Your health is the most important thing you have. Ensuring your continued good health can be directly related to your dental hygiene. We are taught very early to brush our teeth, our schools even advocate this as we are growing up, but did you know that your teeth can tell your doctor a lot about your health?
A doctor can look into your mouth and, based upon what he sees, determine if you have one of several diseases:
- Tooth loss can tell your doctor that you have osteoporosis or bone loss or even kidney disease .
- Pale gums can indicate that your are anemic or have low iron in your blood.
- Loss of tooth enamel can indicate an eating disorder, such as bulimia.
- Thrush (typically found in babies) can indicate in an adult that they might have HIV or Diabetes.
- Gum disease could very well tell your doctor that you have rheumatoid arthritis. Or in pregnant women could indicate that they will have a premature birth for their baby.
This of course is not always the case, but it is one way the doctor can gauge your health with just a peek into your mouth. In order to keep your teeth healthier, you might want to use a softer toothbrush to start. It will help keep you from accidentally brushing away your tooth enamel.
Chewing sugar free gum and brushing with baking soda will help keep your teeth healthy since they get rid of that pesky plaque and stains. Don’t forget to floss daily either. This will help keep the areas between your teeth clean, and keep your gums healthy in the process.
Did you know that brushing your teeth can help keep you from getting sick? Plaque is a bacteria and bacterial infections can give you pneumonia and other respiratory diseases. Brushing will also ensure a healthier pregnancy and help keep a woman from having a baby with low birth weight.
Gum disease has a direct correlation to how well you think. According to the American Dental Association, “People with gum disease have more risk of having lower cognitive function than people with normal cognitive function.”
For men, brushing their teeth religiously can even improve their sex lives, or at least keep it from disintegrating. Oral bacteria and gum disease can cause ED, otherwise known as erectile dysfunction, by narrowing the blood vessels that are needed for the organ to grow.
We all want our teeth to be healthy, white and have that winning smile. Sometimes even though we brush religiously, we still need help from professionals, like Dr David Morrow, Orthodontist, in order to achieve it. You can have pearly white teeth, but if they are horribly crooked, you still won’t be inclined to show it off.
While most people have their braces while they are young, sometimes adults get them later on if their parents couldn’t afford it for them when they were kids. The end results are worth every visit and whatever discomfort we must endure. So don’t be scared to visit your dentist or orthodontist and make sure you have the good health and awesome smile that you want to have. Healthy Teeth, Healthy Smile!