It’s a new year – a time when, like a lot of people, you may be considering a fresh start in many areas of your life. Health goals are most common – losing weight, exercising more, cutting back on sugar, meditating, relaxing, increasing leisure time or developing a commitment to a spiritual practice.
As you embrace the new year and consider your personal goals for body, mind, and spirit, don’t forget to include your teeth. Whether you’ve had dental issues in the past or not, think of at least two dental visits per year as basic body maintenance.
Ideally, these visits should start around the age of 3 and continue as a routine component of health care for the rest of your life. And what will they cover? Here’s what you can expect from a biological dental practice:
A Focus on Education
Biological offices see the whole you. The goal is twofold: first, to understand the current condition of your mouth, and second, to explain it to you and offer suggestions for improvement in home care, provide options for any needed treatment, and involve you in the discussion. You can expect to talk about biocompatible material options, specifics on how to relieve discomfort, or how to improve aesthetics. You may also receive recommendations for dietary changes that may improve both your oral health and your overall well-being.
And, increasingly, your dentist may point you to your primary healthcare provider due to findings in your mouth that suggest systematic health issues.
Attention to Your Dental Hygiene
When you come in for a cleaning, our focus is to remove the plaque and calculus that have accumulated since we last saw you. If they’re are abundant, scaling and root planing may be needed to effectively clean your teeth. This may also mean you will need more than two appointments in a year.
While the main goal is to remove pathogenic bacteria, it’s not the only goal. Time will also be spent on coaching you in effective brushing, flossing, and other cleaning techniques you can do at home. Effective cleaning is critical for long-term oral health and, as medical research shows, oral health is a vital part of systematic health.
Dental decay is tooth disease. Left unchecked, it can result in pain and ultimately the removal or death of deeply decayed teeth.
Involvement in Restorative Options
If decay or gum disease is found to require treatment, we’ll share what we found and your treatment options, empowering you to make a decision that fits with your health goals. We aim to give you all the information you need to maintain control of your treatment choices.
A Holistic View
A biological dentist with a focus on whole body health can assist you in identifying major health issues such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, often before your primary health care provider does. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a dental exam as a way to prevent chronic disease.
So while our first tendency may be to think of a visit to a dentist as a time-consuming expense we can take or leave, it can actually save lives. Your life.
No matter what resolutions you choose to make, by the virtue of making them, they speak to the habits you hope to not only acquire, but keep. Including your oral health is one resolution that’s bound to make you smile.
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