For most of us, Dentists are associated with Pain! We tend to avoid dentist and dental treatment, until and unless it starts giving us trouble! As we have certain preconceived thoughts, that are fed by our surroundings, we tend to ignore our oral health.
Let me give you a perspective—You are drinking water from a tap daily, may be 6-7 times a day and 365 days. You are thinking that I am drinking most safe thing on earth, but what if, the inside of tape is rusted??What if the inner side of tape is filthy and contains bacteria, will you be able to know without checking inside??What if you, your child and your all family members are drinking water through same rusted and dirty tape daily?
Same happens to our body. Think about it. You are eating food daily and may be 2/3/4 or more times daily and all the food is passed through only one source—Your mouth! (Obviously, we are not taking consideration of the ones who are hospitalized and are given intra-venous injections!) Your mouth is gateway to the food and nutrition you consume. Whatever you eat, it is going to toll through your mouth admixed with your saliva. Tell me, what if your mouth and saliva contains lots of bad bacteria??Where they will go along with your food???Did you know that any individual person’s mouth contains 20 billion bacteria, at any given time! (Yes, 20 BILLLION!!). There are 700 species (“types”) of bacteria amongst this 20 billion. Some are good, some are bad, some are worst for your health. The population of bad and worst bacteria increases with oral diseases. They grow and proliferate rapidly with oral diseases. What will be its effect, not on day-one, but after many months or years?? Will you be able to know, without an expert checking that your mouth is free of diseases??Remember, there is a difference between you “see” your mouth and doctor “examines” your mouth. You may find your mouth healthy, but the dentist might see other picture with his expertise and x-rays taken alongside.!
Another perspective—Did you know you can have heart issues, joint issues, diabetes, hypertension, joint problems and even infertility, if you are suffering from oral diseases???There are increased number of scientific studies showing the same. Association of oral diseases and cardiac diseases are very well known in medical field, you can ask your cardiologist! Now-a-days many cardiologists refer to dentist first, before doing heart treatments, to rule out any gum’s issues and oral health problems, so that they can build stronger foundation of their cardiac procedures and have greater outcomes.
Even, I had diagnosed few patients in their early stages of cancer also! They were totally asymptomatic, no signs, zero pain. They were saved from a cancer growing in their body, because I was able to detect cancer in their early stages, because THEY CAME TO SEE THE DENTIST IN EARLY PHASES. Your dentist can do that, if you visit them regularly. The chances of inadvertent events increase, especially if you have any habits like tobacco (in form of cigarrete, bidi, betel nut chewing), even chronic alcoholism also.
Till now, we had talked association of your overall health to oral health, now let’s just focus on teeth and gums problems and their local effects.
Many of the dental diseases are silent in nature as for rest of our body. They do not give you initial signs of deterioration. No pain, nothing! It can be only diagnosed via doctor’s examination with certain sets of x-rays!
Why teeth and gums issues do not give pain??? Because nature has created us in a certain way!
If you see a vertical section of tooth, it has 3 layers-Enamel, Dentin and Pulp (Root Canal)
If you have tooth decay and infection in the Enamel layer, you would not never know it by symptoms. Why??Because Enamel has no nerve supply, in a way-it does not carry any kind of sensation. and you will never know its infected and decayed. If you are not aware and does not get it treated, the decay progresses to 2nd layer.
The second layer dentin, is highly innervated with good blood supply, still in many of the cases, it gives mild sensation, like little pain to cold, hot or sweet food! Most of patients will also ignore this symptom, the decay progresses to 3rd layer called Root Canal!
The blast occurs, when the infection reaches to 3rd layer, called Root Canal, where patient typically starts having throbbing pain and have to rush to dentist in emergency. This is the phase, where most of the patient reaches to dentist due to un-bearable pain. At this level, your dentist might suggest you to undergo either Root Canal Treatment or in worst case scenario, tooth removal!!
What’s Root Canal Treatment??? We will see that in next blog!
For all the reasons cited above, it’s imperative to visit your dentist at least once in a year (Ideally every six monthly).How much does it cost to visit a dentist??? Probably less than the bill of your last restaurant meal and less time than watching a short film! but it can save your valuable time and money in future! Ultimately identifying any disease in early stage is always beneficial, that’s why its said that Prevention is better than cure!
This article is written by Dr Jay Kothari, who is specialist Dentist of Root Canal Treatment (Endodontist), having super-specialty in Microscopic Root Canal Treatment and Microscopic Re-Root Canal Treatment. You can read more about him at www.microscopicdentist.com or google on Dant-Aarogyam Microscopic Dental Clinic, Gujarat, Ahmedabad
