If you’re looking to better your health, start with the care and keeping of your teeth. Your dental health is hugely important and can actually influence your overall health in quite the significant way. After all, dental pain is a powerful force, and one that causes a great deal of missed schools even among the population of children.
Starting your children off on the right foot when it comes to dental care is quite hugely important as well. Ideally, you’ll get them in to see the dentist by the time that they reach the age of one. Before this, you should begin wiping down their teeth buds with a wet washcloth at the age of around six months. Later, you can begin to use toothpaste and a small appropriately sized toothbrush. However, it’s important to know that toothpaste that has fluoride in it should be avoided until your child has at least reached the age of two – or is cleared to use such toothpaste by their dentist.
Much as is the case for children, adults should be attending the dentist at least twice throughout the course of any given year. In addition to this, brushing twice a day and flossing once is quite integral to the overall care and keeping of one’s teeth. Without such care, it is unlikely that your teeth will stay in good shape. Unfortunately, this is something that is backed up by data, data that shows that more than 64 million adults in the United States alone have advanced periodontal disease, also known as periodontitis.
Going to the dentist is as integral as daily care to preventing a whole slew of dental issues. After all, dental issues that go untreated are only likely to worsen and become all the more debilitating and hard to manage as time passes on. Unfortunately, data again backs up how prevalent of a problem this has become. After all, this data shows that at least one fifth of all adults in this one country alone are living with at least one untreated cavity, a cavity that is likely to worsen or even spread to other teeth the longer that they do not receive any kind of dental care or treatment for it. In addition to this, it has also been found that at least one quarter of this adult population, if not more of it, also deals with untreated tooth decay, which can cause pain and other less than ideal effects on the average life.
Going into the dentist is important even without the presence of obvious tooth decay. After all, the dentist in question will perform a thorough examination of your mouth regardless, as this is standard practice in any family dental clinic or dental center found all throughout the country. A family dentist knows, after all, that far more serious problems can develop in just about any person’s mouth – and that treating them promptly as well as thoroughly is of a huge importance, no doubt about it.
Oral cancer falls into this category and in fact oral cancer can go unnoticed by the average person for quite some time. This is only exacerbated by the fact that oral cancer is typically painless, at least at first. It also starts out quite small, and is easy to brush off as nothing of any real importance. The average dentist working for a family dental practice, however, will know the signs. Picking up on these signs might even end up saving the life of the person in question, the person who might not even notice the problem until too late otherwise. If you do or have ever used tobacco products and if you are or have ever been a heavy drinker, such inspections by your dentist will be particularly important, thanks to the fact that such people using such substances have a much higher incidence of developing an oral cancer of some type. Older adults have also been found to be much more at risk than other populations of people found all throughout the country.
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