Preventive Dentistry

Preventive Dentistry

Your teeth play an important role in your life. Other than making a beautiful smile, your teeth enable you to chew food and speak clearly. They also give your face its distinctive shape and the confidence you carry throughout the day.

A healthy smile will not only transform your visual appearance and your mindset, but it will also improve your oral and overall health. This is why preventive dentistry is as important as caring for your teeth every day with your attentive home care routine.

To maintain optimal oral health, our dental association recommends visiting your dentist and dental hygienist, at least twice annually – or more depending on your individual needs. This will ensure that your teeth are clean and healthy, as well as esthetically pleasing.

What is Preventive Dentistry?

Preventive dentistry is taking care of your gums and teeth before an issue arrives, and/or detecting the problem at the beginning, so the treatment will be less invasive and costly.

During preventive appointments, or your hygiene visits (if you prefer to call like that) the hygienist and the dentist will check your oral and overall health, and look for early signs of tooth decay, gum disease, oral cancer, cracks, infection, and more. The dental hygienist will remove debris and tartar from your teeth, as well as polish them and apply fluoride, when needed.

Home care plays a big role on your oral health. It I very important to brush twice a day and floss once a day, before bed time would be the best. During our sleep, the amount of our saliva decreases and we become more prone to develop cavities, if teeth are not properly clean.
In summary, preventive dentistry includes:

• regular visits to Iris Dentistry
• thorough professional cleaning
• regular homecare (brushing twice a day and flossing once a day)
• repair of chips or cracks when they’re small
• decay intervention
• gum disease diagnosis & treatment plan
• wearing a mouthguard when playing sports that have the chance of impact to your teeth (hockey, basketball, in-line skating, football, soccer, etc.)
• wearing a nightguard to prevent damage from bruxism (grinding and clenching)

Benefits of Preventive Dentistry include:

Optimal or improved overall health: research over the years has identified a connection between oral health and overall health. While we used to look at your mouth as a completely individual and separate entity, we now know that that couldn’t be further from the truth. There are links that connect the mouth to your systemic health. And we now know that poor oral health negatively affects specific health problems. Here’s a short list of those connections of which you must be aware:

• • Diabetes – Diabetics are more likely to have gum disease, perhaps because they are more susceptible to infections. Secondly, people with diabetes who have gum disease have more difficulty controlling blood sugar levels. One works against the other.
  • Heart Disease – If you have untreated gum disease, your chances of developing heart disease increase by about 300%. Incredible and especially crucial if you already have heart disease.
  • Over thirty-five thousand new cases of oral cancers are diagnosed each year in North America. If caught early, the five-year survival rate can be as high as 90%. When oral cancer is identified late or not at all, the rate drops significantly.

Other diseases that we can detect in their early stages include epilepsy, hemophilia, leukemia, malignant melanoma, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), and tuberculosis. You can help by pointing out any changes you notice, even trivial ones like a small canker or cold sore that doesn’t heal after two weeks.

As your dentist in Waterloo, our focus is on you and your oral and overall health. We want to help you live your best life, and as your mouth is the gateway to overall health, providing all sorts of clues about your health, we encourage you to never skip or continually postpone your preventive appointments with us.

Our team of hygienists at Iris Dentistry in Waterloo are trained to keep an eye out for things you may not have realized. Meet our hygienist’s team.

We really want to help you smile. Call (519) 886-8980 or request an appointment today!