eating more when they have dental work.
"The nicotine depletes vitamin C, a deficiency that shows up first in the gums," Morris said in a recent interview. "Smokers are now thought to need three times the intake of vitamin C."
The nutrients can come from food or vitamin supplements, but Morris said results are best when nutrients are taken as a group. That means food like orange juice and milk, or multiple vitamins.
One of the problems with dental work, of course, is that any pain in the mouth tends to diminish the pleasures of eating. Thus, people usually eat less instead of more when recovering from tooth and gum work.
This is bad, said Morris, because the fever that sometimes accompanies a dental problem robs the body of nutrients.
"We've found that for every one degree Fahrenheit that the body temperature rises, there is a 12 percent increase in the total nutrient needs for the body," said Morris, of Lakeland, Fla.
After dental work, drink lots of water and skim milk: eight eight-ounce glasses of water and five glasses of skim milk per day, said Morris. The calcium in milk aids bone healing and is especially important after root canal work and wisdom tooth removal.
Clinical tests have shown that an increase in vitamin C after wisdom tooth extraction diminished a common problem known as dry socket, when blood doesn't clot properly.
Keep drinking extra glasses of milk and water for six weeks after a root canal or tooth extraction and two weeks after soft tissue surgery, Morris advised. He recommended eight glasses of water daily just to maintain good dental health.