How can Diabetes Affect Your Oral Health?
There is no denying that a healthy mouth is crucial for every individual. However, keeping your mouth healthy with high blood sugar becomes more challenging.
Diabetes is a disease that can impact your whole body — even your mouth. People suffering from diabetes have a higher risk of oral health issues.
On the other hand, taking good care of your mouth is vital for overall well-being and general health. Good oral habits prevent infections and pain from gum and tooth diseases. It can even affect your self-esteem significantly.
Diabetes Makes It More Important to Care For Your Oral Health
There is always a link between diabetes and oral health issues. Unmanaged diabetes can weaken white blood cells, which affects the body’s defence against all bacterial infections in your mouth. Thus, oral health problems are more likely to develop when blood sugar isn’t managed well.
Some oral health issues that people with diabetes commonly face are —
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Poor Healing of Oral Tissues
It often takes time to heal after dental procedures or oral surgery for people with high blood pressure. This happens especially because blood flow to the treatment site gets damaged.
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Dry Mouth
Saliva flow decreases due to unmanaged diabetes, resulting in a dry mouth which can further contribute to infections, soreness, ulcers and tooth decay.
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Burning Mouth
This condition arises especially due to the presence of thrush.
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Thrush
People suffering from diabetes are likely to develop tongue and mouth fungal infections. They take antibiotics frequently to fight various infections. The fungus lives on high glucose levels in the saliva of such people.
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Periodontitis
Besides weakening white blood cells, diabetes also results in the thickening of blood vessels. This slows down the flow of nutrients and waste products from body tissues. Thus the body loses its ability to fight infections. Periodontal disease is essentially a bacterial infection. So people with unmanaged diabetes experience it more frequently.
People with diabetes are more prone to conditions that might harm their oral health. Thus, it is crucial to follow proper oral hygiene practices and pay special attention to any changes in your oral health.
Are you a diabetic suffering from oral issues? Dental experts at Totally Teeth are at your rescue!
Call on (03) 9708 0876 to book an appointment TODAY.
