Smoking is Harmful for Your Teeth!!!
Before smoking affects your lungs and becomes dreadful to your life, it harms first your teeth in terms of health as you might lose your teeth or won’t be able to chew through them.
Smoking
tobacco and other such substances have been an addiction in the society since
ancient times. Initially, only men were assumed to be addicted to it and
particularly above middle-aged and seniors. But by the time, such assumptions
have been proven wrong as it is not limited to middle-aged males, rather, in
fact, smoking has no gender- or age-restricted addiction nowadays. Of course,
if we talk about India, almost 108 million population of the country smoke as
per the 2015 study on smoking in India, which means about 13% of India is
lighting up!
Contents
Almost
all of us are aware very well how much smoking is bad for our health, and we
have been getting warned all the time by our physicians, even there are
warnings everywhere incl. on the cigarette boxes, we see that emphasize its
side-effects. But in this post, you are not going to know those usual
cautionary and effects on your lungs, rather you will learn here how does
smoking affect your teeth and what it leaves to your teeth.
SMOKING AFFECTS THE TEETH
You must remember that your mouth is the first way to take something into your body.
So, lighting up a cigarette then exhaling that first puff to be done through your mouth, and you must think about how it goes through your teeth and what it
may cause to them. In short, before smoking affects your lungs and becomes
dreadful to your life, it harms first your teeth in terms of health as you might
lose your teeth or won’t be able to chew through them; in terms of appearance as
smoking leads to discoloration and so on.
SMOKING CAUSES FALLING OUT THE TEETH
If
you’re a chronic smoker, be ready to lose your original teeth since you are
itself the enemy of your teeth and curtailing their life.
SMOKING WEAKENS YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM
Tobacco
and such substances cause to reduce the oxygen in the bloodstream while oxygen
is one of the essential things to survive the human body and it is also
necessary to immune the body. For instance, when an individual is needed a
surgical procedure cause of dental problem oral disease, or dental conditions
like endodontic therapy, (root canal/RCT), dental implants, or tooth
extractions, chronic smokers suffer longer than normal as it likely takes much
time to heal and recover. Also, a smoker during the treatment is at a higher
risk of infection as the gums in the mouth are not in a way to heal properly,
rather it may lead to gum disease.
RISK OF GUM DISEASE
Among
several reasons for losing teeth in young and adults, Gum disease is a common
one, while smoking is a major contributing factor to it. Gum disease rapidly
progresses in chronic smokers and subsequently, smokers are to lose their
teeth. In addition, if there is dental implantation, it typically works with
them, unfortunately.
Gum
disease generally begins with bacterial growth in the mouth. Undeniably, there
are few cases of genetic susceptibility in development to the disease, but
smoking is the lead instrumental to boost it like a cigarette, cigar, etc. are
major elements to introduce bacteria regularly in the mouth. Since one does
smoking, plaque begins to build in up his/her mouth leading to increment in the
bacterium as smoke inflames the smoker’s gums, it causes blood in the saliva or
the toothbrush noticeably.
It
is important to note here that gum disease is classified into different stages,
for instance, when one sees the blood during brushing the teeth, it means he
comes down with gingivitis, an inflammation of the gums, which is the beginning
of the gum disease or in simple terms, it is the first stage of the disease.
Getting blood during brush is usually unheeded by the people but this neglect
then propels the disease to the next stage, called periodontitis which directly
attacks the smoker’s gum, bone even around the teeth. Periodontitis leads to
separating the inner layer of the gum and bone from the teeth and some like
pouch takes place that contains a large number of bacteria in it including
debris and other junk of infections.
However,
the immune system in the body works with full strength to heal the gums but as
mentioned earlier the reduction of oxygen in bloodstreams due to tobacco and
other substances cause to downgrade the immunity progress. Thus, this delay
allows the infection to spread severely in the gums.
Consequently,
the entire system to keep stable the teeth in the mouth from the bone to the
connective tissue is gravely hit by the growing infection, and subsequently the
regularly producing toxins destroy the connective tissues and the bone. Hence,
when the whole system is collapsed and no anchor remains, the teeth begin to
fall out gradually.
Thus, it wouldn’t be wrong to state here that cigarettes, cigars, etc. are the “smoking guns” for us as they ruin not just our lungs' health, but they take our teeth and most importantly our immune system.
WHAT IF YOU LOSE YOUR TEETH
Now
the question is what if one loses his teeth, could he get back with
implantation?
We
have learnt that it is not a big deal if you don’t smoke as any surgical
procedure is possible for your dental problems like dental implantation, but it
is not the case for smokers. Smokers are unable to undergo such a procedure as
dental implantation essentially requires a healthy jawbone and connective
tissues as well as an uncompromised immune system. While we have come to know
above that almost each of these essentials has already taken farewell long ago
from the smoker. In addition, opting out of the dentures also wouldn’t work as
it asks for stable jaws which a smoker doesn’t possess.
TOOTH DISCOLORATION
Besides
the diseases, regular smoking also causes discoloration of the teeth and losing
the natural whiteness of the teeth. Teeth discoloration can be understood as
our teeth are like porcelain vases and the enamel, a hard white substance
covering the crown of teeth, acts just like a porcelain finish with possible
cracks. Thus, our teeth also have possible cracks that can absorb whatever we
take. So, when a smoker blows the cigarette, the tar and nicotine in the
cigarette get accommodated into those cracks like a fixture there which cannot
be ridden away at any cost, and here plaque begins to build up in the mouth as
stated earlier.
The
bottom line is, if you would like to preserve your teeth until your last
breath, here is the advice for you.
Never do smoke again and give it up today!!!
