3 Ways Poor Dental Health Can Affect Your Overall Health

Dental health refers to the condition of your mouth, a part of your digestive system which encompasses your teeth, gums, and tongue. Keeping their wellness is essential because they can help you speak fluently and digest food easily, aside from bringing you a wonderful smile. 

You may have poor oral health if you don’t practice proper hygiene like regularly brushing your teeth or acquire certain illnesses. Luckily, medical institutions like Dentist Kingsway can provide accurate diagnoses to determine and address oral health woes before they get worse. 

Curious as to how poor dental health can affect your overall well being? Keep on reading to learn more.

Signs Of Poor Oral Health

There are tell-tale signs that you can notice that show if you have poor dental health. They include:

• Poor Tooth Quality – Teeth are durable; it’s said that they can withstand more than 200 pounds of pressure. If you have poor oral health, you may experience toothache when chewing food, indicating that your tooth is starting to decay due to a cavity. In some cases, the bacteria can affect the tooth’s anchorage to the jaw bone – leading to eventual tooth deterioration. 
• Halitosis – A sign of a healthy mouth is fragrant breath. On the contrary, an unpleasant breath can indicate the presence of harmful bacteria inside your mouth which can cause tooth decay and gum infection.
• Yellowish Or Dark Teeth- Your tooth is naturally a little bit yellowish. Its inner parts, known as the pulp, contain sensitive nerves responsible for bringing oxygen-rich blood to your tooth. The outer portion of the tooth is what makes it appear white, known as the tooth enamel. Tooth decay, lack of calcium, or excessive fluoride can diminish the enamel’s thickness which can make the tooth’s yellow-colored pulp visible.

How Poor Dental Health Impacts Your Overall Health And Wellbeing

Dental health can affect your overall wellness in many ways including behavioral and physical health. Enumerated below are some examples cited by dental professionals:

Poor Oral Health Can Affect Appetite

The mouth is the part of the digestive system responsible for absorbing food and water into nutrients and minerals the body needs to function and defend itself against disease. Other parts of the mouth that work with it include:  

• Your teeth chew big chunks of food that you eat into small parts. 
• Your tongue enables you to swallow food with the help of its muscular movement. Its taste buds also allow you to taste food that you eat, increasing your appetite. 
• Your gums serve as an anchor strengthening the alignment of your teeth. 

The mouth also produces saliva. It’s a colorless fluid that softens food, in turn making it easier for the teeth to chew and swallow. Further, saliva cleanses the rest of the mouth from remaining food particles, preventing decay.  

Poor oral health can impair the mouth and its parts. Consequently, this can lead to discomfort while having meals which can further lead to a poor appetite. 

Poor Oral Health Can Lower Your Self-esteem

Imagine standing in front of a huge crowd. If you’re not used to socializing with others, you’d likely feel nervous, tremble, sweat excessively, and stutter once asked to speak up, thinking you might commit a mistake on the spot. That situation can escalate even worse if you have poor dental health. 

If you have a robust and healthy mouth system, you can easily pronounce letters and words. Your teeth help you pronounce vowels and consonants, especially the letters T, F, and V. On the other hand, you’ll have difficulty expressing yourself to others if you’re missing some teeth. 

In addition, your teeth and gums support your jawbone structure, affecting your facial expression. Good dental health manifests solid teeth and gum support, lessening vertical lines that may appear before your face as many elderlies have. On the other hand, poor dental health results in fragile jawbone support. Aside from visible facial lines, you may have an extended upper lip. 

Poor dental health can limit your speaking fluency, make the scent of your breath smell terrible, and the like, making you prone to bullying and worsening your stage fright and socialization worries.

Bad Dental Health Can Be A Sign Of Other More Serious Disorders

Having poor dental health doesn’t manifest only because of poor hygiene. It can also signify that you have a different type of disorder. For example, poor dental health can be a symptom that a person has a severe case of Alzheimer’s disease. 

Poor dental health can pave the way for infections too. Because the mouth serves as the entrance for food, harmful bacteria can be digested alongside the food absorbed. These harmful bacteria don’t die once they enter the body. Instead, they cause diseases like endocarditis, a known illness that damages the heart.  

Aside from this, the mouth, known as the oral cavity, is a part of the respiratory system. It enables you to breathe aside from your nose. If you have poor dental health, the harmful bacteria inside your mouth can be transferred to your lungs, leading to respiratory-related diseases like pneumonia.  

Can dental health affect your fertility?

Improper oral care or bacterial infection can impair sperm quality in men. For women, poor dental health can be associated with the inability of the egg to implant in the uterus and miscarriages. Immune cells fight against bacteria in our bodies. However, these cells can start attacking healthy body cells. Therefore, take care of your dental health and visit a dentist before pregnancy or during the second trimester of pregnancy. When you are planning pregnancy, before you vist the dentist, use a chances of getting pregnant calculator. In the first trimester, it is recommended to postpone dental treatment and oral hygiene due to the importance of these stages of fetal development. In the third trimester, it may be difficult for a pregnant woman to sit up due to the position of the fetus.

Conclusion 

Dental health refers to the wellness of your mouth and other nearby body parts. Aside from bringing an attractive smile, your mouth is essential because it can help improve your self-confidence and digestion. 

Poor dental health, unfortunately, can make you prone to illnesses and the like. It may happen either because of a lack of hygiene or the manifestation of a symptom that you have a specific disorder. Ask for proper dental advice, when necessary, from a licensed dentist near you to help you deal with bad dental health.