By Dr. Cressida Dawson, Dentist
Why does your dentist nag you about seeing the hygienist regularly and why does your hygienist lecture you continually on cleaning your teeth? Well, it’s not just because they don’t like treating people with bad breath, it’s also because if over the long term you neglect your gums you will become long in the tooth providing that is you’ve still got any teeth.
If you don’t clean your teeth properly and if you don’t get the tartar regularly scraped off by a hygienist then food debris and plaque accumulate around your teeth which make the gums inflamed. If your gums are continually inflamed the gums become unattached from the teeth and pockets form where more debris can easily accumulate. This causes more inflammation and thus the gums to become further detached and the pockets get deeper and so on.
As the pockets get deeper the bone around the teeth disappears and so ultimately if this process continues the teeth become mobile and the eventual scenario is that they can fall out or have to be taken out.
People look ‘long in the tooth’ because during this time as a response to the inflammation the gums also recede and the roots of the teeth become exposed. This is great news for the manufacturers of toothpaste for sensitive teeth but not for you. Exposed roots are sensitive and much more prone to decay and also means that there is less bone around the teeth so they are less solid.
Two visits a year to the hygienist costs a fraction of what one implant, one bridge or one denture costs - let alone the time that you would have to sit in the dentist’s chair, which hard it is for we dentists to accept, is not where our patients want to spend too much time!
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On another note: Tooth fairy or La petite souris?
Traditionally, Anglosaxons subscribe to the Tooth Fairy, but in these parts children are visited by La Petite Souris (little mouse). Find out the usual amount that the local Tooth Fairy or Petite Souris normally brings, before your children lose a tooth, as once the subscription starts you cannot change it. A recent survey has stated that this amount is between Fr. 2.- and Fr. 5.- for a tooth that falls out on its own, but double for one that is pulled out by a dentist!
Check out these websites for more info:
www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks1/english/tooth_fairy/index.htm
