How is overall health related to oral health?
Of course, yes, it's related because the mouth is connected to the body, right?
How does oral health affect heart disease?
For example, if bacteria that's sitting in the gum and getting you all infected and inflamed can sit like on a subway on the blood vessel and then where does all the blood vessels go? That is to your heart, right? So that's the first stop and that bacteria that will get off at the heart stop will do some damage to the heart, right? It does keep the inflammation going in the vessels, in the blood vessels, and it helps for you to create more cholesterol. It's like I say to my patients, if they can do that kind of damage with your gums and with the bone around it, do you think they can do damage to your heart? Absolutely.
How does oral health affect diabetes?
The next question is how does it affect diabetes, right? And of course it does affect diabetes because with diabetes the blood circulation is a little bit less, it's a little more deficient, right? That is the problem with diabetes. The problem with gum disease is that we have a lot of blood supply that is now reaching to your gums and that is affecting it. What we find, usually, there is a correlation between gum disease and diabetes and what happens with that is that people that have gum disease usually have, well people that have diabetes usually have gum disease, right? And of course they feed off each other. The worse the diabetes is, the worse the gum disease is and vice versa, right? So those people need extra care. So if you have diabetes, you should see a hygienist more often, get your cleaning more often, discuss it with your dentist so it doesn't have a big impact on your diabetes and on your body.
How does oral health affect pregnancy?
A lot of people think, oh I'm pregnant, I cannot get any dental care right now, I have to wait until I'm done with the pregnancy and then I would take care of my teeth. But then also we have a lot of patients that would say, oh my child got a lot of my bone and this is why I have gum disease now. Because they just simply did not come in, they were waiting to see the dentist or their hygienist during pregnancy. The truth is you can still get your cleaning, it is not detrimental to your health or to your child's health and what is going to happen if you don't is that during the pregnancy the hormone level is shooting up and down. So there is a change in your hormonal level and because of that, your inflammatory response to the food that is not removed from your teeth is much worse. So therefore you have a lot more inflammation, you get a lot more gum disease and yes, because there is no proper cleaning by a professional and I'm not saying you don't brush your teeth, you still do, but you're bleeding a lot more, you can notice that you're bleeding more during pregnancy than normally you would. So I would suggest that you come in more often, see a hygienist, and get your cleanings. The only thing I would not do is the x-rays, but in today's world we do have an intraoral video scanner that has infrared technology so we don't always have to take x-rays. We can see without x-rays whether you have cavities or not, but the main thing is get your checkups and get your cleanings.
Is there a connection between cancer and gum disease?
There is a core relationship between cancer and gum disease also, so this is why we check some of the cancer manifestations in the mouth, some of the cancer can occur in the mouth. So it is important that you get your regular checkups, see your dentist and have them check that you're cancer free. Another thing is that when you get your cleaning, you remove inflammation from your gums. The chronic inflammation can lead to cell changes that can become cancerous or it can make the condition much worse. And of course if you already have been diagnosed with cancer, then I recommend that you get your cleanings more often. Why? Because during the course of the treatment for cancer, your body's immune response to the gum disease is much worse, right? So it's a little weaker. So you want to see a hygienist and get your cleanings on time.
Where can I find more information about the correlation between gum disease and other health conditions?
There is also a website that you can all go to and you can see depending on your diagnosis and compare it to the dental application of that and see how it impacts your overall health. The site is www.signsdaily.com and you can type in the search box in there after you do it on their site, what is the correlation between let's say gum disease and cancer and whatever cancer you have, whatever your diagnosis is. You can do the same thing for diabetes, you can do the same thing for hypertension, for heart disease, and so on. And this is an independent site, they just collect all the data and all the research on the subject of cancer and so on. So you can combine all of the information that they have and get the research that they post there.
How does gum disease affect the immune system?
Overall speaking, the poor gum conditions, right, does affect your overall immune system response. For example, if you remember during COVID, we had a lot of patients that had gum disease, they had a worse time if they got COVID and more of them got COVID than people that have healthy mouths. So it does have a big impact on your overall immune system.
How can I find out if I have gum disease or need to see a dentist?
If you would like to know if you can see if you have gum disease, if you need to see a dentist, you can give us a call at (276) 288-8721 or find us online on alldentalneeds.com and request an appointment and somebody from the team will get back to you and get you in so we can see and help you to deal with whatever problems you have.