Oral Health & Overall Health
The Benefits of Dental Implants
What is Oral Health & Why Is It So Important?
Good oral health means that you have healthy gums and teeth, and are not at risk of tooth decay or gum disease. While most people don’t think about their oral health every day, it’s necessary to maintain good oral health habits so you can avoid serious health conditions. Regular visits to your Dental Hygienist and Dentist are an important part of your health care routine.
The Mouth-Body Connection – Oral and Overall Health
Did you know that Oral Health is just as important as Overall Health? Many people think that Oral Health is not as important, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Keeping your teeth and gums healthy with good oral hygiene plays a crucial role in your overall health, both now and in the future. The Mouth-Body connection is very important, and oral health issues can contribute to overall health issues. Heart Disease, Diabetes, low birth-weight babies etc. have all been shown to have relationships to Periodontal disease and poor oral health. If you want to learn more about how you can improve your oral health, keep reading!
1) How to Achieve & Maintain Good Oral Health
If you haven’t seen a dentist or had a professional dental cleaning for a while, you might need to get “caught up”, and this may involve more than one appointment to get everything healthy.
However, after that, maintaining good oral health is relatively easy to accomplish and involves only a couple of things.
- Good Home Care – Effective brushing and flossing twice daily. This removes the soft food deposits (plaque) and minimizes the hard deposits or “tartar” (calculus) which is formed when plaque combines with minerals in your saliva.
- Regular Hygiene Visits to remove the hard deposits (tartar). Tartar deposits cannot be removed by brushing and flossing alone. Your dental hygienist is very skilled at removing these deposits effectively and thoroughl
Tartar and plaque deposits become organized colonies and toxins from these bacterial colonies are the cause of gum inflammation and bone loss, known as periodontal disease.
Periodontal disease results in gum inflammation, redness and bleeding, and bone loss around teeth.
Maybe most importantly, when the by-products of Periodontal disease get into our digestive system and blood stream, it predisposes us to many health concerns including heart disease.
The gum inflammation and bleeding is a reversible condition, and with proper care your gums can revert to a healthy, pink non-bleeding state.
However, the bone loss is not reversible! Therefore, any bone we lose is gone for the rest of our lives!
Progressive bone loss leads to tooth loss!
Bone grafting procedures are constantly being researched and improved to try to “re-grow” bone, but these procedures are invasive, often painful and expensive.
Therefore, the best way to deal with bone loss is to prevent it!
Prevention of gum inflammation, bad breath, periodontal disease, bone loss and tooth loss can all be accomplished by:
- Good Home Care
- Regular Hygiene visits.
Therefore, you can see that the best and most economical way to prevent all of these costly and painful problems is Prevention, and that is relatively easy to accomplish!
Summary
It’s essential to keep your teeth and gums healthy by brushing and flossing daily. Brushing your teeth twice a day and flossing once will help remove plaque and bacteria from the surface of your teeth. You should use a soft-bristled toothbrush or electric toothbrush if you prefer. Brushing your teeth removes plaque, a sticky film made up of bacteria and food particles. Floss daily to remove plaque from between your teeth. Brushing cleans only the surface of your teeth. You can’t remove plaque from between your teeth with a toothbrush. If plaque is left on your teeth, it can harden into tartar and cause gum disease and tooth decay.
Conclusion
Good oral health is incredibly important, but it’s often overlooked. This can be attributed to people being less aware of their daily hygiene habits or just not prioritizing oral health as much as overall health. Oral health is just as important as overall health and can have lasting effects on your overall health. You can achieve good oral health by brushing and flossing daily and visiting the dentist for a regular cleaning and check-up.
If you have any questions, please feel free to call us at 905-479-7777.
Vitality Dentistry has been serving the Markham, Unionville and GTA communities for the past 37 years. We are located at 4792 Hwy 7 East, Markham, ON L3R 1M8. Come visit us anytime!
