Some people don’t think about dental health much. Maybe they eat a lot of sweets and smoke cigarettes or chew tobacco. They don’t brush their teeth or floss very often, or perhaps they don’t do those things at all.
Your dental health is more vital than you might think. There are some particular ways that dental health helps you, especially as you get older.
Let’s look at why you should take practice good dental care, taking both health and lifestyle into account.
Taking Care of Your Teeth Prevents Gum Disease
You can head to a dentist once every six months, and they can use powerful dental polishers to keep your teeth sparkling and clean. However, you can also brush your teeth twice per day and floss once per day.
When you do so, you can prevent gum disease. If you have gum disease:
- You’re twice as likely to have a heart attack
- You’re three times as likely to have a stroke
A heart attack or stroke can kill you, and you can use simple oral hygiene to prevent that. When you look at it that way, tooth care is more critical than it might first appear.
If You Keep Your Teeth, You Won’t Need Dentures
If you take care of your teeth throughout your life, it also makes it less likely you will need dentures when you get older. Dentures are not ideal because:
- You have to put them in when you go out somewhere
- You might feel embarrassed if you have them when you’re still pretty young
Having dentures is better than having no teeth at all, but it’s still not as good as keeping all your original teeth. You need to clean the dentures and put them in a mild soaking solution at night. You’ll feel a lot better if you can avoid all that.
You Can Eat More Foods
If you keep all your original teeth, you can also eat more food varieties as you get older. With good dental hygiene, you can keep on eating things like apples and corn on the cob as you get into your fifties, sixties, and seventies.
It’s true you can get dentures, but they don’t work as well when you’re trying to eat more challenging foods. When you become an older adult, you don’t want to be stuck eating nothing but strained peas, apple sauce, and mashed potatoes.
You Won’t Shun Social Situations
There are also many older adults, or even not so old individuals, who don’t want to talk to anyone anymore because they have damaged teeth. If you do not take care of your teeth, you may lose some of them. The ones you have may be black, brown, or yellow.
If so, you might not want to see your friends or relatives anymore. You may not want to meet anyone new because you feel like they’re staring at your teeth or mouth all the time.
If you’re single, you might not want to date anymore. You may not want to speak in public or go to parties or other social gatherings.
Taking care of your teeth means you will not feel depression, loneliness, or isolation in the future. If you have bad teeth, and you’re not speaking to anyone because of it, you might have a shorter life.
Many studies show you need to retain friendships and relationships in your old age, or you’ll deal with cognitive decline.
You Won’t Experience Pain
If you don’t care for your teeth, it’s also true that you might experience some serious pain as you get older. If you don’t brush, floss, and see a dentist regularly, you may develop cold sensitivity.
You can’t drink cold beverages like beer or soda anymore. You have to order them at room temperature in restaurants.
You might have cavities that will only worsen if you don’t get a dentist to treat them. These can quickly become unbelievably painful if you ignore them. You can also develop infections that aren’t just painful but can even threaten your life.
You should start good dental care when you’re young, but it’s not too late to begin this habit when you’re older. You can keep what teeth you still have left.
The first thing is to see a dentist and have them assess your oral hygiene. Don’t feel embarrassed. They have probably seen hundreds or thousands of patients, and they’re there to help improve your life quality.
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