There are a lot of reasons to stop smoking: live longer, live healthier, improve how your breath smells, improve how your teeth look. Just in case you need another incentive to stop smoking – it will help you save your smile!
Stopping the habit of smoking will immediately improve your oral health. Tobacco is an irritant to the gum tissues inside the mouth. Many people take their gum tissues for granted, yet the gums help to hold the teeth in place by stabilizing them in the mouth. The gum tissues are also necessary for protecting the roots of the teeth that supply life to the teeth. Because tobacco is an irritant to the gum tissues, every time you smoke, you are weakening the tissues and causing your teeth to become vulnerable to decay and loss. The day you stop smoking, your gums will be healthier. The body is an incredible self-healing machine that wants to protect itself from decay. Once you make the choice to stop harming your mouth, your body’s system will begin working to heal it.
No matter who you are on the planet, you only get one set of permanent teeth in your lifetime. It is imperative that you make the choice to save and protect your teeth if you want to have them into old age. While brushing your teeth at least twice a day and flossing daily are vital to optimal oral health, it is also just as important to avoid things that have a direct, negative impact on your oral health. While smoking is often only given much attention to the promotion of lung cancer, here are others serious areas where smoking has a directly destructive impact:
- Bad breath
- Stained teeth
- Plaque buildup
- Tartar buildup
- Tooth decay
- Leukoplakia, white patches inside the mouth
- Jaw bone loss
- Oral cancer
- Tooth loss
If you smoke, now is the time to stop. Your dentist is often the best source for quitting smoking, and at Group Health Dental we want to help you break the habit. Contact us today to schedule an appointment.
