A close-up assessment reveals so much more than just how well you have been brushing your teeth. Your dentist will also be checking for lumps, sores, redness, discolouration or any other swelling and tenderness in your mouth.
The Importance of Regular Dental Check-Ups
Other than brushing and cleaning your teeth daily, Dental Associations worldwide recommend visiting your dentist at regular intervals. Your oral health is closely connected to your overall wellbeing. During your regular dental check-ups, your dentist may uncover important clues about your overall health.
They may be the first to notice swollen or receding gums that might be an early sign of diabetes, worn down tooth enamel that may be a sign that you are suffering from stress, or sores in the mouth which can be a common sign of oral cancer.
The Dentist's Role
A dentist is a doctor who specialises in oral health. Some of the primary responsibilities of a dentist include;
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Promoting oral health and disease prevention
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Diagnosing oral diseases
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Creating treatment plans to help maintain or restore their patient’s oral health
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Overlooking the safe administration of anaesthetics
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Interpreting diagnostic tests and x-rays
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Performing oral surgical procedures
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Monitoring the healthy growth and the development of teeth and jaws
Dentists’ training also enables them to identify and recognise early warning signs in the mouth that may indicate disease elsewhere in the body. Hence, during a comprehensive oral check-up, your dentist not only examines your teeth and gums, but also looks for any other abnormalities in your mouth. Although this is called Oral Cancer Screening, it includes various other local and generalised conditions:
Diabetes
Some of the early signs and symptoms of diabetes manifest themselves in your mouth. Loose teeth, receding gums or a dry mouth can all point to diabetes. Dental Authorities advise that one of the most common dental health issues for most diabetics is Gingivitis.
Unchecked, this may progress to periodontitis where the bone support of teeth becomes progressively eroded leading to loosening and ultimately loss of teeth. If your dentist spots bleeding gums or other signs that are associated with gum disease, they may encourage you to have your blood glucose checked.
Oral Cancer
According to the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, oral cancer accounts for only 1-2% of cancers diagnosed each year in the western world. Oral cancer can affect your gums, inner cheeks, tongue, floor of the mouth, throat and lips.
During your regular dental check-ups, your dentist may recognise white or red patches, which are indicative of oral cancer. These discolourations may be located at the back of your throat and may be difficult for you to see but are noticeable to a dentist.
Stress
Did you know that your teeth and jaw often unintentionally bear the brunt of your stress levels? When you are having a stressful day, week or month, your body may respond in ways that manifest in your mouth.
Teeth grinding, also known as bruxism, is one of the most common signs of stress. Bruxism can cause severe damage to your teeth if not treated. When stressed, some people tend to clench their jaw during the day.
However, when your stress levels are affecting you on a subconscious level, you might be grinding your teeth in your sleep without even realising it. This can manifest itself as a chronic headache with no obvious cause. In such a case, your dentist will be able to see the signs during a check-up and advise you on the right course of action to take.
Osteoporosis
Osteoporosis is popularly known as the weakening of the bones. This condition is common in post-menopausal women, although it can happen to anyone. During your regular dental check-ups, even without x-ray examination, your dentist may discover loose teeth or a receding gum line which are indications that some changes are happening in the bone that supports your teeth.
If your dentist detects these signs, especially if you are at a higher risk of osteoporosis, they might refer you back to your general physician for a bone density test.
Poor Nutrition
Although people with an eating disorder have ways of hiding this condition, it can be difficult to conceal it from their dentist as the signs show in their mouths. Symptoms such as dry mouth, bleeding gums or erosion on the inner side of the front teeth are all possible signs of an eating disorder.
Stomach acid is hard on your tooth enamel. Hence, forced vomiting can wear away your teeth’s protective coating, and cause increased sensitivity. Iron and Vitamin C deficiency are also easily picked up by a trained dentist.
Anaemia
Anaemia is a condition in which your body does not have enough red blood cells in circulation. Some of the tell-tale oral signs of anaemia include your tongue losing its bumpy texture and becoming smooth, or the lining of your mouth growing pale.
Infection
Once dentists spot any signs of oral disease, they prescribe appropriate medication to stop the problem from spreading further. Oral infections often occur after suffering trauma to your mouth, a dental procedure, dental decay or other issues.
Some of the most common signs of oral disease include drainage from the tooth or wound, swelling, severe pain, redness and fevers. Treating oral infections immediately is important as even mild chronic infection can get to other parts of your body, including the heart and lungs.
Temporomandibular Joint Disorder (TMJ)
The Temporomandibular joints help to open and close your mouth, speak, chew and swallow. These joints are located on the sides of your head. If these joints, muscles and ligaments in the surrounding area stop working correctly, you may suffer from a TMJ disorder. Dentists will confirm joint pain may be a result of arthritis, bruxism, a dislocation or an injury, or even poor jaw and tooth alignment.
Maintaining Fresh Breath
This may be very obvious to most, but there's more to fresh breath than a twice-yearly scale and polish and instruction in correct tooth brushing, or worse still, trying to mask the problem with mints or mouthwash! Your dentist can identify the source of any disagreeable mouth odour, usually gum disease you didn't know you had, but sometimes also tongue furring, long-standing dormant tooth abscesses as well as rarer conditions
Chronic Headaches
How many times do we wake up feeling we've spent the night chewing gum? And how many times do we attribute headaches to stress and migraines? There is a multitude of causes of recurring head pain associated with teeth, occlusion (the way we bite and chew), chewing muscles, jaw joints, sinuses - in short, areas your dentist specialises in.
In many cases an accurate diagnosis of the cause of the headaches leads to relatively simple ways to manage them. Exercises, bite splints, minor corrections to the bite and even referral to ENT and other specialists are just part of your dentist's daily routine
Stopping Snoring
Your dentist can usually tell whether you would be a candidate for referral to a specialist, or whether a simple made-to-measure jaw-repositioning appliance can help you
HIV
During regular dental check-ups, a dentist may spot some symptoms that indicate that a patient has HIV. In paediatric cases, a patient’s salivary gland may swell, resulting in a dry mouth.
Also, children with HIV are more prone to viruses such as HPV oral candidiasis, herpes zoster, herpes simplex and oral lesions. In adults, some of the common oral signs of HIV include oral warts, white, purple, brown or red spots in the mouth or on the tongue, lesions and other infections.
While these symptoms alone do not necessarily mean that you are infected with HIV, your dentist may recommend that you visit your health professional for a blood test.
Stem Cells
When you are about to lose a healthy tooth for whatever reason; wisdom teeth, to make space if you need braces, or a child is shedding non-decayed baby teeth, your dentist can help you preserve valuable stem cells which may come in useful in the future to treat various illnesses, both for yourself as well as close relatives.
Saliva Tests
Saliva can accurately reflect many general conditions. Reliable tests are available for oral cancer, HIV, habit-forming drugs, DNA, Human Papilloma Virus and heavy metals, amongst others. These are non-invasive in that a simple saliva sample is all that is required
The Importance of Oral Health
It is important that dental check-ups are started as early as when a child hits one year old to establish a dental home. This way, the dentist will be able to guide both the parents and children, provide preventive oral health services and diagnose and treat dental and health diseases in their earliest stages to maintain optimal oral and general health.
The Bottom Line
If we consider these non-dental ailments and quite a few other services our dentists can provide, we may well start considering our dentist to be a little more than a stereotypical tooth doctor - if in doubt, don't hesitate to ask!