I don’t get birthday cards from many of my friends, but I do get birthday cards from my dentist. A smiling tooth wishes me a happy birthday, along with a reminder to make an appointment. However, I have postponed my last three visits because I have convinced myself that I will postpone it until a problem arises.
This is wrong, said Tricia Quartey-Sagaille, a spokeswoman for the American Dental Association and a dentist in New York.
“Many people see the absence of pain as an indicator that nothing is wrong and say, ‘My teeth are fine, I don’t need to go,’” he said. Often, Quartey-Sagaille noted, there is “no pain at all” with periodontal disease, which is typically caused by an infection in the gums and bone that supports the teeth and affects nearly half of adults over the age of 30. years, potentially leading to tooth and bone loss. And you don’t want to have to make an emergency appointment in pain.
Here are four other things dentists would like us to know.
The gums should not bleed
As probably every dentist has said, you should floss every day. It’s true that if you stop doing it for a while, you might see some blood when you restart the habit, said Tien Jiang, an instructor in oral health policy and epidemiology at Harvard School of Dental Medicine. But you have to do it.
“It’s like starting to exercise when you haven’t exercised for a while and your muscles ache,” he said.
If your gums have been bleeding for an extended period of time, see your dentist, said Pernima Kumar, chair of the department of Periodontics and Oral Medicine at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. “Would you worry if any part of your body bleeds?” she asked. “Bleeding gums should not be normalized!”
Avoid charcoal pastes
Toothpastes containing powdered activated charcoal, marketed as natural teeth whiteners, are popular. But a 2017 study published in the Journal of the American Dental Association (ADA) concluded that charcoal toothpastes do not have a whitening effect. Instead, the researchers found that its abrasiveness could cause dental hypersensitivity; that carbon particles could lodge in the gum pockets and cause damage; and that few contained fluoride.
electric or manual is ok
Brush your teeth. Do this twice a day, against the gum line at a 45-degree angle, for two minutes. That’s all the ADA says to do when it comes to brushing your teeth. Both electric and manual toothbrushes work. However, brushing too hard can lead to receding gums.
Is mouth health linked to total health
The mouth and the rest of the body are intimately connected, said Nezar Al-Hebshi, co-director of the Oral Microbiome Research Laboratory at Temple University in Pennsylvania. And a growing body of research shows how dental health can affect other parts of the body. Al-Hebshi listed five diseases for which there is “moderate to strong evidence” that periodontal disease may be a contributing factor, including diabetes, certain cancers and cardiovascular disease.
“So if you maintain very good oral health, you’re at less risk of developing cardiovascular complications, for example,” he said.
By: JANCEE DUNN
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6679149, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-04-25 19:00:07
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