Implant Dentist in Chicago: Tips for Keeping Your Teeth in Top Condition, PART 3

This three-part article series provides advice on how to keep your teeth and gums in excellent condition and, in doing so, to keep your teeth!

Welcome to the final installment of our three-part article series on what it takes to keep your teeth and gums in excellent lifelong condition. In Part 1, we spoke to an implant dentist in Chicago about the importance of a thorough home oral hygiene routine and yearly visits to the oral hygienist. In Part 2, we focused on the importance of advanced professional healthcare, which includes regular scheduled appointments with the dentist. Now, in Part 3, we shall look at the role whole-body health and a healthy lifestyle play in keeping your teeth and gums healthy.

3. A Healthy Lifestyle and Good Daily Habits

You can look after your teeth and go for regular appointments with the dentist, but if you don’t eat well and indulge in habits such as smoking and excessive drinking, you’ll still be at a much greater risk of tooth decay and gum disease. According to teeth implants specialists in Chicago, the following habits and any combination of them can lead to an increased risk of tooth loss:

• Abusing Your Teeth: Using your teeth to tear open packaging, force open containers or for chewing ice and hard candies can all damage your dental enamel. Chips, cracks, fractures and hastened erosion of the biting surfaces of your teeth can be caused by this kind of abuse, so be aware of the potential damage you’re doing when you use your teeth for that which they aren’t intended.

• Having a Bad Diet: You are what you eat! And if you don’t provide your body with the right nutrition, your health as a whole (oral health included) will suffer as a result. Your diet also directly affects the health of your teeth and gums.

“Too much sugar and starchy food encourages the proliferation of oral bacteria, leading to a greater risk of tooth decay, cavities and gum disease,” says the implant dentist in Chicago. “Limit your intake of ‘junk’ foods and be aware of sugar and acid rich soda, fruit juice and sports energy drinks.”

• Excessive Alcohol Consumption: Alcohol causes a number of problems for your mouth. First of all, it is an irritant and can cause inflammation and rashes to develop on the gums, tongue and soft palate. Secondly, alcoholic beverages tend to be high in sugar and acid. Bacteria feed on sugar, so the greater its availability, the more bacteria are encouraged to flourish.

Acid softens the dental enamel protecting your teeth, which can cause it to become eroded. Thirdly, alcohol causes a condition known as “dry mouth” and since your saliva plays a fundamental role in protecting your teeth, it can lower your immunity to infection.

• Tobacco-Use: There’s little question about the damage smoking does to your oral health. “Smoking irritates and inflames the soft tissues in the mouth, stains your teeth and leads to a much greater risk of periodontal (gum) disease and even oral cancer,” warn teeth implants specialists in Chicago. “Smoking can and does kill, but the pain and trauma of the downward spiral can almost be worse than death itself.”

A Final Note

A combination of good oral hygiene, regular professional attention and a good, healthy lifestyle all work together to keep your teeth, gums and therefore smile in beautiful lifelong condition.

And why wouldn’t you want that for yourself?