November 28, 2020
How Does Diabetes Affect Your Dental Health?
You will be surprised to know that your diabetic issues can affect your dental health. People with uncontrolled or poorly controlled diabetes are at greater risk for dental problems. These people are more likely to have gum infections and can affect the bones that hold the teeth. This happens because diabetes can reduce the blood supply to the gums.
Diabetes is a condition in the body that makes blood glucose rise beyond normal levels. This affects blood vessel parameters that is, it thickens the walls of blood vessels. This thickened blood vessel reduces the flow of nutrients and removal of wastes from body tissues. This reduced blood flow weakens the gums and leads to gum infection. A non-controlled diabetic state can lead to higher glucose levels in the mouth fluids too.
On the other hand, infections from untreated periodontal disease can cause blood sugar to rise and make it harder to control diabetes.
Diabetes Dental Health Action Plan
If you are a person with diabetes, a dentist will definitely be included in your Diabetes Care Team. They will recommend you few dental activities to be followed over other activities and medicines. Here we list out few dental activities to be followed.
Brushing Practice – Diabetes reduces the ability to fight bacteria. If you don’t remove plaque from the teeth, it will harden the gum line into a substance called tartar. Hence brushing twice a day can help remove plaque and prevent diabetes.
Flossing – The longer plaque remain on the teeth, the more they irritate the part of gums around the base of the teeth. Hence the gums are swollen and bleed easily. This can be prevented by flossing at least once a day.
Stay Smoke-Free – One of the main activities to preserve oral health is not smoking. Please quit if you do so. Smoking makes gum disease affect badly. This also increases the risk of heart disease too.
Diabetes Management Routine – In addition to taking care of oral health, make sure diabetes is well-controlled. Get stick to a proper diabetes management routine.
Keep Control Over Diabetes to Achieve Proper Dental Health…!