Speaker 1: It's Friday August. I'm Oscar Emrrors from the Daily Dive
Speaker 1: podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America. As
Speaker 1: dentists have started to open up, they are seeing patients
Speaker 1: come in with a new set of symptoms and they
Speaker 1: are dubbing it mask mouth. Dentists are seeing inflammation and gums,
Speaker 1: decaying teeth and really bad breath. Wearing a mask can
Speaker 1: lead to dry mouth and a host of other problems
Speaker 1: unless proper precautions are taken. Milkorka Lisaya, features writer at
Speaker 1: The New York Post, joins us for what to do
Speaker 1: about mask mouth. Thanks for joining us, milk Corka, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for having me. So. Dentists have been
Speaker 1: reopening their doors and they're saying that some of their
Speaker 1: patients are coming in with a new set of symptoms
Speaker 1: that they've called mask mouth. Obviously this has to do
Speaker 1: with wearing the face coverings because of the coronavirus pandemic,
Speaker 1: and they're saying that people are coming in and having
Speaker 1: some problems. I love the quote from one dentist that
Speaker 1: she spoke to. Quote, patients are coming into us like, wow,
Speaker 1: my breath smells. I need a cleaning so I saw that.
Speaker 1: I thought it was hilarious, but you know, some of
Speaker 1: the reasonings behind it seemed to be generally true. So
Speaker 1: tell us what you're hearing from dentists about mask mouth.
Speaker 1: So one of the big things about wearing a mask
Speaker 1: is that we tend to want to breathe with our
Speaker 1: mouths open, which is something that you know, typically without
Speaker 1: a mask on, you wouldn't be doing. So when you
Speaker 1: start to breathe with your mouth open, it actually makes
Speaker 1: your mouth get dry and your saliva doesn't cover your
Speaker 1: teeth the way it should, which is leading to some
Speaker 1: of these issues. And what kind of things are they
Speaker 1: seeing in actual people's mouth. There's issues with gums and cavities.
Speaker 1: There's a bunch of things they're looking at. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's leading to just more general bacteria in the mouth,
Speaker 1: So that could lead to gum disease, it can lead
Speaker 1: to cavities, and if it's not taking care of, it
Speaker 1: could lead to more serious things like, you know, a
Speaker 1: heart attack, which hopefully messing like that would happen. But
Speaker 1: yet it's sort of exacerbating these issues. Why did they
Speaker 1: come up with that name of mask mouth? So they
Speaker 1: told me, you know, it's catchy. Of course it has
Speaker 1: the alliteration, but also it's sort of a play on
Speaker 1: mess mouth, which most of us are familiar with, but
Speaker 1: for those of us who are not, it's uh when
Speaker 1: people get you know, black and cracked teeth from doing mess. Now,
Speaker 1: this is an interesting story to me only because obviously
Speaker 1: throughout the pandemic a lot of things shut down and
Speaker 1: people weren't doing a lot of their routine checkups, whether
Speaker 1: it be at the doctor's office or at dentist office,
Speaker 1: and there has been this conversation about is it safe
Speaker 1: to go back to these things. Actually, the w h O,
Speaker 1: the World Health Organization, just offered some new guidance saying
Speaker 1: that you should be careful about going to your dentist
Speaker 1: office and delay some of these routine dental checkups because
Speaker 1: of what goes on there. Obviously, the dentist is right
Speaker 1: in your mouth. They use sprays and different things that
Speaker 1: could kick up virus particles. So when I saw this
Speaker 1: in my head, I was like, well, dentists want to
Speaker 1: get back to work. They want people to not put
Speaker 1: stuff off. So they're talking about some of these problems
Speaker 1: that people are experiencing now. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: the who has conflicting guidance, so it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: who do you believe in this kind of situation? Totally Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it really does just come down
Speaker 1: to taking really good care of your teeth right now,
Speaker 1: whether or not it is going into the dentist, but
Speaker 1: just like take oral hygiene, maybe more seriously than ever.
Speaker 1: Sounds like a safe in between. And I think the
Speaker 1: w h O even offered guidance saying, well, you should
Speaker 1: do like some type of telemedicine thing, you know, get
Speaker 1: on a skype call or zoom call with your patients
Speaker 1: and instruct them on how to properly take care of yourself.
Speaker 1: So in the dentist that you spoke to about this,
Speaker 1: what did they say? What can we do to try
Speaker 1: to cut down on this mask mouth? Yeah, so they
Speaker 1: basically were like, simple, try to breathe with your mouth cloth,
Speaker 1: with your mouth closed, and with your nose um and
Speaker 1: and things like um, using a tongue scraper. They said,
Speaker 1: it is really great, um, just to get all that
Speaker 1: bacteria off. Maybe to brush your teeth more are often
Speaker 1: during the day, three times a day, and to definitely
Speaker 1: slop and use mouthwash very regularly. Are all good things
Speaker 1: to do, and they also recommended, uh, you know, to
Speaker 1: maybe cut down on things that dehydrated, so coffee and alcohol.
Speaker 1: If you can cut that down, it helps keep the
Speaker 1: saliva in the mouth. Yeah, drinking a lot of water,
Speaker 1: which you know obviously once you have the mask on,
Speaker 1: it's tough to do all these things. So it's just
Speaker 1: kind of be conscious of these slight adjustments that we
Speaker 1: should be making so you don't get the really smelly
Speaker 1: breath out of this. And I mean, I guess it's
Speaker 1: coming across if dentists are talking about it that way. Yeah, totally,
Speaker 1: And I mean it does make sense if you're wearing
Speaker 1: a mask, we all are like suddenly like, wait, does
Speaker 1: my breath smell like that? Look more aware of it.
Speaker 1: Suddenly now you're only smelling your own breath exactly. It's like,
Speaker 1: oh god, Okay. Malkorka Lisaya, features writer at The New
Speaker 1: York Post, thank you very much for joining us. Of course,
Speaker 1: thank you so much again. I'm Oscar rom Us and
Speaker 1: this has been reopening America. Don't forget effort. Today's big
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