Let’s talk family health: How important is daily dental care routine

Victoria Lim - 29 Dec 17

While everyone knows that the only way to protect your dental health is through an adequate dental care, not a lot of people are fully aware of the extent to which dental health impacts our overall health. You see, your organism works like a well-oiled machinery. Although this image may seem as something positive, those with just a bit of knowledge in basic mechanic know that all that it takes for such a machine to malfunction is for a single tiny cog to start misbehaving. Needless to say, this analogy applies perfectly to the issue of your overall dental health, seeing as how every part of your organism is strongly connected to the rest of your body. Here are some examples.

• Discovering a symptom of a major disease

First of all, this is a two-way street in which your dental health (despite your best efforts) might suffer due to some other illness. We are talking about illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure and even a chronic kidney disease. In this way, by noticing this major symptom, you can help diagnose an illness quite early. This, however, only happens if you do a proper dental care, seeing as how your teeth, gums and the overall oral cavity might develop issues in areas that you aren’t reaching or able to see. Needless to say, the more thorough you are in cleaning your teeth, the greater are the odds of you noticing this in time.

• The issue of self-esteem

The next issue that needs to be addressed is the fact that poor oral health negatively impacts one’s self-esteem. This alone would be a reason enough to take dental care seriously, seeing as how one’s self-esteem is directly connected to their mental health. Apart from this, people who aren’t comfortable smiling (or suffer from bad breath) tend to avoid socializing, which further alienates them from people in their closest vicinity. When described in this way, there are even some indications that such alienation might be a cause of depression or at least contribute to it.

• Developing healthy habits

Even though external and genetic factors both play an important role in one’s health, the truth is that there’s so much you can do. By taking care of your dental care, you are taking charge of the health of your body, which is a habit that can easily be translated to the rest of your lifestyle. Furthermore, by learning how to utilize technology for this purpose, you can further broaden your horizons. For instance, you could start by downloading one of those amazing dental care apps or even purchase a handy gadget like Slim Sonic classic electric toothbrush.

• The impact of one’s overall health on their dental health

So far we’ve mostly discussed the ways in which your dental health can impact your overall health but this goes the other way around, as well. You see, there are certain medications which can contribute to an increased presence of various bacteria in one’s mouth. We’re talking about decongestants, diuretics antihistamines and, of course, painkillers. This list also contains some antidepressants, which, considering the last segment, creates a vicious circle one has to be cautious of. A word of caution, while these medications do cause the risk to your teeth, you can still somewhat remedy their effect through a proper dental care.

• Keeping gum disease at bay

Finally, when we speak about dental care and the health of one’s oral cavity, most people immediately focus on teeth, while one’s gums are perhaps most in danger. Simply put, the poor health of one’s gums may serve as a perfect ground for an infection that can later spread across one’s entire body. This especially goes if your immune system is compromised as it is or already weakened by another disease. Furthermore, it is impossible to protect your teeth without taking care of your gums first.

At the end of the day, taking care of your dental health doesn’t take much time, effort or resources, yet it is vital to your overall health and wellbeing. In the previous five sections, we went to lengths to describe just how strongly is the health of your oral cavity intertwined with almost every segment of your life. In other words, no matter what kind of effort it took to keep your teeth and your gums healthy, it is always worth paying this price.

Victoria Lim

View profile for posts, events and more info