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Investing in your health can be one of the most major and best investments of your life. Your health is what drives you through the days and weeks and ensures that you are ready to take on the world every day. We take all kinds of measures to take care of our body, but how often do we think about the maintenance of our dental health? People generally tend to overlook this aspect of their health and choose to focus on other parts of their bodies. However, without proper dental health, simple tasks like eating and drinking can become difficult. We see that as people age, their dental health slowly deteriorates and they begin to lose their teeth. Though it can be difficult for most people, imagine how difficult it can be for those who are suffering through it at an early age. A dental checkup once in a while can go a long way in taking care of your dental health. A well-informed dentist can guide you on how to maintain your dental health, not just in the here and now but also on how to maintain it throughout your life.

Here are some of the lifelong benefits of maintaining your dental health.

Boosted self-confidence

If you are constantly insecure about your smile, it could harm your overall self-confidence. The first major aspect which is going to be affected is how much you laugh and smile. Since you often show your teeth when you smile or laugh, you may unconsciously restrict yourself from doing so and may even feel embarrassed at times.
After a quick visit to a dentist in Brisbane, you can be on the right track to regaining your self-confidence. A dentist can fix whatever issues you are having with your dental care and ensure that your self-confidence does not lack in any way, at least in this one aspect.
People with Body Dysmorphic Disorder often cite their teeth as a major aspect of insecurity. With a couple of trips to the dentist, you can do away with that insecurity altogether.

Prevention from diseases

There is no surprise in the fact that there are a lot of bacteria in your mouth. If not taken care of, your mouth can become extremely susceptible to diseases that could seriously affect your overall health. Following basic dental hygiene recommendations that your dentist provides you with can go a long way in ensuring that you prevent oral diseases as much as possible. Understandably, when falling sick from a mouth disease, your overall health is going to take a major hit as well.

Your teeth remain strong your whole life

If you have followed a good dental hygiene regime from a young age, you can be sure that your teeth are going to hold up for the rest of your life. Frequent brushing and flossing cleans the teeth and ensures that dirt and plaque build-up does not negatively affect your oral health in any way. Moreover, the fluoride and calcium in your toothpaste can help strengthen your teeth and ensure that they are strong enough to withstand the pressure of your jaw when eating hard food. Maintaining these measures as frequently as possible is going to ensure that you take your teeth with you into your golden years. You wouldn’t want to be losing your teeth in middle age now, would you?

Your gums need to remain strong as well

Your gums play a huge role in maintaining your oral health. Your gums can fall prey to several diseases as well. Moreover, if you have a cut or tear in your gums, it’s almost the same as having an open wound. In fact, it’s worse! An external wound isn’t subject to bacteria from the breakdown of food. Open gums wounds can become a real risk if they become infected. With your gums weakening, your teeth could suffer as well. You wouldn’t want your teeth to become loose as well and fall out in extreme cases.
It’s important to take care of your gums with antiseptic mouthwash whenever you can. Moreover, if you have an open wound in your mouth, you should pay extra attention to it to make sure that you do not fall prey to any infections.

Ensuring that your teeth can withstand the pressure of tough foods

Sometimes, we don’t realize how destructive some of the things we eat can be for our teeth. For example, chewing on hard candy can have a terrible effect on your teeth. Hard candy can sometimes break your teeth if your teeth aren’t strong enough to handle the pressure which they are put under. A good dental plan set out by your dentist can ensure that you have strong teeth.

Conclusion

Our dental health is, unfortunately extremely overlooked at times. We take measures to ensure that we are physically fit all the time but not orally. We must give our dental health the attention it needs. After all, we wouldn’t want to be drinking our food in the future, would we?
If we want our teeth to last for the rest of our lives, we need to start taking care of them. Consider a trip to the dentist to gain a fair idea of what you should do. After that, you can start working towards taking care of them in the most effective way.

We don’t realize how important good dental hygiene can be to our health. Ensuring that your mouth is clean means that you will avoid bad breath, gum disease and tooth decay. But it does much more than that. Do you know that keeping a healthy mouth can help you avoid more serious health problems too? Let’s learn more.

What is Good Dental Hygiene?

Before we discuss how good dental hygiene can help us, let us first find out what it is.

Dental hygiene is the process of keeping your mouth, gums and teeth clean and healthy. Your teeth should be free of debris and clean, your gums should be pink and not hurt or bleed when you floss or brush, and you don’t have a problem with bad breath.

If you have bleeding gums, pain in your gums or have bad breath, then it’s time to visit the dentist. Any of these problems could indicate for serious issues.

How Do You Maintain Good Dental Hygiene?

Here are the steps you need to take to maintain good dental hygiene:

• Brushing your teeth thoroughly two times a day with a toothpaste that contains fluoride.
• Flossing after brushing to get out the debris between your teeth.
• Eating a well-balanced and healthy diet.
• Avoiding snacking between meals.
• Use mouthwash that contains fluoride for added protection.
• Avoid sweetened drinks (or at least reduce your consumption of such drinks).
• Drink lots of fluoridated water to wash away sugars and acids from your mouth.
• Get your teeth cleaned professionally regularly since plaque is not completely eradicated by brushing.

Oral Diseases Caused by Poor Hygiene

If you don’t take care of your mouth, you could end up with oral diseases such as:

Tooth Decay

When you don’t clean your mouth properly, it becomes a breeding ground for bacteria. There are, in fact, more than 300 different types of bacteria that live in our mouths. Many of these bacteria can cause infections that lead to tooth decay. Tooth decay is an infection disease that can spread to other teeth in your mouth. If it isn’t treated on time, you could end up with cavities at the best, and actually lose your teeth at the worst.

Periodontal Disease

This is an infection of the gum where the bacteria destroy the tissues of the gums and bone. As the disease progresses, your teeth become loose, and chewing becomes difficult and painful. Severe periodontal disease can lead to the loss of your teeth and severe health problems.

Gingivitis

This is the first stage of periodontal disease, where your gums become inflamed. Some of the first signs of this disorder are bleeding gums.

Other Diseases

If you think that poor dental hygiene only causes problems in your mouth, you are very much mistaken. Poor dental hygiene can lead to or contribute to more serious health conditions such as:

Heart Disease

When bacteria spreads from your mouth to the other parts of your body via the blood stream, you can end up getting heart disease. These bacteria attach themselves to damaged parts of your heart (especially if you have artificial valves in your heart), leading to cardiovascular disease.

Endocarditis

This is heart disease where the inner lining of heart gets infected.

Atherosclerosis and Stroke

Atherosclerosis, which is the technical term for clogged arteries, and strokes have been directly linked to oral bacterial infections.

Low Birth Weight

Oral infections can cause your baby to be born with low birth weight.

Premature Birth

If you have a bacterial infection caused by poor dental hygiene and are pregnant, your baby could end up being born premature.

Have you found yourself at a loss for words and having not a clue about what your dentist is telling you? While it is encouraged that you ask your dentist for further explanation, it wouldn’t hurt if you have an inkling on some dental terms beforehand.

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We’ve all been there, the dentist outlining the type of treatment you need and you having no idea what it really means. You are probably quite aware of what a filling is and also what a cavity is, you may also have probably heard of tooth decay, but what about endodontic treatment? Any ideas?

Before undergoing procedures such as root canal or endodontic treatment in Sydney or in any other cities, the dentist handling your case will be explaining everything to you. As the vast majority of us have never attended dental school, it will be helpful on your part to have a bit of an idea what your dentist will be talking about, and this article will attempt to unlock some of the mystery from these dental terms and outline the procedures in plain English. There are of course many other dental terms that you might hear from time to time, but the most common ones are detailed below.

Please see below for a list of terms and what they actually mean.

Common Dental Terms And What They Actually Are

As previously stated, you may have already heard of some of the terms detailed below but perhaps not know what they actually mean.

• Filling – to fill a hole (cavity) in a tooth
• Abscess– an infection in the tooth, soft tissue or bone
• Bite– relationship between upper and lower jaw when closed
• Bleaching– chemical process used to lighten or whiten existing teeth
• Braces– devices designed and fitted by orthodontist to align teeth correctly
• Bridge– a fixed partial denture to replace one or more missing teeth
• Cosmetic Dentistry– a field of dentistry used to lighten or reshape teeth (bleaching is one of the procedures available)
• Crown– dental restoration that covers all or part of the damaged natural tooth; made of metal, porcelain or composite
• Decay– destruction of teeth caused by bacteria
• Denture– removable or permanent artificial teeth
• Enamel– the hard material that covers the outside bit of the tooth that lies above the gumline
• Endodontics– an area of dentistry that concentrates on the biology and pathology of dental pulp and root tissues
• Root Canal Treatment– an endodontic dental procedure (see above)
• Extraction– tooth removal
• Fluoride– a mineral that strengthens tooth enamel and helps prevent decay; present in most toothpastes and can also be applied by a dentist
• Implant– a metal rod that is placed in the upper or lower jawbone which serves as a tooth root or crown anchor
• Paediatric Dentist– a dentist that specialises in treating young children
• Plaque –a sticky film of undigested food mixed with saliva and bacteria that can cause gum disease and other oral health problems if left untreated
• Veneer – a custom made shell that is applied to the tooth to improve appearance
• X-Ray– allows the dentist a detailed look at elements that are not visible with a regular inspection

 

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All of the above dentistry terms are in common usage in Australia and across the world. If you require further information regarding any other dental term or procedure, just ask your dentist.