Having good oral health involves more than observing proper oral hygiene. Regular brushing and flossing alone will not do the job. You need to maintain regular visits to the dentist, preferably bi-annually, for dental examinations. Unfortunately, many overlook the need to see the dentist regularly, believing proper hygiene alone will prevent oral problems. Unfortunately for them, oral concerns like decay, gum disease, and cavities are discovered when it is too late when the damage is done.

The high cost of dental services discourages many from regularly visiting the dentist. However, considering the benefits you derive from these visits, you must try seeing your dentist one or more times every six months. If the cost is a hindrance and you are uninsured, talk to your dental service for a flexible payment plan to make the services affordable. Discussed below are the importance of routine dental visits.

Enable Early Detection of Tooth Decay

Cavities do not have early signs when they start developing. You only see signs like discomfort when the decay has already begun. Cavities stem from plaque and calculus accumulation. When plaque mixes with sugar, it produces toxic bacteria that erode the tooth enamel, causing cavities. With few warning signs, you will only notice cavities in the late stages when you begin experiencing severe pain. Apart from the pain, treating the disease at this stage is expensive.

However, when you visit your dental experts regularly for checkups, you can easily detect and arrest cavities before advancement. Even with proper brushing, you are bound to miss specific sessions of the teeth. When you leave these areas uncleaned, debris will start to build up, and as time goes on, it forms a hard layer known as plaque. Further plaque buildup results in a much harder layer known as calculus or tartar that cannot be removed with regular brushing. The layer is the reason you are encouraged to see a dentist regularly. During routine checkups, the dentist performs a deep cleaning to remove these layers of debris in sections of the teeth that brushing and rinsing cannot reach.

Removing plaque regularly from the teeth reduces the possibility of producing acid bacteria that wear off the enamel. If cavities have not started forming, removing the tartar eliminates the threat of the condition. If they have started forming, the dentist will detect them early. Early detection means you do not require an expensive treatment. The dentist will only remove the tartar to lower the chances of cavity advancement.

It is much cheaper to visit a dentist for professional cleaning to remove tartar than to receive treatment for cavities. Therefore, even if you are experiencing financial constraints, regular visits are encouraged because they will save you money in the long run, as you will not require expensive treatment for cavities.

Early Detection of Decay in Children

During routine checkups, dentists can also detect tooth decay. Tooth decay stems from acidic bacteria in the oral cavity transmitted through saliva, pacifiers, or contaminated utensils. You expose your children to acid bacteria when you taste their food to check if it is hot before feeding them or when you clean their pacifier using your saliva. Exposing your child to these acidic bacteria for a long time increases the chances of developing tooth decay.

Feeding your children with juice, milk, or snacks increases the threat of decay. These foods contain sugar, which produces acidic or toxic bacteria once in the oral cavity. The bacteria eat away the enamel, causing cavities. Therefore, you should brush their teeth before bed or every time they consume a sugary substance to remove the sugar debris from the mouth to prevent extended contact with the teeth, increasing the danger of enamel erosion by the acid bacteria.

When your child develops tooth decay or cavities in the early stages, it could result in tooth extraction. This leaves open sockets that cause the adjacent teeth to shift to the space. The shifting teeth occupy the space the permanent teeth could have used to develop, causing misalignment or overcrowding. Decay also leads to oral infections that cause pain and are expensive to treat.

Routine dental examinations, even for children, are encouraged because they enable dentists to discover these concerns early. Besides, when you take your children to appointments, you will receive education or training on the foods to avoid decay or cavities and spot anomalies in the child’s mouth to take early action.

Educating Children on Healthy Dental Practices

Many people, adults included, do not understand how to observe proper oral hygiene. You could assume that you maintain proper oral hygiene by brushing daily without flossing, only to be shocked to discover that you have a severe oral concern caused by poor oral hygiene.

Proper brushing involves small habits like brushing and flossing teeth after meals. Brushing twice and flossing once daily will promote good oral health, but this should not take away the fact that you must visit your dental expert every six months for a more bespoke oral hygiene program. The dentist will clean the sections of the mouth that regular brushing could not reach to remove plaque or buildup that could otherwise increase the risk of cavities. Also, during the visit, you undergo a thorough oral examination that enables monitoring of your dental health.

These dental appointments are even more beneficial to your children. When your children become used to visiting the dental office frequently, they start to appreciate the need to observe good dental hygiene at a tender age. The children lose the fear or anxiety linked to dental visits, encouraging them to make more visits in the future, which promotes better dental health. Additionally, they learn proper dental hygiene practices from an expert, helping them keep dental problems at bay.

Children introduced to routine dental examinations early have an improved attitude toward dental hygiene and better care for their teeth. They quickly practice what they learn in the dental practice at home. 

You can take your children for a routine checkup as early as six months when their first milk tooth pops. Even before the teeth erupt, you can clean their gum using a wet washcloth to remove sugar residues that could produce harmful bacteria. You can use a toothbrush and small quantities of fluoride toothpaste when the teeth pop. Supervise the brushing to ensure the child does not swallow the toothpaste.

Tips the children can learn from a dental appointment about caring for their teeth include:

  • Drinking fluoridated water
  • Limiting or avoiding the consumption of sticky substances
  • Visiting a dentist when they turn six or before twelve months

With this education and regular oral examinations, it becomes easy to prevent future dental concerns.

Enables the Inspection and Early Detection of Periodontitis

Plaque and calculus accumulation not only leads to cavities and decay. The layers around the gums produce toxic bacteria that irritate the soft tissue, causing inflammation. In the early stages, the condition is known as gingivitis. If the gums are exposed to the bacteria for long, it spreads, causing periodontal disease. Gum disease causes the soft tissue to pull away from the tooth, creating pockets. These pockets become breeding sites for bacteria and could spread to the bone, causing severe oral problems, including tooth loss. At this stage, gum disease is expensive to treat, not to mention the highly invasive procedures involved that are painful and take time to heal.

Routine checkups can prevent gum disease from advancing due to early detection. When you visit your dental clinic for a checkup, the gums are some areas the expert inspects. The dentist checks for early signs of gingivitis, like:

  • Persistent mouth odour
  • Pain or discomfort during chewing
  • Increased tooth sensitivity
  • Swollen gum tissue
  • Red gums

If the dentist discovers these signs, they conduct scaling and root planing to remove the tartar around the gums. By doing this, the damage to the gums is reversed because there is no more irritation, enabling the gums to pull back up. Once the tartar is eliminated, you can prevent gum disease from recurring or advancing through proper dental hygiene and routine examinations.

Arresting gum disease at an early stage saves you money and inconveniences that result when the condition spreads. Therefore, frequently visit your dental facility for gum inspection to ensure early detection of gum disease signs and treatment.

Detect Hidden Oral Concerns Through Dental Imaging

Some dental problems cannot be detected through examination by the naked eye. Therefore, during your routine visits, your dentist could recommend dental imaging like an x-ray of the teeth, soft tissue, or jawbone to identify hidden anomalies. These hidden oral problems include tumors, bone decay, overcrowding, or impacted wisdom teeth. Many of these problems do not manifest any signs or symptoms. The symptoms only show after the condition has become severe; hence, it is necessary to identify them through imaging and provide appropriate treatment at the onset. Seeing your dental practitioner twice annually allows them to check for these concealed problems that could have otherwise gone undetected, causing serious issues.

Helps You Steer Clear of Poor Oral Habits

Some of your dental habits, like ice chewing, nail-biting, and teeth grinding, are harmful, but you will not realize this until you see a dentist. During your routine visit, the dental practitioner examines your teeth and advises you on the bad habits you should drop and the good ones you should adopt for healthy and strong teeth.

Helps with Early Oral Cancer Detection

You can hardly detect oral cancer by yourself in the early stages because of a lack of awareness of the symptoms or knowledge about the various types of cancer. Failure to identify and treat oral cancer early allows it to advance to the secondary stage, which is more dangerous and hard to treat. However, when you visit your dentist regularly, it can be easy to spot signs early when the disease is treatable.

Effects of not Visiting the Dentist Regularly

When you fail to visit the dentist regularly, bacteria in your mouth will thrive without proper dental care, thus causing serious complications. Poor dental hygiene will not only affect your oral health but also your overall health. This is because some severe conditions, like diabetes, are linked with dental health issues. Therefore, it is essential to understand the consequences of failing to visit the dentist regularly since they will help you appreciate the importance of these appointments. The following are the consequences of failing to visit the dentist regularly:

Adversely Impact Your Dental Health

When you do not visit the dentist regularly, your dental health is at stake, especially if you do not practice proper oral hygiene. Dental issues such as gum disease, tooth decay, and infections will become more severe if left untreated. For example, gum disease, if left untreated, will progress to periodontitis, hence requiring more treatment.

Cause More Dental Complications

When you fail to visit the dentist regularly, you will have severe dental complications such as gum disease, tooth loss, and tooth decay, affecting your dental health. You will experience embarrassing lousy breath, excruciating pain, and other severe complications.

Financial Repercussions

When you fail to visit the dentist regularly, minor dental issues that could have been treated in the early stages at a cheaper cost become complicated, therefore being more expensive to treat.

Impact your appearance

It is crucial to visit your dentist regularly because a dentist will offer preventive care and, as a result, prevent or treat dental issues at an early stage, promoting a healthy smile. When you fail to visit the dentist regularly and practice proper dental hygiene as required, it will affect your teeth's appearance, leading to low self-esteem, especially when your teeth start discoloring and chipping.

Find a Reputable Advanced Dentistry Service Near Me

In routine oral checkups, your dentist evaluates your teeth and gums for plaque and calculus, gum disease, tooth decay, cavities, and dental cancers. The dental clinic has the tools and expertise to evaluate your mouth, identify oral concerns, and address them before they become severe. So, if you are considering a routine dental evaluation due to the benefits, do not hesitate to contact La Puente Advanced Dentistry at 626-626-7075 for a no-obligation consultation with our dentists.