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Oral
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.Health Care
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discussion to only one aspect of oral health, specifically, gum disease, also known as gingivitis (the early stage) and periodontal disease (the more advanced form).
.....The first thing to note about gingivitis is how common it is. Thus, according to some estimates and according to how gum disease is diagnosed, 80 % of North American adults have at least some level of gum disease, making gum disease easily the most chronic health condition afflicting us.
.....Why is gingivitis so common? Because our mouths are active cauldrons of bacterial stew (well, you try to come up with a more acceptable image of what really goes on in your mouth!) and those bacteria, acting on the other constituents of the oral cavity, produce something called tartar (also known as plaque) that is then deposited on and around the teeth.
.....Tartar deposits stimulate inflammation, which is the early stage of gingivitis, leading to gums that are raw, hurt, and which bleed easily, but as the process progresses, the ever-present bacteria infect the inflamed tissue, and pretty soon |
.....When I sat down to write this article on oral health, and I started thinking about teeth and gums and bad breath and terrible-joke telling dentists, that unpleasant mélange nearly instantly reminded me that over my many years of closely observing the dental profession work on my mouth (if they ever have to identify me from dental records, they’ll look for holes on my Xrays where teeth should have been), I’ve developed a major insight into life that I really ought to share with the world, and especially with my sons.
.....So, hey, if I leave those boys nothing else (and the way my investments have gone recently, there’s a good chance I may not
leave them anything else; you think it’s too early to ask if they can take care of me?), I can at least offer them this  |
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brilliant piece of advice: “Floss or die, boys,” although very close runners-up would be “Buy any land that’s notunderwater,” and “Don’t trust the Canucks – they’re inevitably going to break your heart.”
.....For overall happiness and longer life, though, retaining your teeth definitely comes before anything to do with acreage or hockey teams, because so many poor health outcomes are linked to poor oral health, an odd but persistent association that many nights leaves me with recurring nightmares that since I am the less-than-proud owner of seven dental implants, no matter how much I exercise and eat properly, I might still have at least one foot firmly planted in my eternal plot.
.....Anyway, since oral health is a much overlooked aspect of overall health, the point of this article is to let you know why your dentist should become one of your best friends, although if that’s asking too much of most of you, then at the very least, your dentist should be someone you visit often.
.....Now oral health is a wide open subject (a typical terrible dentist joke, of course) so I will limit this |
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