We go to the gym to keep our bodies healthy and strong. We don’t drink coffee at night to get a good night’s sleep and have a healthy heart. We also visit the dentist to detect problems with our teeth and gums as early as possible and to keep our teeth healthy for as long as possible.
You do all of these things, right? If not, then this article is a sign for you to start visiting the dentist to prevent oral diseases. This is exactly what preventive dentistry services are for. We’ll talk about the benefits of preventive care and treatment of teeth and gums below.
Health as a key aspect
The best contribution to good health is disease prevention. Maintaining healthy teeth and gums is the main prerogative of preventive dentistry. After all, permanent teeth do not grow twice. Losing a tooth in adulthood due to caries or damage is an irreversible process. Once we lose a tooth, it’s gone forever.
Preventive dentistry is first and foremost your contribution to health:
- Regular dental check-ups (e.g., every 6-12 months) and an oral health check-up allow you to detect tooth decay or gingivitis at an early stage and treat it before it causes significant damage.
- Professional dental cleaning prevents tooth decay and helps maintain the health of natural teeth and gums.
- Diagnostics through timely X-rays or computed tomography can reveal problems that are “hidden from view.” Based on the diagnosis, the doctor can prescribe treatment before the problem becomes not only obvious but also critical.
So if you haven’t visited the dentist in a while, it might be time to do so. Your dental health will thank you for it. Learn more about preventive dental treatment in the article “What is preventive dental care?”
Preventing dental problems
Small problems are the beginning of big ones. And if they are not solved, trouble can happen. It’s like the snowball effect, when at first we make a snowball, and then it grows to a huge ball that can knock you down, rolling down the hill.
Let’s take a simple example of dental health:
- You have tartar that cannot be removed with a regular toothbrush during home brushing. Your dentist could have detected this during a checkup. He or she would recommend a hygienic dental cleaning to remove the calculus. But this won’t happen, because you don’t visit the dentist for preventive care.
- Then the tartar causes surface decay on the tooth enamel. But you don’t do anything about it because you have no idea it’s happening.
- Caries progresses and penetrates deeper layers of tooth structures, leading to pulpitis.
- The infection causes a toothache and infects the pulp – the nerve endings and blood vessels that are inside the tooth and nourish it. At this stage, you visit a dentist.
- The dentist depulpates the tooth, removes the damaged parts and restores its shape. But the tooth no longer receives nutrition through the blood vessels. This means that slowly its enamel becomes faded, and the tooth becomes loose and eventually lost.
All of this could have been avoided and your tooth health could have been preserved if you had taken advantage of preventive dentistry at the first step of our chain of events. But even if you didn’t, and you’re now at step four, an emergency dentist Queens will help you get rid of your toothache and try to save your tooth’s health.
Economic benefits of preventive dental care
In addition to maintaining your health, preventive dentistry is also beneficial for your wallet. After all, preventive care is always cheaper than treatment or prosthetics for teeth that you have lost.
Why preventive care and treatment are financially beneficial for every patient:
- Check-ups and preventive care are cheaper and faster than treatment, restoration, and prosthetics.
- Preventive dentistry services are covered by most insurance policies, so you won’t need to take extra money out of your wallet.
Professional hygiene and consultations
Timely and systematic examination of the oral cavity and professional dental and gum hygiene are the minimum care measures that will help maintain oral health and the beauty of your smile for as long as possible.
There are two more crucial advantages of preventive dentistry:
- It’s fast. Examination and professional hygiene take a minimum of your time and bring maximum benefits.
- It’s not scary at all. And it doesn’t hurt either. So if you’re terrified of going to the dentist, these services are for you. After all, they prevent more significant problems and are completely painless.
We hope this information will be useful to you and help you understand the benefits of preventive dentistry. So don’t waste your time and make an appointment with your dentist.
