Nunyara Dentals Unique Preventive Dentistry
When you go for a dental check-up, one of our dentists will start by asking questions about your general health and medications. Many health conditions affect your oral health and vice versa. And some medicines can affect your mouth or need to be taken into consideration before treatment.
While there’s a lot to think about and consider, the long-term benefits of preventative dentistry can positively impact your oral health. After all, prevention is always going to work better than a cure.
Why is it important to think about preventative dentistry?
- Maintain healthy teeth
- Prevent tooth loss
- Reduce the risk of cavities
- Prevent enamel loss
- Maintain healthy gums
- Look after your beautiful smile
- Prevent other common dental issues, such as gingivitis and periodontitis
You’ve come to the right place.
When it comes to dental health and hygiene, it’s super important to take things seriously. Why? Because if we don’t look after our oral health, there can be long-term consequences. That could mean some serious pain and discomfort in the future.
We might take things like basic eating, drinking and talking for granted now, but we mustn’t. It is, after all, important to look after our mouths as much as we look after our bodies.
Taking the best possible steps to nip any potential long-term problems in the bud before they become serious ones is ALWAYS a better approach than needing to cure them down the track.
Put simply, prevention > cure.
Oral health problems are often preventable.
If you’re someone who only pays a visit to the dentist when you’re experiencing abnormalities, such as a toothache, out-of-the-ordinary bad breath, severe bleeding on the gums, general soreness in the mouth or other unexpected symptoms, this is going to make it difficult to stop any problems or halt any potential infections from spreading any further.
Why? While catching a problem early on the piece will ensure it is simpler and more cost-effective to treat and/or cure (and less pain and discomfort for you), getting regular checkups and keeping on top of your oral health is far more effective.
That’s where the success of preventative dentistry comes in. If you take initiative and take an active role in maintaining your oral hygiene and health, this means you’ll be taking good care of your teeth and gums every day – not just when you need to.
That’s why, when you visit us at Nunyara Dental, we’ll not only examine your mouth, clean your teeth, and perform whichever dental service that needs to be done on the day, we’ll also provide advice and expertise on how to maintain your oral hygiene.
Do this, and you’ll be lessening your chances of developing problems such as unwanted cavities, gum disease, tooth decay, gum disease, enamel wear, and more.
Caring for your teeth to keep them healthy is important for everyone; we’re talking preventative dentistry for children, adults, teenagers, the elderly; you name it. It’s why we encourage parents to teach their children good habits in oral hygiene from a young age.
The goal of preventative dentistry is to maintain optimal, regular oral health. This means having regular checkups at the dentist, and ensuring you take the correct steps to oral health each and every day – this means brushing your teeth in the morning and at night.
Oral health & preventive dentistry go hand in hand. Put simply, the difference between maintaining your teeth, and not maintaining them, is whiter, clean, strong, and healthy teeth; compared to discoloured, unstable, weak teeth.
Visiting your dental practice is one of the best things you can do to maintain your oral health.
Mouth Examinations
When you visit us, we’ll examine your mouth in detail. This means we’ll look for any indications of tooth decay (also known as dental cavities) or abnormalities that can contribute to other dental diseases or conditions, such as gum disease (periodontal disease). In addition to this, we’ll also decipher whether or not any problems currently exist, or could potentially exist in the future. This includes checking your bite and your temporomandibular joint (TMJ).
If we need to follow up with further check-ups and treatments, we’ll let you know. As a result, your examination may require an X-Ray being taken.
Teeth Cleaning
Regular teeth cleaning (brushing, flossing, mouth washing) is crucial. This ensures that dental plaque and stains are removed from your teeth. We also use a fluoride solution that not only contributes to the strength of your teeth, but helps block them from decay and bacteria.
There are many preventive basic and major dental services available; give us a call if you’re unsure what you need, or want to find out more about what you can have done.
A general rule of thumb is to visit your dentist every six months, so twice a year.
This generally gives you the best opportunity to nip any health problems in the bud prior to them becoming much worse.
If you have a history of oral health problems, it’s important that you visit every three to four months. The more you visit, the more you’re lessening the chance that you’ll require a big dental procedure in the future (which could also prove quite costly).
Handy tip: Do you have health cover? Find out if you’re covered for dentist visits, and to what extent (how many visits per year, for example) you are covered.
When it comes to preventative dentistry, the name says it all. Preventative dentistry brings many benefits because it prevents people from developing problems in the future.
These can include:
- Cavities
- Gum disease (Periodontitis)
- Tooth decay
- Gum disease
- Enamel wear
- Gingivitis
Anyone and everyone.
It doesn’t matter how young someone is – developing good habits from a young age is incredibly important.
This is especially the case when it comes to children’s teeth (after all, their teeth are in the developing phase, and we want them to arrive strong, healthy and ready to grow into adult teeth).
Preventative Dentistry can also help the ageing population to keep their real teeth, rather than turning to false teeth.
Oral health doesn’t just stop at your mouth. In fact, it is connected to the overall health and wellbeing of your body.
Why? Because the mouth is (unfortunately) a place that can generate harmful bacteria.
By maintaining good dental hygiene, you can reduce the chance of developing secondary issues connected to bad oral health.
These can include diabetes, osteoporosis, respiratory disease, cancer, and more.
If you’re pregnant, delivering a premature baby at a low birth weight can also be connected to poor oral health. This makes regular dental checkups, and regular teeth brushing, flossing and mouth washing crucial if you are pregnant.
You could also save money. Practicing great preventative oral health means that you might not be hit with heavy costs later down the track. That means less chance of developing the need for fillings, root canals, dental implants or more.
The preventative dentistry impact factor on one’s self-esteem is also huge.
After all, we don’t want problems to arise that could hamper your general verbal communication (talking to others), your ability to eat and/or drink properly, to have good breath or to be confident in your physical appearance when smiling.
Developing a strong and effective preventive oral strategy isn’t tricky. It all comes down to self-discipline, and routine.
The Nunyara Dental team has put together some of our top tips & tricks to help you practice preventative dentistry at home:
Use Fluoride
When you’re buying your mouthwash and toothpaste, we recommend buying ones that are fluoride-based. If you visit the dentist, you can also have a flouride treatment done. What is fluoride, you ask? Fluoride prevents gradual, unwanted tooth decay. It also strengthens the teeth.
If you’re playing sports, we recommend wearing a mouthguard.
Regular contact sports leaves the door wide open for contact to the mouth or face. You don’t want to break your teeth or leave risk open to jaw, tongue or lip injuries, so make sure you wear a mouthguard.
Eat a proper diet
Lollies, sweets, soft drinks, carbohydrates and sugary treats can encourage the growth of bacteria, tooth decay or the buildup of plaque. If you eat healthy, natural foods, you’re giving yourself a good chance of maintaining good dental health. Foods that are high in calcium (milk, cheesy, other dairy foods) can also help with healthy gums and the prevention of unwanted periodontal diseases. Don’t forget to also drink the recommended 2L of water per day.
Brush & Floss
Brush and floss your teeth twice a day. It’s important to ensure you’re using flouride toothpaste – and to replace your toothbrush 3 – 4 times a year to ensure bristles are in tip-top shape, and aren’t fraying.
This is essential to avoid the build-up of plaque, which is a film-like coating that can coat your teeth. Too much build-up can lead to gum disease, and even tooth decay.
Flossing is important because it can remove unwanted bits of food stuck between tight spaces between the teeth. For those with braces, using floss threaders to safely reach spaces between the metal brackets is recommended.
Handy Tip – Brush your tongue too. Many people miss out the tongue, when regular brushing of it can help lessen bacteria from your mouth, and freshen up your mouth (which can lead to minty fresh breath).
There is a difference between a routine teeth clean and a deep clean.
Routine teeth cleaning (otherwise known as preventative cleaning) typically takes place twice a year.
Via a detailed dental health evaluation, you’ll be able to maintain a healthy mouth, and allow your dentist to identify any problems early (in case they turn into bigger ones). They’ll ensure there are no gum bleeding abnormalities or inflammation (which can lead from gum tissue disconnecting itself from the teeth), and no active diseases are present.
If this happens, intervention is crucial to prevent further problems.
This is where a deep clean comes in.
Deep cleaning isn’t something you do at home by yourself. It’s a procedure that is undertaken by a dentist or dental hygienist; designed to treat gum disease.
Also known as gum therapy or gum scaling, deep cleaning is designed to clean all areas between the teeth and gums, and down to the roots. This means cleaning all areas of the tooth above the gum line (so the front, back and sides) to remove tartar (when plaque builds up, it can harden into tartar).
To avoid periodontal disease, the deep clean often involves numbing your teeth and gum tissue to make things a bit more comfortable, and give the dentist the best chance to execute the removal of tartar build-up under the gumline.
Periodontal disease (gum disease) creates destructive bacterias which can lead to a damaged jaw bone, and potentially tooth loss. This is why regular checks and cleans are encouraged.
We want your mouth to be as healthy as possible. That means strong teeth, a healthy tongue, healthy gums and good breath. Our role in preventive dentistry ensures you can experience a healthy mouth – speaking confidently, smiling with pride, loving your teeth, eating comfortably, drinking without pain).
Ensuring your mouth is kept clean and healthy will contribute to the overarching health and wellbeing of your body, and decrease the chance of developing unwanted medical problems.
This is what we (and dentists around the globe) call the ‘Mouth-Body Connection’.
Pop in for a visit, and we’ll guide you on the path you need to take to ensure you’re taking all the right steps to effective preventative dentistry.