Four Surprising Ways Cavities Impact Your Dental Health

A cavity, also known as tooth decay, is a hole creating permanent damage to your tooth. Cavities are tiny but expand gradually when left untreated. Most cavities are painless in the initial stages, making it challenging to realize a problem exists in your mouth. Regular general dentistry appointments are best to detect tooth decay early.

Tooth decay and cavities are the most common dental health problems globally and can severely impact your dental health. Cavities develop in everyone’s mouths, including children and babies. Realizing that you have a cavity may come as a surprise, especially if you maintain excellent dental hygiene. However, even after your dentist delivers the news, there are techniques to treat cavities and prevent new cavities from developing.

What Causes Tooth Cavities?

Cavities in your teeth are caused by plaque, a sticky film binding to the teeth. Plaque is a combination of saliva, food particles, bacteria, and acids. Bacteria are present in everyone’s mouths and begin working soon after you have sugary foods or beverages to convert the sugar into acids. Therefore, plaque begins forming on your teeth immediately after having sugary foods or beverages.

Plaque binds your teeth, and the acids in the plaque erode tooth enamel gradually. Tooth enamel is the hard outer surface of your teeth, protecting them against tooth decay. The risk of decay increases as your tooth enamel erodes. The risk of cavities affects everyone, but some people are at high risk. The risk elements include:

• Too many sugary or acidic foods and beverages.
• Poor dental hygiene routine like failing to brush and floss every day.
• Not getting sufficient fluoride.
• Xerostomia.
• Bulimia or anorexia eating disorders.
• Acid reflux disease results from stomach acids eroding the tooth enamel.

Cavities often develop on the molars because they have grooves and fissures helpful for trapping food particles. The molars are also challenging to clean when brushing and flossing.

How Cavities Impact Your Dental Health?

If you have a cavity, you must get treatment for the permanent damage immediately after it is detected by the general dentist near me. Treating cavities is not challenging with a tooth filling completed in under 30 minutes by dentists. However, if you ignore the dentist’s recommendation to receive tooth decay treatment, you expose yourself to the surprising impact cavities can have on your dental health. Here are four ways that cavities impact your oral health.

1. Decay Causing Cavities Are Also Responsible for the Gum Disease

The leading cause of tooth decay is dental plaque that hardens into tartar within 48 hours. When you leave hardened tartar to accumulate on your teeth without getting professional cleanings from the dentist in wall township, you become vulnerable to gum disease that eventually weakens your jawbone and causes tooth loss.

2. Untreated Cavities Result in Dental Pulp Infections

The bacteria in your mouth continue working hard after creating a hole in your tooth. They don’t hold themselves back until they reach the center of the tooth, the dental pulp. You develop tooth sensitivity and pain when you have infected or inflamed dental pulp needing the fearsome root canal treatment. Ignore root canals, and the only alternative available to you is tooth extraction.

3. Cavities Also Impact Your Overall Health

Infections like cavities and gum disease also have an impact on your overall health. In addition, the bacteria in plaque enter your bloodstream to cause various health complications like cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, osteoporosis, and cancer, needing treatments from different medical professionals.

4. Tooth Loss the Most Significant Impact on Your Dental Health

If you leave cavities untreated by ignoring the advice of your dentist to get tooth fillings, the ultimate impact on your dental health is tooth loss impacting your eating and speaking abilities besides your smile. Loss of permanent teeth also causes your remaining teeth to shift position to give you a bad bite needing orthodontic treatments to correct your situation. Tooth loss also causes jawbone resorption to provide you with a sagging appearance making you look older than you are.

How to Prevent Cavities from Impacting Your Dental Health?

The optimal method to prevent cavities from impacting your dental health is to maintain excellent dental hygiene brushing your teeth twice daily using fluoride toothpaste, flossing them at least once, refraining from having sugary foods and beverages, getting dental sealants on your molars to inhibit cavities from developing, and receiving dental exams and cleanings every six months to detect anomalies in your mouth. However, if you happen to develop cavities despite the preventive measures, you must adhere to your dentist’s recommendation and treat them immediately instead of ignoring the advice.