Practicing good dental health is important to maintaining a healthy mouth, teeth and gums. It will also help your appearance and quality of life.
Your dental health team consists of you and dental health professionals. Together, you can prevent many dental problems from causing a diminished quality of life and potential medical complications.
Your dental health professionals include:
Dental specialists:
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Periodontist
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Orthodontist
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Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
Diseased, crooked or missing teeth or a misshapen jaw can interfere with your speech; make chewing your food properly difficult and painful; and lead to expensive corrective procedures.
Cavities are painful places on your teeth where decay has eaten through the enamel and exposed a tooth's root. Hot or cold food or liquids can send a painful signal that something is wrong.
Cavities may not have any symptoms until after significant damage to the tooth. This is why regular visits to your dental professional are so important. Early signs of tooth decay are easier to treat than advanced cases.
Thanks to modern dental technology, treating tooth decay, especially in the early stages, is often only mildly uncomfortable, at its worse. Medications that numb the area of the decay eliminate the pain of filling a cavity for most people.
Complication
Another complication of poor oral health is gum disease, which can be mild in the initial stages, but lead to much more severe problems if untreated. Gum disease or periodontal disease may cause loss of teeth, infections and other complications.
In addition to complications for your teeth and gums, research has linked periodontal disease to other health problems including heart complications, strokes, diabetes complications and respiratory issues.
Good dental health is a combination of proper daily maintenance (brushing and flossing) along with regular visits to your dental care professional.
People with crooked teeth, misaligned jaws and other problems with their mouth can often benefit from orthodontic procedures, such as braces or other techniques to correct the problems.
Your dental health professional can help you decide how to address the problems. Braces, once for adolescents only, can help people of all ages correct problems with their teeth and jaws. Not only do orthodontic procedures help your appearance, but they can also improve chewing and proper digestion of food along with some speech problems.
Regular visits to your dental health professional help you maintain healthy teeth, gums and mouth.
