Dental hygiene is one of the most important and integral parts of your overall health, but it’s rarely treated as such, as many people are unwilling to go to lengths to make sure their teeth are as clean and strong as they can be. However, poor dental hygiene has a lot of negative effects on the body, so keep reading to find out why dental hygiene is so important and what you need to do to maintain it.
Dental Disease
Dental disease is one of the most intrusive and upsetting forms of disease throughout the entire body, and it’s only getting more and more common with every passing year. Your mouth is the beginning of several processes in the body, especially swallowing and speaking, and if you have some form of dental disease, especially in your teeth or gums, you’ll find that there’s some form of pain whenever you speak, chew, or perhaps even when you move your jaw. These diseases can spread throughout the rest of the body, too, which is why they have such a massive impact on your overall physical and emotional health.
Impacts on Body Health
As previously mentioned, dental and oral health can grow to have a major impact on systemic health, as certain diseases start in the teeth or gums then begin to travel down the rest of your body. The worse your dental hygiene is, the more microscopic holes and pathways you’ll have in your gums for bacteria to go through, and once something does pass through, it’ll get in the bloodstream, flowing and multiplying throughout your body to create inflammation throughout many of your organs and different regions in the body, at which point getting treatment is tough and incredibly inconvenient unless you’re going to a quality medical professional like an Elgin dentist.
Being able to Chew Freely Later in Life
Another thing that many people don’t realize is that dental issues only get worse as you go through life, so if you’re not taking care of your teeth right now, it’s likely that you will face a lot of difficulties the older you get. Many people find that their teeth aren’t suitable for chewing anymore, and, at one point, they can even begin to fall off, which has two major implications: there are far more pathways for bacteria to enter your body through your mouth, and you won’t be able to chew your food unless you get fillings and perhaps even fake teeth.
Reducing the risk of Oral Cancer
Oral cancer is a prevalent form of cancer that finds its way into the mouths of many people, especially smokers, and alcoholics, and one part of caring for your oral and dental health is to make sure you’re getting checkups and screenings done regularly. The impact of oral cancer may be obvious, as it can quickly spread throughout the body, but it’s also entirely preventable as some telltale signs like oral leukoplakia and erythroplakia will make themselves obvious to any dentist or doctor well before you find yourself in serious trouble.
Possibility of Nerve Damage through Cavities
Each individual tooth in your mouth is vascularized, with a lot of blood vessels and, more importantly, nerve endings. These nerve endings find themselves getting more and more exposed if you have cavities since the enamel of your teeth is meant to protect your nerves from the air and the outside world. The more air you feel on your nerves, the more pain there will be, and this pain will slowly transfer into permanent nerve damage as you’ll lose more and more feeling in your face, which is why taking care of your teeth and oral health is so important.
Conclusion
Dental hygiene is a core component of health since the mouth performs incredibly important functions, like chewing food, swallowing, speaking, and breathing, none of which you can do without. However, certain habits that are more and more widespread, like ignoring dental care or eating sugary foods that bad you, like ice cream and candy excessively, have resulted in more dental issues and diseases than ever, which is why you need to watch out for the health of your teeth.
