The Importance of Starting Your Year With a Preventive Dentistry Appointment

Scheduling preventive dental care may not make your New Year’s resolutions list, yet it’s the easiest one to keep. You only need one preventive dentistry appointment to set yourself up for a year of excellent dental health.

Starting the year with a bright smile gives you confidence and energy, and prioritizing preventive dental care helps you avoid the expense and pain of dental disease — an important goal considering one in four adults have untreated cavities and half of those over 30 have signs of gum disease.

Britney Beard, DDS, and her team at Fremaux Dental Care have a passion for helping people prevent dental problems, and the only way to do that is with regular checkups.

If you haven’t visited the dentist in the last 6-12 months, starting the New Year with a checkup is a great way to refresh your dental care and gain the following benefits:

Start the New Year with a bright smile

Few changes improve your mood and self-confidence like a dazzling smile. Routine preventive care includes a deep cleaning and polishing. However, you could use a New Year’s visit to learn how to improve other cosmetic concerns.

Whether you’re unhappy with stained, cracked, chipped, crooked, or missing teeth, we specialize in many solutions to restore your smile. 

You could take care of all your cosmetic issues at once, but you don’t have to. The beauty of a New Year’s visit is that we can create a plan for improving your dental health over an extended time.

Lower your risk for severe dental disease

The primary goal of preventive dental care is avoiding cavities, gum disease, and infections. During your checkup, we find the earliest signs of dental disease, allowing us to restore your teeth before you need emergency dentistry for a painful problem.

Most importantly, preventing decay, gum disease, and infections saves your teeth. When these conditions go untreated, inflammation erodes the bone and ligaments supporting your teeth, and that leads to tooth loss.

Protect your overall health

Did you know that poor dental health contributes to other serious diseases? Untreated cavities and gum disease allow bacteria from your mouth to enter your bloodstream. From there, the bacteria travel throughout your body, leading to:

Diabetes

Gum disease significantly raises your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. You’re also three times more likely to have gum disease if you already have diabetes.

Heart disease

Oral bacteria circulating in your bloodstream add to inflammation in your blood vessels and increase the risk of blood clots, problems that promote clogged arteries.

Chronic kidney disease

Inflammation originating in gum disease and traveling through your body is closely associated with chronic kidney disease. Existing kidney disease also increases gum inflammation.

Respiratory illnesses

Severe gum disease exposes your lungs to unusually high levels of the bacteria responsible for pneumonia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Be screened for oral cancer

Many people aren’t aware that we routinely screen for oral cancer at preventive dentistry appointments. We visually examine the tissues inside your mouth, looking for sores and other signs of cancer. And we have specialized tests we can perform if we detect signs of cancer.

Get self-care tips for better health

Your preventive checkup goes beyond an exam and cleaning. These appointments also give you time to ask questions and allow us to teach you ways to improve your at-home dental hygiene.

We’re also available to discuss issues like nutrition (the foods you eat can support or harm your oral and physical health), stopping smoking, and challenges parents might have teaching children how to care for their teeth.

Connect with our skilled Fremaux Dental Care team if you have any concerns about your dental health. Call or book online to schedule your New Year preventive dentistry appointment.