Smoking and Your Teeth
Cigarettes have harmful tobacco that can affect your teeth in various ways. In India, almost 287 million people are tobacco users. Smoking cigarettes can damage your ability to fight oral infection, which will leave you at a high risk of oral diseases caused by bacteria. A variety of oral health problems can be caused due to smoking like:
- Gum Diseases:
The risk of developing gum diseases is higher in smokers than in non-smokers. Unforfutantly for smokers, the success rate of gum disease treatment is very low. As mentioned above smoking reduces your ability to fight against bacteria, this bacteria then damages your teeth and moves down to your gums. Gum diseases need to be treated in the early stages, if left untreated it can weaken your gums and make them pull away from teeth. In severe cases the tissues that hold the teeth in place decay, causing teeth to fall out. - An increased amount of Tartar:
Smokers are very likely to form tartar in their teeth. This will even cause losing bone supporting tissues of the teeth and deeper pocket space between gum and teeth. While removing tartar and calculus get it treated by a professional dentist. If any calculus gets remained behind then the bacteria will grow back and damage your gums. - Bad Breath:
We can sometimes notice a strange smell around smokers, this is because after smoking cigarettes particles still remain in our mouth for a long period of time. This causes cigarette particles to take over the smell of our breath. This causes tobacco particles to contribute to bad breath in a long run. Bad breath is caused due to overgrown bacteria in the mouth. Unfortunately, you can’t get rid of this bad breath even after brushing and gargling with mouthwash numerous times. The bad breath only worsens as smoking continues to cause gum diseases and decay. The best treatment for bad breath is to quit smoking. - Tooth Discoloration:
Most smokers have stained and yellow teeth because chemicals of tobacco easily stick to teeth’s enamel which causes teeth to stain. Treatment for this would be to quit smoking and improve your teeth’s coloration with sessions of teeth whitening treatment. - Healing Delay:
Smoking causes harmful oral diseases and also slows our body down in recovering from treatments and surgeries. Smoking also reduces the success rate of any dental treatments and surgeries. - Oral Cancer:
Oral Cancer can be called as one of the most severe outcomes of smoking-related oral issues. When you top smoking with drinking it increases the risk of oral cancer. Symptoms of oral cancer are pain while chewing or swallowing, ear pain, red or white patches in the mouth and numbness in the jaw. Anyone experiencing these symptoms for two or more weeks should be immediately taken to a doctor. Discovering oral cancer in its early stages gives doctors hope for better and more effective treatment.
Smoking can effects parts of your body including teeth and oral health. The best way to prevent all of these issues is to quit smoking. To do so you can consult Dr. Siva Nagini at Raghavendra Colony, Kondapur, she can help you calm your nicotine cravings. Quitting smoking can give you a healthier life.