Patients who suffer from bad breath will go to all sorts of lengths to stop the condition from happening. It can really inhibit your social life and make things such as business meetings and job interviews into nightmare scenarios. One of the most obvious ways to rectify the problem is to use mouth wash to freshen the breath. The advertising states that mouth wash kills bacteria and freshens breath so it is a common method for people to use. But the story is not that simple.
Mouth wash is taken into the mouth, swilled around, gargled with and then spat out. It does indeed kill bacteria but it kills all of the bacteria in the mouth, some of which is good bacteria. Mouth wash also makes the mouth very dry and, as a consequence, bad breath bacteria can thrive in these conditions because the surfaces of teeth are easier to ‘stick to’.
In the short term you breath might be freshened up by the flavour of the mouth wash but bad breath can quickly come back. Often people like to chew gum after using mouth wash because it moistens up the mouth quickly. This is not to say that mouth wash should always be avoided; sometimes dentists advise patients to use certain mouth washes on occasions because they can be helpful in the fight against gingivitis, the most basic form of gum disease. It is better to deal with the root causes of bad breath which might be found in the types of food that you are eating or the fact of having a dry mouth generally. Brushing properly and flossing too are effective general methods of combatting bad breath and brushing your tongue is also advisable because bad breath bacteria thrive on the tongue. Talk to a Leeds dentist for more handy hints.
You might be one of the many people who grind their teeth while asleep and not even know that you are doing it. It is not a trifling matter either, for it can have consequences for the health of your mouth. With the help of your local dentist you can get to the bottom of problems with teeth grinding so that it is stopped and you are able to rest assured that you are not compromising the health of your mouth.
If you find that you are frequently waking up the night for reasons you can’t fathom, or even that you are unaccountable tired during the day even though it feels like you have slept all through the night, it is possible that you have some form of apnea. Because one type of apnea is caused by muscles at the rear of the mouth, your dentist can help in the diagnosis of this inconvenient condition.
Ever get the feeling that people are avoiding you and recoiling away when it’s your turn to speak? Yes? Well then, have you ever considered that it’s not what you say, but the smell that comes with it? Bad breath is a real problem in central Leeds that has to be recognized and then eliminated, for you own sake, and to fight it, you may have to prepare yourself for a change in how you live your life. For a start, how’s your diet? Because if it’s poor, you could be diminishing your immune system- the very thing that maintains saliva levels in your mouth. How’s your oral hygiene? Because if you are falling behind with that and dental visits, you could be allowing rotting food to fester between your teeth, and promoting plaque and gum disease in the mouth and none of these are going to be aromatic to the nostrils. Do you smoke and drink a little more than you should? You definitely need to get to a dentist as soon as possible to discuss these issues. Sure they can repair the damage to your teeth and gums, but the point is you need to change. With all the above addressed, you can then focus on the hygiene side of the mouth. There are products available to address bad breath, especially formulated mouth-washes, but there are also some cracking herbal remedies flying around to help calm the mouth down and return your breath to an acceptable level.
There’s no doubt that bad breath can be a social killer in central Leeds, but it can indicate that you have problems in your mouth too. If someone close to you has been discreet enough to point out that you have a problem, you should discuss this with your dentist first. Between the pair of you, you should be able to iron out what the problem could be. If there is any tooth decay or gum disease, this must be corrected immediately before you can look at other factor that may be causing the problem- your lifestyle. If you smoke and drink heavily, have a bad diet, take drugs- prescribed or otherwise, these can leave your immune system in a fragile state and put together, these factors manifest themselves through your mouth and bad breath; address these issues and then you can start working on ‘upping’ your oral hygiene at home. Of course, stick to brushing, flossing and mouthwashes, but you should look towards other alternative too, such as herbal remedies like Echinacea and clove oils which you can massage into your gums. Your mouth should always be kept in a state of hydration to kept up saliva levels- drink lots of water, suck and chew on sugar free sweets and gum. Put all these practices into action, and overtime, your mouth will return to its natural and healthy state, and your bad breath will go.
Thumb sucking is a natural thing in babies- it’s comforting, relaxing and helps them to sleep. As strange as it sounds in Leeds, some adults still suck their thumbs too- maybe for the very same reasons. But for all the soothing qualities of having a thumb in the mouth for a child (and adult), it has also been linked to teeth that grow incorrectly, altering the way the teeth position themselves as they come through- leading to a higher cahance of having to wear braces in the future. This is especially if the sucking is aggressive and repeated over and over again. Normally, and quite naturally, this will stop as the child grows older and should not overtly interfere with the growth of teeth. But doctors and parents do prefer to see children start to wean themselves away from the problem from around the age of four, by trying to incorporate various methods. Some may sound bizarre, some way outdated. Things like informing the child about the risks- although as we well know, parents can get a bit ‘colorful’ by adding what will happen, should they continue to suck their thumbs; they will fall off or, a man will burst through the door and cut them off with scissors! Some parents will even dip the thumbs is something that is revolting to the taste- whatever the method used, it’s certainly a difficult problem to break.
If you want your child’s teeth to grow healthy, especially during the stage when they are losing their teeth, you may like to consider having your child checked out for Ankylosis. Yes, throughout, the dental profession in the city of Leeds, they have a name for everything, but you’d be acting naïve if you didn’t clue yourself on some of this terminology- just because you may never have heard of it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Milk teeth by their very nature dissolve- the ends fall off and with it, so do the roots of the tooth as they get absorbed into the bone, but when it doesn’t and the root remains glued to the bone you have Ankylosis. Essentially, the root is still there and ready to block the passage of the new tooth ready to come through. This is similar to an injury where the tooth is knocked out, yet the root remains. The causes in a child are put down to being hereditary and diet, but whatever the cause, there simply isn’t enough room for the tooth to grow; this can affect the size of the tooth and make it grow lower than others. The teeth can be monitored during this period, but inevitably the roots will have to be removed in order for all the teeth to grow healthy.
Sleep apnea is one of those conditions, like snoring and teeth grinding that you may be blissfully unaware of, until you happen to share a room with another person. It is a condition that refers to the irregularity of the way you breathe- more commonly recognised as the pauses between breathing or it can be abnormally slow breathing, whilst sleeping. When you ‘drop off’ at night, you’re body goes into automatic. Your brain signals the lungs to draw air, so that the heart can continue to pump blood around the body. Stop the flow of air and all three hit the panic button, as they all rely on each other to function. You really, needn’t be told how serious an irregular heartbeat can be, especially when you are unconscious, because you can’t do anything about. If you are showing signs of extreme tiredness and fatigue when you wake and that persists throughout the day, you may be a victim of sleep apnea. Firstly, you may be referred to a sleep clinic to assess the problem, after which it can be treated- though there are a lot of methods to address the problem. Lifestyle and diet change are the more common suggestions after you have put yourself through a life management program. Exercise is also recommended, to understand the way you breathe. A dentist can also recommend a breathing device along with certain medications to keep the airways free at night. More radically, the problem may require surgery.
Living and working in the city of Leeds can be exciting but at the same time, very stressful, and stress is one of those modern problems that’s easy to overlook- and it throws up side affects that you may not notice at first. One such problem is teeth grinding and it’s an important issue to get under control, for it can cause all manner of problems throughout the upper body. A lot of pressure is put on the joints between the upper and lower jaws, but if this starts to suffer from overload, it can cause damage to the ears, the head neck, and the upper back; teeth grinding can compound the problem so there is a great need to get your stress and behaviour managed. It’s important to identify daytime stresses so that you have a chance to unwind in the evening before you go to sleep, for it’s here that most of the grinding will take place. A dentist can always supply you with a mouth guard, but that will only protect the teeth; the physical grinding will still continue and so will the pressures on the jaws. Before you go to sleep, it’s important to prepare yourself and learn to relax. You should avoid any form of caffeine and opt for herbal teas before bed; baths with essential oils, the burning of herbal oils, reading and ‘chilling out’ to calming music are excellent ways to de-stress. If you have any issues with this problem, it’s important to seek out advice from your dentist.
A lot of people in Leeds live alone these days, that’s not to say that they aren’t happy with the arrangement, but it does make them vulnerable when it comes to problems that occur in the body while they sleep. You may not know if you snore, which is fine, because you don’t have a long term suffering partner that has to deal with it. But irregular sleeping patterns can lead to serious health issues. One of the symptoms is tiredness and extreme fatigue throughout the day, which may indicate the presence of sleep apnea. The heart, lungs and heart monitor each other as you sleep and rely on communication. Break the cycle and the system is in danger of shutting down altogether. Which is why it’s important to keep the airwaves free from blockage, because as soon as the air stops getting to the brain, it panics and sends emergency signals to the heart to pump more blood and air around the body. If any of these elements break down and the breathing stops, so will the heart, which then becomes life threatening. You can cope with irregular breathing when awake, because you are conscious of the problem. When you are asleep however, you are reliant on your heart, brain, lungs that in turn rely on the intake of air into the body. Breathing problems can be addressed by consulting with your dentist who may well prescribe a device to enable you to breathe more freely. This is also important for the flow of saliva in the mouth too, keeping your mouth and teeth in a natural state of flux to aid your breathing.
