Even the kindest, hardest-working people can tell white lies sometimes. These little untruths can be relatively harmless, such as eating food you don’t particularly like to please the loved one who cooked it. Others, however, can have devastating impacts on you and/or others. Fortunately, when it comes to crimes, physical evidence can establish facts and substantiate or refute what people claim as truth. In dentistry, your mouth leaves some evidence behind, which means if you try to lie at your dental checkup, your dentist will know something isn’t right.
Brushing Twice Daily
Following a nighttime routine can feel easier than checking off the whole to-do list in the morning. Especially if you’re running late for work, it can be all too easy to skip brushing when you wake up. In your mind, you may reason that you haven’t eaten anything all night, so you shouldn’t need to brush; however, your mouth also becomes dry during the night, allowing bacteria to grow. Cavities can still develop when you remove plaque just once a day. Brushing both morning and night cuts off bacterial growth and keeps your pearly whites squeaky clean.
If you claim to brush twice every day and you have a cavity on a clearly accessible surface, your dentist may question whether your statements are true. However, if you truly are, they can consider other possibilities like poor brushing technique or insufficient time to complete it.
Flossing Every Day
Although your toothbrush can clean all the visible surfaces of your teeth, you have tons of oral spaces it can’t reach, specifically in between dentition. These cramped areas trap bits of food and bacteria, which can either form decay in the enamel or lead to gum infection. In fact, a telltale sign of poor or no flossing is gum inflammation and recession from periodontal disease. As part of your normal checkup, your hygienist or dentist measures how deep the gum pockets next to your teeth are currently, indicating the potential stage of infection.
Rather than trying to lie about flossing, you’re much better off admitting that you struggle with this task every day. If you really do floss every day, you may need to learn a more effective technique or change something else.
Healthy Lifestyle Habits
Before and throughout your checkup and cleaning appointment, your dentist asks you about your overall health and medications, diet, alcohol and drug use, as well as other choices you make. They do not inquire because they are nosy! These habits directly contribute to your mouth’s wellness for better or worse.
Although you may not enjoy confessing to smoking or eating sugar excessively, lying about these habits will not necessarily make life easier or better. For instance, if you drink alcohol regularly and lie about it, you are at an increased risk of developing oral cancer but may not catch it until later stages, reducing your odds of surviving it. Gum disease, though not directly life-threatening, tops the list of causes for tooth loss and has been shown repeatedly to raise your chances of deadly conditions like heart disease, certain kinds of cancers, kidney disease, and more.
Your dentist will undoubtedly remind you of what you should do to take care of your oral health, but they won’t judge or yell at you if you aren’t perfect. As an essential element of the dentist-patient relationship, trust comes from being honest, even if the truth is uncomfortable to talk about initially. Describing the reality of your routine and lifestyle habits will enable them to give you more helpful instructions, inform them of your needs and problems to keep an extra close eye on, and give you motivation to get better. Your dentist simply wants to protect your smile, and they won’t betray your trust, so be honest with them at every visit!
About the Practice
Since 1959, Brooks Dental has been locally owned and operated. In fact, the practice has stayed in the same Brooks family! Dr. Garry Brooks’ son and granddaughter, Dr. Howard and Dr. Stephanie respectively, continue to bring in the industry’s finest and most advanced technology to enhance patient care, including a cavity detection system, digital X-rays, and even a cone beam CT scanner and digital impressions. To schedule a dental checkup and cleaning appointment in our Winthrop office, give us a call at 617-846-1811 or visit our Contact Us page here.