Whether you like it or not, you spare time brushing and flossing as suggested by your dentist because you want to show off a brighter smile. However, do you spare a thought about improving the health of your gums? You might not realize your gums also play a crucial role in supporting your smile by complimenting it. If you don’t care for your gums, you might become a victim of multiple issues that can affect the appearance and feel of your entire mouth.
Your gums are just as crucial as your teeth to help you maintain your smile bright, white, and beautiful. If you haven’t learned why your gums need more attention than you provide, learn how you can keep your gums healthy with so with four simple tricks in under five minutes.
Why Do Gums Matter?
Have you heard about gum disease? Do you know what gum disease is? Gum disease is an annoying infection that impacts all your teeth and surrounding tissues in the mouth. Gum disease is painless and remains in your mouth silently until it progresses to a severe condition. Do you wonder why the disease matters because it’s not causing problems in your mouth? Would the information that gum disease is the primary cause of tooth loss among adults, and approximately 70 percent of the adult American population is affected by this condition, shock you?
Gum disease occurs when you allow dental plaque to remain on your teeth by neglecting to brush and floss, as suggested by the Mesa dentist. You don’t realize that dental plaque hardens into tartar in 48 hours and, if allowed to remain on your teeth, extends below your gum line to gradually but definitively make you a prey of gingivitis, the earliest stage of gum disease. As mentioned earlier, the condition is painless and has no warning signs besides swollen or inflamed and bleeding gums when you brush and floss.
If you are not diligent with your dental routines, you might not notice your gums or the pinkish tinge on your toothbrush until it is too late. The American Dental Association suggests you perform self-checks on your mouth, frequently checking for signs of gum disease, which include red, puffy, shiny, sensitive, and sore gums, bleeding when you brush and floss, and halitosis or lousy breath that doesn’t subside.
When you allow this to progress, it silently expands to periodontitis, causing pockets between your teeth and gums for your mouth bacteria to populate them, causing gum swelling, bone deterioration, and tooth loss eventually. Besides the above, the mouth bacteria from gum disease can also enter your bloodstream, making you susceptible to various medical conditions that might require treatments from different professionals other than dentists. You might become vulnerable to cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness, osteoporosis, and cancer if you allow early gingivitis to progress to advanced periodontitis. Therefore you must ensure you never invite gum disease into your mouth because it remains inside as an unwanted guest throughout your life.
Improve Gum Health
The onset of gum disease gingivitis is entirely preventable using straightforward steps and spending under five minutes with your dental hygiene practices. However, it would help if you kept in mind the need to brush and floss correctly using techniques suggested by your dentist or dental hygienists. After you finish flossing, use the following steps to brush your teeth and gums to ensure you boot gum disease out of your mouth.
Toothbrush Angle: You must hold your toothbrush at an angle of 45° toward your gum line.
Gentle Strokes: Using gentle strokes, move your toothbrush back and forth in short strokes, brushing the front and rear of your teeth and gums.
Toothbrush Tip: an effort to get behind your front teeth is also essential, and you can use your toothbrush tip to achieve your goal. Use the tip of your toothbrush on your top and bottom teeth to get between your teeth and gums.
Tongue Brushing: Your teeth and gums are not the only culprits contributing to bad breath. You can also develop lousy breath from the bacteria on your tongue when you allow it to remain in your mouth. Therefore, after brushing your teeth, spare a few seconds to brush your tongue and eliminate your mouth bacteria.
Finally, do not forget to visit the dentist near me for six monthly oral prophylaxis that helps detect gum disease early and prevent its progress to advanced stages where you don’t have a cure for the condition.
The dentist at the dental office near me will probably express surprise when you visit them with advanced periodontitis and are on the verge of losing your teeth. However, they provide therapies like deep cleanings performing, scaling, and root planing; the professionals recommend that you maintain excellent dental hygiene without exceptions unless you have set aside a budget for replacing your missing teeth. Therefore, help yourself avoid considerable expenditure by using the four simple steps to keep your gums healthy.
U Smile Family Dentistry confronts many patients with advanced gum disease offering them different treatments and requesting they schedule more frequent dental appointments for cleanings and monitoring their condition. If you want to prevent a similar situation, you can either maintain your gums in a healthy condition or visit the practice to understand how to achieve your goal successfully.