Adults or children with diabetes can experience multiple health risks that affect their daily life. Diabetes affects more than just your insulin levels and can actually impact your oral health. Our bodies are interconnected and need each part to communicate effectively to stay healthy. Mountain View Dental has worked with patients with diabetes and wants to help educate all patients about the risks that come to your oral health because of diabetes. Below are some of the risks, how you can help keep your teeth and gums healthy at home, and what your dentist may recommend if you struggle with diabetes.
Increased Risk Of Cavities
Cavities are fairly easy to avoid with proper brushing, flossing, and regular dental check-ups. However, those with diabetes may need to visit the dentist more regularly. Talking to your dentist about your specific health conditions and factors will give you an accurate look at how often you should see them.
Diabetes patients also experience dry mouth and have less saliva than others. This means that acidic foods and drinks are extra harmful to your teeth. Limiting these substances, brushing with fluoride toothpaste, and visiting the dentist every 6 months can help limit the spread of cavities.
Decreased Saliva
As mentioned above, less saliva puts you at risk for cavities and plaque build-up. A dry mouth can often lead to sores, ulcers, and tooth decay.
One way to increase saliva production without harming your teeth is to chew sugarless gum. This helps stimulate saliva without adding harmful sugar to your teeth. Salvia helps clean your enamel and keep you from having irritated gums from leftover food particles. Drinking more water can also help with saliva, but if you are taking medications that cause dry mouth, water may not be enough.
Brushing your teeth after meals and flossing regularly will help keep your teeth clean and prevent tooth decay. Since your saliva isn’t there to do some of the work for you, you may have to work a little harder to protect your oral health.
Metallic Tongue Or Bad Taste Of Food
Patients with diabetes may also experience trouble tasting food properly. Known as diabetic tongue, a metallic taste can form in the mouth and cause eating or drinking to become unpleasant. This is an oral health problem with diabetes because it occurs when there is an excess of sugar in your saliva that is combined with the dry mouth disease known as thrush.
If you start to notice this bad taste, talk to your dentist to see if you have thrush. They can help you kill the bacteria and possibly improve dry mouth symptoms.
Bleeding Gums
Gum inflammation and infection are common oral health problems for patients with diabetes. Diabetes can limit the amount of blood that flows to the gums. It can also cause blood cells to thicken and make it difficult for waste or bacteria to exit the gums
Inflamed gums are painful and can often bleed or become sores. Taking care of infected gums as quickly as possible will help limit pain and prevent gum disease or other oral cancers. Diabetes patients have to be extra cautious about their oral health because even if a disease is caught and treated early, it takes longer to heal. The lack of blood flow to parts of your body plays a large role in why it takes significantly longer to heal.
Longer Healing Time
After you receive treatment for cavities, surgery for wisdom teeth or tooth decay, root canals, implants, or other dental procedures, you will take longer to heal. Those with diabetes will see a longer healing period than other dental patients. Because open wounds or sores will take longer to heal, be sure to keep them clean and avoid smoking to avoid furthering the severity of the wound.
Better Oral Health With Mountain View Dental
Our Pleasant View dental office is proud to serve a variety of patients. Our team of dentists loves their job and loves working with patients. Our goal is to help you stay healthy and be confident in your smile. Oral health is important as you age, but good habits formed early on will set you up for success.
Whether you just need a simple dental check-up or are looking for cosmetic dentistry services Mountain View Dental has it all. Contact our office or fill out a contact form on our website to get started!
