How does deep dental cleaning benefit your oral health?

Deep dental cleaning, also known as “Teeth Scaling” and “Root Planing” is more than routine dental cleaning. The routine dental cleanings aim at removing sticky & hard deposits on teeth surfaces above the gums. Deep cleanings tend to microbial accumulations beneath the gum line using ultrasonic instruments and other sophisticated tools. It encourages the gums to reattach with the teeth. Hence, you can cease the progression of gum infections.

If your dentist prescribes you need a deep dental cleaning procedure, it shows oral bacteria piled deeply between teeth and gums. Despite the root planing treatment seems complex, it is completed within 30 to 45 minutes. Depending on the depth of your infection, your dentist might recommend more than one deep teeth cleaning sitting.

6 relaxation techniques to reduce pain in your jaw

Pain, soreness, or tightness in the jaw is a brutal thing. They cause much discomfort and make regular oral activities such as chewing, swallowing, and even opening/closing moth a tedious thing. Stretching your jaw too much is the root cause of such problematic conditions in the jaw whereas numerous factors push everyone to stretch their jaw excessively.

Once the underlying cause is identified, you can get the right solution to get rid of the jaw pain. Until you visit your dentist, various relaxation techniques will provide you with short-term relief.

Here our dentists have explained some effective ways to relax your jaw muscles to get jaw pain relief for a short while.

What everybody should know about oral mucocele?

Do you notice any swollen spots inside your mouth? Is it appear translucent bluish color and bothersome while doing oral activities? If yes, it might be an oral mucous cyst.

Oral mucous cyst, also known as Mucocele is a harmless, fluid-containing cyst that appears in certain areas inside the oral cavity. It occurs due to various reasons and goes on its own in most cases. However, it necessitates in-office treatments at times.

How do smokeless tobacco products affect your dental health?

“Chewing tobacco is not additive like Cigarettes”, “Smokeless tobaccos are not much worse because we do not inhale it”

Do you believe these things? If Yes, this post is for you, friend. These are the common misconceptions regarding smokeless tobacco. If you don’t smoke cigarettes but consume smokeless tobacco like snuff, snus, dip, gutka, mawa, tobacco gum, or other forms, they also have a wreck on your health. Your dental health is not an exception.

Our dentists have explained chewing tobacco’s havoc on your oral cavity. Keep reading.

7 natural remedies to stop gum bleeding

Gum bleeding is a common problem and is harmless in most cases. If you notice blood oozing out of your mouth frequently, it might be a sign of gum disease or disorders. Likely, it causes a lot of uneasiness like pain, less appetite, etc. So you should start activities to treat bleeding gums.

In general, bleeding in the gums happens due to vigorous brushing and flossing. Likewise, poor eating habits, plaque build-up are also responsible for this. Besides dental injuries, various medical concerns like pregnancy, hormonal changes also trigger your gums to bleed.

Before going for medications, you can take advantage of certain substances in your home as they hold ample therapeutic properties. They can promote your gum health, ease pain, and stop bleeding. Here are some.

If you neglect jaw dislocation now, it will hurt you later

Jaw dislocation or dislocated jaw happens when the lower part of the jaw moved out of its normal position. The lower jaw, also known as Mandible, forms the lower part of our skull and is connected with four muscles namely masseter, temporal, medial pterygoid, and external pterygoid. Each muscle occurs in pairs and each one of them appears on either side of the skull. This joint is termed as Temporomandibular Joint (TMJ) that allows jaw bone movement from side to side.

When the joint is mutilated due to facial injuries or accidents, it will either get fractured or dislocated. Sometimes, the dislocated mandible occurs when a person opens his/her mouth too wide. You might read a lot of things about a broken or fractured jaw.

In this article, we have highlighted jaw bone dislocation.

Why do you feel sharp pain while swallowing?

Painful swallowing happens due to various reasons. The main culprit to mention is, our fast-paced lifestyle. As we eat too much food at once so that we do not chew foods properly. Despite it looks common and harmless, it engenders difficulties in swallowing over time. Clinicians refer such pain and other difficulties in swallowing as “Dysphagia”.

The ingested food particles move into a part of the throat called the pharynx. Then the chewed foods pass to the stomach and other parts of the digestive tract through the esophagus. If there is any glitch in this path, you will have swallowing difficulties.

Besides gulping, aging is the main thing that triggers dysphagia. On the other hand, various health conditions lead to this problem.

How is dysphagia categorized?

Before seeing the painful swallowing instigating factors, you should know about dysphagia classifications. It is because the dysphagia is classified on how it is occurring so that the initiators also fall into one of those categories. This condition is primarily classified into 2 types:

• Oropharyngeal Dysphagia – It causes difficulty swallowing due to the problems in mouth or throat. Mostly, it occurs with throat muscle weakening thereby the foods cannot move into the throat and digestive tract.
• Esophageal Dysphagia – When a muscle in the body of the esophagus does not work properly, it also stimulates difficulty swallowing and is termed “Esophageal Dysphagia”.

Each type shows various signs and they vary for every individual. For instance, some people sense pain while swallowing solid foods but fluids do not cause any pain. In contrast, few persons encounter pain while drinking but have no trouble with solid foods.

What are the additional symptoms of dysphagia?

Apart from triggering pain when swallowing, you may have various difficulties as follows:

• Sense of something stuck in the breast bone
• Chronic heartburn
• Coughing while swallowing
• Food coming back up into the throat
• Sore throat
• Hoarsing
• Choking

What causes difficulty swallowing?

There are many reasons why you feel pain when swallowing. It occurs frequently or occasionally. The frequency depends on the severity of the underlying cause. Here are the primary factors you should know.

Oropharyngeal Dysphagia

As we have seen earlier, this kind of dysphagia happens with the weakening of throat muscles. Mostly, virus or bacteria infections, certain illnesses are responsible for this problem as listed below:

• Neurological damage – The structural or biochemical deviations in the central nervous system (nerves in the brain & spinal cord) are also a factor associated with dysphagia.
• Neurological disorders –  People who are suffering from diseases caused by flawed neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, Muscular dystrophy have difficulties in swallowing.
• Hypothyroidism – Swelling in the underactive thyroid gland due to which extra pressure is applied on the esophagus. It triggers pain and a feel like something is stuck in the throat.
• Zenker’s Diverticulum – It is a disastrous condition that causes a pouch of tissues in the throat. This makes the food particles stuck in the throat and is followed by causing infection, swelling, bad breath along painful swallowing.

Esophageal Dysphagia

The infection or damage in the esophagus hurts your swallowing by causing Esophageal Dysphagia. Here are some common and atypical things responsible for this condition:

• Acid reflux diseases – Chronic reflux of stomach acids would irritate your throat, cause scar tissue in the esophagus and even narrow down this muscular tube. Such esophageal damages can be identified with various abnormalities like painful swallowing.
• Esophageal tumors – The abnormal narrowing of the esophagus causes tumors in the food pipe and causes various difficulties. Difficulty swallowing is one of its impacts.
• Achalasia –  Achalasia is a disorder that makes foods or liquids difficult to pass through the esophagus. The walls of esophagus for achalasia sufferers are weak thereby the foods and drinks they take come up back to the mouth.
• Foreign bodies – Foods and certain non-edibles can lodge in the throat and block it partially. In such cases, swallowing is difficult so that you may get an aching sensation. Denture wearers and people who have chewing difficulties are highly susceptible to this.
• Diffuse Spam – This is a problematic condition that affects involuntary muscles in the walls of our esophagus. It causes poorly coordinated contractions of the esophagus so that the sufferers develop intense pain while swallowing.
• Radiation therapy – Some people get affected by this condition due to the growth of cancer tumor cells and radiation treatments to rectify it.
• Scleroderma – It is a chronic but rare autoimmune disease that causes a ring-like structure to harden the tissues. It has a direct impact on the muscles in the lower esophagus and is followed by a sharp pain in the throat while swallowing.

Bottom line

Difficulty swallowing (or) Dysphagia is a common condition that can happen for people of all age groups whilst older adults are highly prone to this condition. Whatever your age is, if painful swallowing happens frequently and shows various abnormalities, consult your doctor or dentist immediately.

Based on the type of dysphagia you are suffering from, a clinician would prescribe you the right solution such as swallow strengthening exercises, medication, surgery, and others.  

Why do you have teeth & gum problems after COVID-19 recovery?

Even after surpassing the two waves of COVID, we are still witnessing the traces of coronavirus and its variants. Likewise, people who recovered from this dreadful disease are still encountering complications such as body ache, fatigue, difficulty in breathing, etc.

In the meantime, many covid survivors are going through various oral health problems like teeth mobility, toothache, discoloration in teeth, weakened gums, and other dental infections. Lots of people have reported that they had lost some teeth after recovered from the corona.

What everyone should know about dental fluorosis?

Dental fluorosis is a harmless but cosmetic condition that causes chalk-line stains or discolored spots over the teeth surfaces. It happens due to overexposure to fluoride during the stage of permanent teeth eruption. In essence, kids and toddlers who are below the age of 8 have higher chances of developing fluorosis.

Despite this is a benign condition, the stain-like lines over the teeth can mar your smile. Likewise, those whitish or brownish discolorations are hard to fix once the permanent changes occur. So everyone should aware of the root causes and symptoms to detect fluorosis early.

What are the possible things behind an itchy mouth?

Do you feel a chronic itching sensation in your mouth? Does the tingling sensation radiate to the throat and ear canal? Don’t worry.  They are the symptoms of itchy mouth that occur due to bacterial or viral infections. Meanwhile, such itchiness in the mouth can be caused by your body’s allergic reactions to foods, medications, and other things you intake. Besides these, various aspects are associated with this problem with which the itchiness also ranges from mild to severe.