Did you that approximately 36% of Americans admit that they are afraid of going to the dentist? These are adults who are owning up to a legitimate fear of going to the dentist. It can be a phobia that is hard to overcome, but it is one that we all must work at. The reason is because you have to ask the question, ‘Can tooth decay affect your health?’ and the answer is yes.
When someone neglects their oral health, it can impact other parts of their health, and some of the consequences can be extremely serious. The last thing that you want to do is put yourself in a position where you sacrifice your physical health overall because you are too afraid to go to the dentist. Sadly, there are people who feel like they have no other choice because of their fears. However, we will be answering the question, ‘Can tooth decay affect your health?’ and providing some advice for those who want to avoid that outcome.
Take Care of Your Teeth While You’re Young
Good dental habits begin when you are young, and pediatric dentist practices encourage all people to get their children started with good dental habits from as early of an age as possible. They say that this is necessary because it develops the tendency to want to take care of one’s teeth from an early age.
Everyone is born with what is known as a set of baby teeth. These are the teeth that they have when they are firstborn. Those teeth are designed to eventually fall out as time goes on. However, those teeth are important to the ability of a younger person to eat properly, and that is why they need to take care of them.
As their baby teeth fall out and are replaced by their adult teeth, it is even more vital to take care of those teeth. They are critically important to one’s ability to have good oral health overall, and a lot of people neglect to take the steps that they are supposed to for their teeth to be properly taken care of. If that sounds familiar to your own life, then you should know that you aren’t alone. However, starting on the right dental habits early is the best way to go after things.
Visit the Dentist Every Six Months
Taking yourself in for some general dentistry trips every six months might seem like an uphill climb to you. It all depends on how you feel about going to the dentist right now. While it is understandable that you might be scared or that you might not want to go right now. However, you need to make some choices to protect your oral health right now for a better future going forward.
Your dentist wants to see you at least every six months for a routine cleaning and to check up on any oral health issues that you might have developed. Remember, if your dentist can catch these issues early enough, then he or she can intervene and prevent even more damage from taking over your mouth. That is the best way to avoid a true disaster from appearing on your hands. The sooner that these issues are caught, the less expensive the fixes are likely to be.
Ask if You Have Room for Your Wisdom Teeth
While visiting your dentist, speak to them about how much room is available in your mouth for your wisdom teeth to come in. This is a major issue for a lot of people, and you want to check with a trained dentist about the amount of space that you can reliably count on for your wisdom teeth to come in.
Sedation dentists are who you’ll need to speak to about dealing with something like this. They are the ones that handle wisdom teeth extractions, and they are always going to want to take a look at the situation going on in your mouth before making a judgment call about this. They can provide you with all of the details that you need about how your mouth looks compared to cases they have dealt with in the past. That is important because not everyone has to have their wisdom teeth removed. If you are one of the lucky people who do NOT need this service, then you will want to get that information from your dentist as well.
Sign Up for Insurance Through Work
You might want to look at signing up for dental insurance through your workplace before going any further. Many employers offer dental insurance as part of the healthcare offerings that they make available to everyone who works for them. Therefore, you are going to be in better shape if you simply sign up for a plan through your employer.
Many people find that they are able to take care of their dental needs by looking at what their workplace can offer them. Often, it is a lot more affordable to purchase dental insurance through an employer instead of looking at what you can get on the open market. It is up to you to decide how you want to keep yourself protected with insurance, but many people see the value in going with a plan that they select for themselves through their employer because it means that they know for certain that they will have insurance coverage that they understand at a price that they can afford.
Employers get better pricing on dental insurance because they purchase group plans. This means that they purchase coverage options for all of their employees at the same time. The insurance company offers the employer a discount on the plans because they are purchasing so many at the same time.
If you are uncertain about any aspect of the insurance plan that you are looking at, please get in touch with your human resources manager to see what they can do to explain it to you. They are there to help you out with these types of things, and it is their responsibility to make sure you understand what you are signing up for. Needless to say, they are certainly pleased to offer assistance as necessary.
Visit an Orthodontist Early On
You need to make an appointment for orthodontic treatment as soon as you realize that this might be an issue in your case. Those who understand that an orthodontist is likely someone that they will need to seek treatment from and begin to receive those services by reaching out to one while they are still young.
You might remember a time when you were young that you saw a lot of people around you with dental braces. Indeed, a lot of children do need dental braces to keep their teeth growing straight or to correct crooked teeth. However, they are not the only ones who sign up for a service like this. There are plenty of adults who need help keeping their teeth straight as well. Those adults might seek out braces because they know that without them they are going to have issues keeping their teeth straight. That is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. After all, we all want straight teeth, and the quickest and easiest way to get them is to get braces, no matter our age.
The earlier that you can schedule an orthodontic visit in your life, the more likely you’re to receive the care that you need to keep your teeth straight. It isn’t always easy to recognize that our own teeth are growing in a way that we don’t like, but it is reasonable to take note of this and make sure something is done to correct that. Again, it is not a failure for you as a person to have teeth that aren’t perfectly straight. However, it can be a problem to do nothing about it.
Avoid Foods That Will Rot Your Teeth
Perhaps the most challenging piece of advice that we have to offer those looking for excellent dental health is that they need to avoid foods that rot their teeth. This is incredibly difficult advice to take because most of us like the kinds of foods that might cause problems for us. You can sit back and simply assume that you can afford inexpensive dental implants and that everything will be okay. Perhaps that is true, but do you really want to put it all up to chance?
What kind of foods does this mean you need to look out for? Well, the answer is many of the foods that are probably among your favorites of all time. I hate to be the one to break the news to you about that, but many processed foods, high-sugar foods, and packaged foods are all very bad for your teeth. They might taste great (in fact, they often do), but you could be rotting your teeth out by continuing to eat things like this.
It’s not just foods that are a danger to your teeth. Beverages are as well. Alcoholic beverages and soft drinks are among the worst offenders. This is because both have a lot of sugar in them. Soft drinks also have carbonation that eats away at the enamel of your teeth. Thus, if you are pounding down soda after soda, you are probably harming your teeth significantly. It’s time to put the soda away.
Understand How Hygiene and Inflammation Affect Your Face
You might do harm to your self-image if you don’t take good care of your teeth. Why? Because you might make your entire face look different than you would like. Your face can break out in ways that you don’t want and that impact your looks if you don’t take care of your oral health. Poor hygiene and inflammation can cause your face to swell.
Cosmetic dermatology might be necessary in certain cases to bring your face back to the way that you wanted it to look. Thus, you shouldn’t ever put yourself in a spot where you’re not taking care of your personal hygiene and dental health.
It takes just a few habits to keep yourself on schedule with your dental health. You should keep a timer set up near your bathroom sink so you can time how long you spend brushing your teeth. Always stay stocked up on all of the oral health items that you need to keep yourself safe and protected from the issues that could spring up in the event that you don’t keep your teeth clean.
You might not realize just how important something like this is, but it truly is. You need to be set up with the kind of dental health habits that will keep you away from major bills the next time you are at the dentist.
Learn How Your Bodily Systems are Connected
Finally, don’t forget to learn a little more about how all of the health systems of your body are connected together. Many people don’t realize this is the case at all until they speak with ENT doctors who inform them about how tightly connected all of those various systems really are. It turns out that the steps that you take to keep your teeth healthy will also have an impact on other aspects of your health as well. You can do serious damage to other parts of your body by not taking care of your teeth. This isn’t meant to scare you, but it should provide you with context about how connected your body is and why you must take care of every aspect of it.
As long as you are aware of what is going on within your body and what steps you need to take to be safe, you should be in great shape to have the kind of life that you want to have health-wise. Speak with your dentist about additional steps that you can take to remain safe, and you will be all set.