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Smoking, Gum Disease & Tooth Loss, The Connection You Must Know About

A lady holding broken cigarette in hand

In dental healthcare, three things often come together and should be dreaded. These are smoking, gum disease, and loss of teeth. Smoking is related to gum disease. Excessive smoking may lead to gum diseases that will ultimately result to tooth loss because your gums will no longer be able to hold your teeth in position. If you desire to have good teeth, then you should consider not smoking. Here is how smoking causes gum diseases.

How smoking makes you have unhealthy gums

Smoking has the effect of weakening your general body’s immunity levels. Gum infections can take advantage of this situation and cause some damages to the gums. When your gums are damaged and you continue smoking, it becomes difficult to heal and correct the damage making the situation more of permanent.

If you are a cigarette smoker, then the chances that you get gum illness are more likely compared to other people who are not smokers. In addition, the quantity of cigarettes that you smoke directly relates to the chances of you contacting the disease. If you smoke for long then you should know that you increase the probability that you will suffer the disease. In addition, smoking inhibits the treatment of the disease. Irrespective of the form of intake of your tobacco, you still suffer a higher chance of contracting the disease.

In addition to the disease, cigarette smoking results to tooth discoloration and higher chances of having cavities. If one is having poor nutrition, the chances of these oral health issues are significantly increased. You will have longer healing times for simple oral infections and your tooth will suffer from tooth discoloration while cavities will mostly join in and to make matters worse you will have acquired longer healing time for these aspects due to the low immunity levels caused by the tobacco in your system.

How to prevent tobacco related oral health issues

If you cannot stop smoking, then you will be expected to exhibit extra oral healthcare and hygiene to keep these conditions and situations away.

You should clean your teeth twice a day. With tobacco intake, you do not have the luxury of contemplating brushing your teeth once a day. You must certainly brush your teeth twice a day to ensure that they are clean at all time and no food particles that can encourage bacteria breeding are held within the teeth.

To remove plaque, ensure that you floss regularly. You have to be in a constant state of removing plaque to prevent the effects of the bacteria. With low immunity, you can easily have a bacterial condition that results to tooth decay. Added to the fact that tobacco intake reduces the effect of treatment chances that the tooth decay will result to something more extreme are high.

You should also visit a dentist regularly to assess your condition. As a smoker, you are a higher risk and should thus maintain regular contact with the dental professional to ensure that preventive measures are taken and detection of any condition is made early enough to ensure that it can be prevented.

Treatment of the gum illness

If your gums have contracted the disease, then you need proper cleaning of the gums. You should ensure that you regularly have a deep cleaning of the lower line of the gums. You will need to ensure the high levels of hygiene at the gums to prevent the spread of the disease to wider areas of the gum.

You will need to have prescription mouth rinses. At this level, you may need a more intense form of cleaning and the prescribed cleaners will be necessary. The intensity of the infections may need actual medication to prevent its spread and cure the infected parts.

Surgery maybe need to have the tartar that are located deeply in the gums to be removed. He developed tartar will have to be surgically removed by being physically cut off from the gums. This is an effective way of controlling and removal of the disease.

You may also need surgery to replace the gums that have been lost by the disease. Bone may be put in place to replace the existing gap and restore the state of your dental structure.