The newest thinking on skin health suggests that washing with soap every day is not so good, as it depletes the beneficial bacteria that provide protection. This is good news for your skin, but so far it does not copy across to your mouth. There, you need to remove bacteria, not ignore them.
We have hundreds of different strains of bacteria in our mouths, and most are harmless. Some also play an important role; others go a bit mad on the sugars and starches that we eat. Take Streptococcus mutans, for example, this is the critter that is the root cause of tooth decay and gum disease.
Strep mutans bacteria just love sugars and starches and when they feast, they proliferate. You can feel them building up in sticky layers on your teeth. What goes in must come out, as they say, so Strep mutans excretes acids, right onto your teeth and gums. It’s like bathing your teeth in lemon juice day in, day out. There are bound to be consequences.
No wonder if you don’t clean your teeth, your tooth enamel gets corroded and your gums get sore and inflamed and can start to bleed.
You can’t get rid of oral bacteria altogether but, if you practise a good dental hygiene routine, you can keep levels of this corrosive bacteria at bay.
This means you need to brush your teeth twice a day. Once when you get up and again when you go to bed. Use a soft-bristled brush and some fluoride toothpaste, which strengthens your tooth enamel. The aim is to brush gently so that you do not wear your tooth enamel away.
You also need to floss once a day. There is a trick to flossing and you can get the dental hygienist here at Sandown Dental & Implant Clinic in Belfast to show you how to do it. You need to get under the edge of the gums between the teeth to remove any plaque that is building up there.
You need to see the hygienist twice a year for a scale and polish to remove any build-up of plaque and tartar.
If you do all that, your dental hygiene will be in great shape.
Fortunately, at Sandown Dental in Belfast, we can treat your gummy smile very easily.
In the dental profession, we call this fairly common condition gummy smiles. We’re technical like that. A gummy smile just means that when you smile, there is more gum on show than is normal.
We need them to be healthy, it’s just that some of them, such as the ones that form plaque on our teeth, can get a bit out of hand and cause problems. Keeping plaque at bay is a never-ending task.
If you have lots of fillings, not having those mounds and valleys means that you have lost a little of bit of your ability to grind up your food. So, not only do your teeth bear the scars of past decay, they don’t work so well either.
The dark ring means that there is a tiny, tiny gap between the filling and the tooth it is meant to be protecting against decay.
The good news about these teeth is that they are the biting teeth and, as such, they only have one root. The teeth at the sides and back of your mouth, the ones you use for chewing, have 3 roots each. They need a lot more force to get them to shift in your jaw than the one-rooted social six at the front.
Yes, it is entirely possible to get some mild to moderate misalignment issues corrected within a year, especially if you come to us at Sandown Dental & Implant Clinic in Belfast for Six Month Smiles.
It wasn’t until the 1950s, and the advent of great dental cements, that veneers as a dental treatment, really took off…in Hollywood. Getting veneers was expensive and so only the famous and the very rich could afford them. Over the decades, veneers have become much thinner and now they are almost wafer-like, albeit very robust.
Here at Sandown Dental & Implant Clinic in Belfast, we see time and again how just one or two veneers can hugely improve someone’s smile. And it only takes 2 appointments to do so.