Having a great smile not only adds to your overall personality, but it also helps you build your self-esteem. Still, a lot of people often overlook the importance of maintaining proper oral hygiene and dental cleanliness in their dental care. However, having great dental health can improve your overall health, immune system, and even longevity, while not doing so can affect the health of your overall body as well.
Some of the most common dental health problems include tooth decay, bad breath, sensitive teeth, receding gums, gum disease, and enamel erosion. But that’s not all; the risk of oral cancer is always there if one ignores oral hygiene for an extended period of time. Thus, it’s advised to follow a proper dental care routine that will safeguard you from facing any potential teeth problems. Keep on reading, as in this article we’ll discuss what exactly oral hygiene is and will go through some simple tips that can improve oral hygiene that will help you prevent tooth decay and gum disease.
What Is Oral Hygiene?
Oral hygiene is the practice of keeping and maintaining your oral cavity free from any potential bacteria or disease. There are many ways to practise oral hygiene, including using toothpaste, mouthwash, floss, and brushes. You should brush your teeth for two minutes at least twice a day. Good oral hygiene practices lead to a germ-free and healthy mouth. It helps to control dental disease and tooth decay.
You can also use mouthwash to clean your teeth and gums. It contains fluoride, which helps prevent tooth decay. Good oral hygiene leads to a germ-free and healthy mouth. It implies that your teeth will remain clean and bacteria-free. There will be no pain or sensation in your gums while brushing or flossing. And most importantly, there will be no chance of bad breath.
Importance Of Maintaining Good Oral Health
Oral health is important for both adults and children. It can improve your overall quality of life by preventing dental problems, protecting your teeth from decay, and improving your speaking and eating abilities. Oral health also protects your immune system by fighting against bacteria and viruses that can cause colds, flu, and other illnesses. Poor oral health can lead to toothaches, bad breath, and other dental problems. So it’s very essential to take appropriate care of your teeth!
There are many benefits to good oral hygiene, including preventing tooth decay, preserving your smile, and reducing the risk of gum disease. Have a look at the most common benefits:
1. Prevention of Tooth Decay
Good oral hygiene can help prevent tooth decay by keeping your teeth clean and free from plaque and bacteria. Plaque can cause tooth decay by forming on the teeth and hardening into tartar, which can damage the teeth.
2. Preservation of Your Smile
Good oral hygiene is a sure-fire way of preserving your smile. If you have healthy teeth and gums, you won’t have to worry about cosmetic dentistry procedures like veneers or whitening treatments.
3. Reduced Risk of Gum Disease
Good oral hygiene can also help reduce the risk of gum disease. If you have gum disease, plaque can form on your teeth and gums and lead to bad breath and other dental problems. Gum disease is also a major cause of tooth loss.
4. Increased Oral Health
Proper oral hygiene also helps improve your overall oral health. By keeping your mouth clean, you reduce the risk of developing tooth decay, gum disease, or other dental problems down the road.
5. Efficiency in Dental Procedures
If you are currently having dental procedures like root canals, crowns, or tooth fillings, proper oral hygiene will keep your mouth healthy and reduce the risk for post-treatment infections.
6. Reduced Risk of Headaches
Bad breath is certainly a cause of embarrassment and irritation for many. But it is also linked to headaches as well as sinusitis. This is because bad breath and other oral problems produce sulphur compounds that irritate the nose and sinuses.
7. Reduces stress
Bad breath can be quite stressful on your body and mind when you are at work or school and feel embarrassed by your symptoms. When you have good oral hygiene, you will feel less stressed out because you won’t have to worry about it so much.
8. Better Pre-Surgical Outcomes
You may not think about the impact that dental hygiene has on your health, but it does have an effect on your overall health and well-being too! Bad breath impacts your body’s ability to heal and recover from surgeries, infections, and other painful conditions. Plus, having bad breath carries a higher risk of inflammation or infection.
9. Reduced allergies
Bad breath is linked to various types of allergies, like sinusitis, hay fever, asthma, eczema, and food allergies. Some experts believe that bad breath is actually a symptom of a more serious condition, like an allergy or sinus infection.
10. Reduced risk of oral cancer
You can keep the risk of oral cancer far away by maintaining good oral health. Visiting your doctor regularly and following all examinations will reduce the risk of cancer development.
What Are The Causes Of Potential Oral Problems?
Poor oral hygiene can cause a host of problems, from bad breath to tooth decay. Thus it’s so crucial to first find out the problems causing agents in order to choose a reliable solution for it. No doubt that our mouth is full of different sorts of bacteria, most of which naturally reside there, but consumption of high sugar based foods is most likely to cause the multiplication of the acid-producing bacteria.
Here are some of the most common causes of various oral problems:
- Not brushing enough: A standard brushing session should include at least two minutes of scrubbing on each side of your teeth and behind them. If you only brush for a minute or two, you’re not doing enough to remove plaque and calculus buildup.
- Not Flossing: A single strand of floss can help remove up to 98% of dental plaque and bacteria. And if you do not floss properly, then the residue will remain in your teeth, and that will lead to germ and bacteria formation.
- Eating sugary foods and drinks: Some of the individuals are just fond of eating sweets and other sugary items. These foods contain sugar crystals that adhere to teeth and promote tooth decay.
- Not using mouthwash: Mouthwash kills bacteria and removes food particles that can accumulate on teeth over time, leading to tooth decay. Toothpaste should be used for at least two minutes, but ideally four minutes or more per use, to effectively clean teeth and gums.
- Smoking cigarettes and using tobacco products: Both cigarettes and tobacco products contain toxins that can damage tooth enamel and lead to cavities.
- Using over-the-counter (OTC) medicines: There are various OTC medicines, natural products, and supplements that contain fluoride or are formulated with a fluoride compound. These substances may interfere with the body’s ability to process fluoride from toothpaste used by many people.
- Not visiting the dentist often: It’s advised to go to your dental expert for cleanings and checkups at a regular time. Not doing so can lead to problems like decay, gum diseases, and other dental health problems that are more difficult to treat on an individual basis than a single toothache that can be addressed by seeing a dentist frequently over time.
What Are The Best Ways To Improve Oral Hygiene?
Even after taking good care of yourself, there is a probability that you might face some sort of dental problem. Thus, it’s advised to consider certain things that will help you avoid paying hectic sums of money while visiting a dentist, as it’s said that prevention is always better than cure. Following are some tips to help you improve your oral hygiene:
1. Brush Your Teeth Twice A Day
This is the most important step in improving and maintaining good oral hygiene. Make sure to use fluoride toothpaste and brush correctly and make this a habit to brush before going to bed. Brushing before sleeping helps in removing all bacteria and plaque that get deposited in the morning.
2. Floss Every Day
Flossing removes plaque and bacteria from between teeth and along the gums. It also helps to keep your smile healthy and white. It is sufficient if you floss one time a day as it will prevent all types of inflammation.
3. Use Mouthwash
Mouthwash kills bacteria and freshens your breath. Choose a mouthwash with fluoride if you have dental care appointments in the next few days. It lessens the amount of acid in one’s mouth. Also, it will clean those areas of the mouth that are out of reach of brushing.
4. Eat A Balanced Diet
A balanced diet includes all essential elements of foods that the human body needs. It will have elements like carbohydrates, lipids, minerals, proteins, vitamins, fibre, and water. All these elements will protect your teeth from any sort of harmful damage. No doubt, it’s very easy and convenient to eat processed food, but overall it has a bad effect on teeth. Thus one should try to intake more green vegetables and fruits that are full of fibre and vitamins along with having a balanced diet.
5. Avoid Sugary Drinks And Snacks
Eating those foods that contain high amounts of sugar leads to tooth decay and other oral health problems. Intake of sugary foods increases acidic volume in the mouth, which leads to enamel destruction and cavities formation. Thus avoiding or controlling the intake of tea, coffee, and other beverages will lead to a healthy mouth.
6. Visit Your Dentist
You should plan twice to visit your dentist in a year and keep your oral health in check. Your dentist will examine all your mouth thoroughly and suggest you the needed treatment based on your oral health condition.
7. Quit Smoking
Restraining yourself from smoking is one of the most important things that you can do for your oral health. Smoking not only causes bad breath, but it also increases your risk of oral cancer. In fact, smoking cigarettes can increase the risk of developing oral cancer by up to 70%. So, if you want to have good oral health, don’t smoke.
8. Drink Plenty Of Water
Drinking plenty of water is essential for good oral health. It helps to keep your mouth clean and free of bacteria, which can lead to tooth decay and other oral health problems. Additionally, water helps to reduce the amount of saliva that is produced, which can dry out your mouth and cause toothache.
Wrapping Up
Maintaining good oral health not only improves your smile, but it also helps you with your self-esteem, speech, and nutrition as well. Not keeping up with dental health practices will cause you problems like tooth decay, gum disease, and cavities that are quite unpleasant, to say the least. Not only are they both very common dental problems, but they also have a number of nasty side effects that can significantly impact your health. Just visiting the dentist isn’t enough to maintain a bright smile, as you need to follow certain precautionary measures that will help you stay protected from all possible dental health problems. So follow all good habits and ensure your oral hygiene like a boss.
Frequently Asked Questions
Usually, when you keep up with good dental practices like brushing regularly, flossing, using mouthwash, and avoiding high-sugar foods, your mouth remains free from all possible bacteria and germs that can cause you various dental health issues. But not doing so allows a number of bacteria and germs to enter your body that might lead to infections of the mouth and the body as well. As per medical experts, there are certain health conditions that are linked to bad oral health. These are infectious endocarditis, cardiovascular disease,
Not just for children alone, but following proper dental hygiene is equally important for people of all ages. After following a proper dental health regime, odds are in your favour that your teeth will remain good for a lifetime. The risk of facing different kinds of dental issues, like tooth decay, stained teeth, bad breath, and sensitive teeth, also decreases.
Although there are many practices that are referred to as a golden rule for oral hygiene, there are four major steps that one needs to follow in order to make sure they maintain proper oral hygiene. These are:
- Brushing at least two times a day using a toothpaste based on fluoride.
- Thoroughly cleaning the teeth using floss.
- Consuming a healthy and balanced diet and limiting sugar intake.
- Visiting a dentist at least twice a year for regular checkups as well as precautionary care.
Yes, a large number of oral diseases are actually preventable, as they can be easily treated in their early stages. But if the dental issue is a genetic one, the probability is that it would be untreatable unless you went to a professional teeth cleaning service.
Although most people don’t like to follow a proper sequence of following different oral practices, it’s advised to first go with flossing, then brushing, and at last use mouthwash.
The time that it would take for you to improve your oral hygiene depends upon a lot of factors, such as the type of dental issues that you might be facing, the expert that is looking after your treatment, etc. By adopting proper measures, you would be able to get rid of the problem of bad breath and plaque buildup within a few days. By regularly following all the given measures, one will get rid of issues like gum inflammation and will also get a brighter smile. Just remember to follow all the instructions given on a consistent basis, which will help you get the best possible results for sure.