As a child, your parents might have forced you to see a general dentist every few months. After becoming an adult, a busy schedule can get in the way, causing you to miss important health and wellness checkups.
The majority of adults don’t see a doctor often enough. Many times, serious problems are missed due to this fact. Pain may start to develop, and after waiting far too long, many adults finally go to get medical help.
This usually complicates whatever medical issue these individuals are facing, making the problem harder to treat, more expensive, and possibly more painful.
However, you may not have any pain, so that may lead you to believe that you don’t need to see a doctor. Is that the correct line of thinking?
In reality, many medical problems, including dental ones, don’t start to develop serious symptoms early on. Cavities, for instance, may not cause any pain until things have gotten completely out of control.
Others believe that their teeth brushing habits are good and that this means that they can excuse themselves from having a medical professional clean and examine their teeth. Unfortunately, that’s not really the case.
Why You Should See a Dentist
Even though all of us have teeth and know that we need to keep them clean, few of us can really explain why that’s true. Of course, in modern society, being clean and not having bad breath are important, but why is brushing and having professional cleaning actually important to your health?
Over time, an invisible film forms on our teeth called plaque. This is almost impossible to prevent, and it’s not a material that you’ll be able to recognize as you look in the mirror. Plaque is dangerous to your oral health because of what it can do to your teeth over time. Many of us understand that eating a lot of candy is bad for our teeth, but don’t understand why. The reason is that the bacteria that make up this layer of plaque feeds on the sugar in our food. Over time, this plaque will actually eat away at our teeth.
Normal brushing and flossing routines can’t remove all of this plaque.
A general dentist knows exactly what to remove, and how to remove it, without scraping away at your teeth.
Over time, this plaque hardens into tartar which then attracts more bacteria to your teeth and gums. This can cause tooth decay and infections in the gums.
How Often Should You See a Dentist?
This is actually a great question to ask your dentist personally. Everyone’s teeth are different. Most dentists agree that two visits each year is sufficient, but after a couple of visits your dentist may see a need for more or less frequent visits. Ask your general dentist in Highland Park NJ how often you should be visiting.
