Gum disease is one of the most notorious dental problems endodontists have to deal with on a daily basis, and it is often identified first by dentists.
In fact, there is no shortage of dental problems in this era when people have made snacking on sugary foods part of their daily life.
It is this prevalence of oral diseases that has led to an increase in the number of dental clinics coming up in cities and smaller towns.
When you go in for tooth extraction and the dentist defers the procedure to a later date, you most probably have a dental disease that needs to be treated first. If your dentist mentions you first need to undergo treatment for gingivitis, this is another way of saying that you have gum disease.
Types of Dental Problems
Other dental diseases that often need to be treated before a dentist can undertake any teeth-related procedure include bad breath, mouth sores and tooth rot.
According to the NHS, or the National Health Service, children need to undergo dental checkups two times annually, but only 58.2% of them end up adhering to this recommendation.
This means that parents and guardians who should be doing everything to protect children from gum disease and other dental problems are not doing enough in this regard. It is, therefore, not surprising that 25% of children suffer tooth decay in a tender age.
This is not the only sign that adults are not taking oral health as seriously as they should. NHS statistics indicate that of all adults, only 56.1% take the time to go for regular dental checkups. Worse still, a whole 49% of adults have been found to go for an entire two years without seeing a licensed dentist!
However, when it comes to ignoring dental checkups, it has been noted that some regions of the UK are more notorious than others. For example, London dwellers are more notorious than people living on the northern side of England. It would, therefore, not be surprising to find a higher prevalence of gum disease within London than in the northern part of England.
According to the 2017 statistics from the NHS, 55.7% of London residents had not visited a dentist for two consecutive years. This shows there is a need to sensitize city dwellers on the need to go for dental checkups even if their lives are busy.
Since corresponding statistics in other areas of the country were lower, it is likely that the prevalence of gum disease and other oral problems was also lower in those areas than in London.
What is interesting about people’s attitude towards oral health is that a good number of people are more concerned about their cosmetic look than genuine oral health. If they are found with gum disease, it is only because they paid a visit to the dental clinic to have some cosmetic procedure done.
According to the NHS, of all the adults who visit a dentist in a year, 12.7 million of them go in to have their teeth scaled or polished.
Oral Health should be emphasized
Treating dental problems such as gum disease is more expensive than maintaining a healthy oral routine. In fact, if everyone got their teeth checked as regularly as is recommended, there would be fewer cases of serious dental illnesses; and the country would incur far fewer medical expenses.
For this reason, it would help if besides daily tooth brushing and flossing people would take dental checkups more seriously. If gum disease, or any other disease for that matter, is caught at its early stages, treating it is not only easy and effective but also cheaper.
The converse is true. If you ignore medical checkups, you could end up with rotting teeth, cavities or even gum disease. Besides, your teeth’ enamel might suffer erosion, causing your teeth to become extra sensitive. Needless to say, sensitive teeth are just the beginning of other health problems.
Worldwide State of Oral Health
Oral problems are not restricted to developing countries; rather, they are a global issue that needs more attention than is already given. 2017 statistics showed that the number of children with dental cavities in their milk teeth exceeded 530 million.
As for the general populace, an entire 2.3 billion individuals were found to have cavities in their permanent teeth, while a whole 10% had serious gum disease, which had the potential to cause loss of teeth.
Globally too, cancer of the lips or mouth is also a concern, with countries in Asia and around the Pacific being the most affected.
Unfortunately, although the cost of maintaining appropriate oral health is high in many countries, some medical insurance providers do not often offer suitable coverage for dental treatments. That is why many British are going to Turkey for having dental treatments, dental centre turkey offers 80% lower prices on all kinds of dental treatments.
In fact, dental expenses are rarely covered by UHC; Universal Health Care. As such, it is usual to find a country allocating a measly 5% of its entire health vote to dental treatments, and individuals end up footing the rest of the bill.
At the end of the day, for every amount individual families spend on health from their own pockets, 20% of it is directly related to dental costs.
How to Keep Dental Costs Low
Whereas regular dental checkups can reduce incidences of tooth decay and many other dental problems, it would be great to understand what one can do to minimise the risk of developing dental complications. You could check dental clinic reviews via Trustpilot for comparing dental expenses.
One of the preventative measures you can take is to keep sugary foods at a minimum. This is because free sugar from foodstuffs is converted into acids, and these end up destroying the teeth as days go by.
Note that free sugar does not only come from natural foods like fruit juice and cane sugar. It is also found in some manufactured foods; having been added before packaging.
Usually, people who are in the habit of snacking on sugary foods end up developing plaque on their teeth, and eventually, the teeth develop dental cavities.
For people whose teeth are already covered with plaque, all is not lost. Just visit a nice clinic with plaque removal implements and the dentist will bring your teeth back to normal.
