by Dr.Meer Stanasai
Aren’t you flossing yet? Some of my patients do, most don’t, very few do it every day. If you don’t floss regularly, there are three outcomes:
- 1.Healthy teeth and gums (you’re just lucky then, you hit the mouth lotto, and you can stop reading.)
- 2.You will get cavities and inflamed, bleeding gums.
- 3.You will develop heart problems. You never heard that one, you say.
More and more research is showing a link between the health of the mouth and other places in the body. The plaque that sticks to our teeth during the day, the stuff that is gooey and white that we brush off the teeth also lies between the teeth. When we brush we are getting say 60% of the surfaces of the teeth (60% was barely a “D-” in school). A toothbrush will only get the front and back and go between just a little.
When we don’t floss, the stuff between the teeth stays behind and festers. The plaque is made up of lots of things, some of which is bacteria. These little guys can do all sorts of nasty things. They live there like a community. Some of them are good at secreting acid that eats away at the tooth enamel. Others down below, secrete other kinds of chemicals that irritate the gums. It can get so bad that the gums bleed and swell.
There are different times in our lives when we are most susceptible to cavities. One critical time is the teen years when cavities between the teeth, (where the floss goes) can skyrocket. The rate of cavity development seems to slow down after that. But that’s not true with problems relating to the gums.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, research is showing that this plaque that forms on our teeth is similar and may even be the same plaque and/or bacteria leaking into the blood stream, attaching to the heart vessels causing thickening of the arteries. What we can take from this is floss, floss, floss, just do it!
Dr. Meer Stanasai is with Margarita Town Smiles Dentistry in Murrieta. For appointments or more information, call (951) 696-8200.