Taking care of our oral health is not a walk in the park that we can take at our leisure. It requires care and routine. After all, your oral health is a part of your overall health and well-being. Moreover, we use our mouth for a lot of things—speaking and eating just some of them. Our mouths are quite valuable, as well as busy all day long, even for the quietest person on earth.
This is why we need to take care of our oral health. If we’re not careful, we could encounter problems such as dental cavities, gum disease, bad breath, as well as heart problems, to name a few. Fortunately, we can prevent most oral health problems with thorough and proper oral hygiene. Nevertheless, it would be prudent to know of the most common oral health problems, how to prevent them, and how to treat them.
DENTAL CAVITIES
What is a cavity?
Essentially, a dental cavity is a hole in your tooth. This hole develops from tooth decay, which is caused by the bacteria, food, and acid in your mouth forming plaque. These things erode your tooth’s hard outer layer of enamel and then move on to the underlying dentin or connective tissue. This problem, while common, may lead to permanent damage.
Dental cavities affect all layers of a tooth. Usually, it takes three years for a hole to form in the solid outer layer of tooth enamel. The decay then progresses more quickly through the middle layer of dentin to the innermost layer of pulp, which contains your tooth’s blood supply and nerve endings. The types of dental cavities include smooth surface, pit and fissure decay, and root decay. The first is a type of cavity that dissolves the tooth enamel, while the second develops on the chewing surface and front side of your back teeth. The last one develops mainly in older adults with receding gums.
Prevention
As common as dental cavities are, they are also easy to prevent. With proper oral hygiene, which should include regular brushing and flossing, you can easily rid yourself of the plaque and acids that cause cavities. Other preventative teeth and gum care should include brushing your teeth with a fluoride toothpaste at least twice a day, cutting back on sugar and starch consumption, daily flossing, and regular dental check-ups. You can also place dental sealants which protect the top chewing surface of your teeth.
Treatment
Fluoride Treatment: Fluoride treatments can repair tooth enamel, but only if the decay is caught early. This remineralization requires prescription toothpaste and mouthwash, as well as fluoride treatments at the dental office.
Tooth Fillings: For this treatment, dentists will drill out the decayed material in the hole in your tooth and then fill the hole. The material used for the fillings includes silver amalgam, composite resin, or gold.
Root canal: If the tooth decay is particularly painful, as is the case, the endodontists remove the pulp that contains nerve endings that cause pain.
Tooth extraction: This is when your dentist will extract or pull the cavity or decayed tooth. They will replace it with a dental implant to keep your teeth from shifting and changing your appearance and bite.
What is gum disease?
Gum disease starts as an inflammation of the gums. This is the result of plaque building up on your teeth, which, in turn, makes your gums irritated, swollen, and bloody. Untreated gingivitis or gum inflammation can lead to periodontitis, a more severe infection that destroys tissue, bone, or both.
With this gum disease, microorganisms stick to the surface of your tooth. Moreover, they surround the tooth by sticking in the pockets before they multiply. Once the toxins produced by the bacteria are released, inflammation occurs. This also causes the wearing down of the connective tissue, which causes teeth to loosen and fall out. Apart from tooth loss, it could also increase the risk of stroke, heart attack, and other health problems.
Prevention
Proper dental care is usually enough to prevent gum disease. Brushing your teeth at least twice a day and flossing once a day should do it. The use of an interdental brush is also recommended, especially if you’re not comfortable with flossing. There are also soft picks that can be used when the space between the teeth is smaller. For those who have arthritis and other dexterity problems, they can always use an electric toothbrush. This proper and thorough oral hygiene must be maintained. Otherwise, there is always a risk of gum disease.
Treatment
Scaling: If you want your periodontitis to be treated, you have to go to the dentist to have it done. They will perform scaling and debridement to clean below the gum line using either hand tools or an ultrasonic device that breaks the plaque and calculus. Root planing then smoothens out the rough areas on the roots of the teeth. This is done because rough patches can house bacteria within.
Medications: Your dentist may also prescribe antimicrobial mouth rinses like chlorhexidine for bacteria control after surgery. Patients usually use it as a regular mouthwash. Dentists also sometimes include the use of an antiseptic chip, antibiotic gel, and antibiotic microspheres. These are placed in the pockets after scaling and root planning and used to control bacteria and shrink periodontal pockets. In addition, the dentist may also prescribe an enzyme suppressant to keep destructive enzymes in check with a low dose of doxycycline, which is orally taken.
Flap surgery: For more severe cases, the dentist may perform flap surgery to remove calculus in deep pockets or to reduce the pocket so that keeping it clean is easier. They lift back the gums to remove the tartar before replacing them.
Bone and tissue grafts: This surgery helps regenerate destroyed bone or gum tissue in more extreme cases of periodontitis. Lost bones are replaced with new natural or synthetic ones to promote bone growth.
Guided tissue regeneration (GTR) is another surgical option. It uses barrier membranes to direct the growth of new bone and gum tissues. Essentially, a small piece of mesh-like material is inserted between the gum tissue and bone to stop the gum from growing into bone space. In addition to the surgery, the dentist may also use special proteins and growth factors to help the body regrow the bones more naturally.