1. Dangers To Your Dental Health
The most obvious impact of poor oral hygiene is that your teeth suffer and are at risk of being damaged or even lost. While modern dental implants can replace natural teeth both aesthetically and functionally, it’s always best to retain your original teeth.
Lack of regular, proper brushing and flossing will allow plaque and tartar to deposits to accumulate, which in turn lets bacterial colonies fester on your teeth. These bacteria eat through your tooth enamel, causing cavities and infections.
A dental filling, root canal, dental bridge, or dental implants may be needed to correct tooth damage or tooth loss. But caring for your precious teeth day by day can usually avert that necessity.
2. Dangers To Your Gum Health
Just as important as your teeth are your gums. Most Americans will suffer from some form of gum disease at some point during their lives, which is why we can all be thankful for modern periodontal treatments like laser gum surgery. But keeping gum tissue strong and healthy to begin with is obviously preferable.
Most people don’t realize that bacterial colonies form on gum surfaces (and below them along the tooth line) besides just on teeth. And harmful bacteria destroy gum tissue over time, while also causing chronically bad breath (halitosis in dental terms.)
Using an antiseptic mouthwash, gently brushing over the gums with a soft-bristled toothbrush, using a toothpick to scrape food and plaque away from the tooth-gum juncture, flossing between teeth, and avoiding gum-unfriendly foods like sharp chips and high-sugar snacks will help keep your gums healthy. Drinking plenty of water and getting plenty of vitamin C also helps.
3. Impacts On Your Jawbone
Tooth decay and gum infection are often accompanied by damage done to the bone tissue into which teeth are anchored.
When your alveolar ridge, the part of your jawbone that stands contacts your teeth, deteriorates – teeth come loose and could fall out. You may then need bone grafts to prepare your mouth to receive dental implants.
Also note that bone tissue begins to be absorbed back into the body immediately after tooth loss, while dental implants create the pressures that keep underlying bone tissue intact. The longer you wait post-tooth-loss, the greater the danger.
4. Oral Health Impacts Overall Health
There are interconnections between your oral health and your overall health that you might not expect. One can affect the other – in either direction.
For example, poor oral health increases the risk or seriousness of endocarditis and other heart conditions, pneumonia, certain birth defects, and inflammations and infections in other parts of the body. And diabetes, osteoporosis, and Alzheimer’s Disease put you at a higher risk of getting gum disease.
The fact is, we seldom realize how important good oral health is and how risky it is to go through life without it!
For helpful tips on maintaining high oral health or help in correcting oral problems that have already occurred, contact Ormond Beach Periodontics & Implant Dentistry today.