Signs Of Healthy Gum
To have the most beautiful smile ever, you may need the help of shiny set of teeth for the job. Your oral health can change a lot of things about you, bad breath or stain teeth can make you always feel afraid when you are talking close to people. Probably you don’t want them to perceive the bad odor that is coming from your mouth due to the problem of bad breath, you can even loss some close friends.
That’s indeed the worst fee ever! When it’s comes to our mouth, we normally prioritize the nature of our teeth, but do you think that you can have a healthy strong teeth without a healthy gum?
The gum is also an essential part of the mouth, some habits like regular brushing and flossing can result to a healthy gum. For most of us, we usually visit the dentist only when we have tooth ache or any sort of pain in our mouth, but we tend to ignore gum bleeding, redness or inflammation thinking that it’s no big deal.
This mindset is totally wrong, imagine if your hands always bleed, you will take it serious right? If you would be able to pay close attention to the health of your teeth and gum, it can help monitor how healthy your body is. By now you must have known certain signs of an unhealthy gum and teeth such as cavity, pain and so on. But can you tell if your gum is healthy or not?
There are also signs that shows whether your gum is healthy or not, in this article we are going to touch some of this signs. We are also going to look at those things that damage our gum, and how our gum can be protected.
Signs Of Healthy Gum
1. Pink In Color
A healthy gum is pink in color, it’s not supposed to be red, white or any other odd color. You shouldn’t only pay attention to your teeth, the life of your gum is also very important.
You should monitor the condition of your gum daily, by carrying out some simple tests yourself. Wash your hands and slide a finger into your mouth, you can touch your gum to know how they are, if they are firm and pain free then that’s a good sign of a Healthy gum.
The tongue too can be tested using this simple method too, the two body tissues (tongue and gum) are always pink in a healthy mouth. When swollen or white in color, clearly it’s never a good sign, you can be suffering from a big health problem which might need to be treated immediately.
One more thing, the saliva can help keep your gum healthy. Saliva helps keep the gum moist always, dry mouth can lead to a disaster. Saliva has anti-bacteria properties, it also helps to clear out food particles and helps maintain a safe gum.
2. Natural Breath
Normally the mouth produces a kind of natural breath, it might not smell so well though, but if you start to notice strange increased foul odor in the smell of your breath then there is a problem somewhere.
Mouth odor is one of the early symptoms of gum disease, plaque is the most common cause of gum disease. If your oral hygiene is too poor, big amounts of plaque starts to gather below and on the teeth.
Normally plaque contains large amounts of active bacteria, this bacteria settles between the teeth at the pockets on the gum. This bacteria causes lots of damages on your gum and teeth, this results to gum disease, tooth decay and pain.
Maintain a proper oral cleanliness, ensure that you brush daily. You can also consider flossing daily if you have not be doing it before. Each time you floss ensure to check the smell, if you start to notice strong unpleasant odor, it might be a sign of gum disease. A proper close examination by a dentist can also help clear things up for you.
3. No Bleeding
When brushing your teeth, bleeding can be a sign of unhealthy gum, always brush in a sink or a place that’s clear enough for you to see if you bleed.
If you bleed while brushing no matter how small the bleed is, it’s not normal. A healthy gum is does not bleed all the time.
If you notice a constant reoccurring bleeding each time you brush, get in touch with a dentist and request for tests asap. Although using tooth brush with stiff bristles can make your gum to bleed, bacteria can easily take over from the injuries inflicted by toothbrush and cause more damages. Toothbrush with stiff bristles no only injures your gum, they also wear your teeth enamel down leading to yellow colored teeth.
Let’s me not digress, if the toothbrush you are using is too strong and dangerous to use, you should get rid of it. You can consult a dentist and seek for a suitable toothbrush you can use without worries. Note, taking care of your gum is not only to maintain a healthy gum it’s also for an overall healthy body. The gum is richly supplied with a good active transport system which is the blood, when we allow bacteria to accumulate on our gum and cause damages, they can easily get into our body system through the blood and unleash mayhem to the body.
4. Strong Teeth
Firm healthy teeth can be found only when your gum is in good shape (healthy), it shows absence of gum disease. There are some physical signs that you don’t need a professional to carry out a test for you to know that things are not right. If a tooth is loose or shaky when touched with a finger, that tooth is not strong and healthy.
Diseased gum can cause lots of complications on the teeth such as – pain when chewing, teeth sensitive and decay. Early detection of gum disease is very important, at the earlier stage of gum disease there are treatments that can help you regain a clinically proven healthy gum again.
Everyone loves his or her teeth, but there certain things that we take or do that may seem harmless in our own eyes. But in the other way round there are not harmless as it may seem, I want us to also look at those things that damages our gum.
Causes Of Gum Damage
Signs of a healthy gum is not only four as I have listed on this article, there are also so many other signs but this are the most common signs to help us keep on check. Now let’s dive in and know the things that wreck havoc on our gum and teeth.
Bruxism ( Teeth Grinding)
This can be a bad habit that you developed on your own or it can be involuntary. Teeth grinding may seem to be OK with you but it’s not advisable if you would like to maintain a healthy gum. It not only wears your teeth down, it also results to redness and painful gum.
Ice
If you normally chew ice blocks, you need to consider stopping. Chewing ice feels good for most people including me, the feeling is something else entirely but actually you are doing more harm than good to your gum. Ice is not good for your teeth and gum, it can lead to cracks and damages on your teeth and gum too.
Sugary Foods
Sugary foods when taking in the right amount is not bad at all, there are so many foods out there that you need to be cautious about. If care isn’t taking your teeth is gone for life, am not saying this to get you discouraged about taking sugary foods, proper oral cleaning is essential here.
So many foods and drinks contains lots of sugar, for example chocolate and soda contains sugar. Who doesn’t like chocolates? They are really delicious but can bring out a negative impact on your teeth when some pieces are left in your mouth. Gummy sugary foods can easily get stucked on your teeth, and they tend to attract lots of bacteria.
Bacteria interact with this sugary foods and ends up producing acids that wears down the teeth, the acids produced can also lead to tooth decay and gum disease.
Rough Play
There are sports that requires physical collisions, apart from sports some play can be so rough. Whether it’s sports or whatever, without a mouth guard your teeth and gum can be hurt.
If the sports or play is necessary, ensure that you get your teeth protected using mouth guard.
Nutritional Deficiency
Some nutrients are crucial for a healthy gum, If you don’t give your body the right foods that it’s needs to keep a healthy gum, then you will end up not having an unhealthy one. Just as I stated earlier that sugary foods and drinks can damage your teeth, if you always take sugary foods and drinks without proper cleaning afterwards, you are just growing and feeding bacteria in your mouth.
Making The Teeth A Tool
Sometimes all the bottle openers in the house might seem to have traveled, or you might be too lazy to get one. You will go for an available alternative which is your teeth, to open your bottle of drink. This habit is not doing your teeth and gum any good, this practice can make your teeth to break and also cause damages to your gum.
Finally, let’s I forget, the type of toothbrush that you use can damage your gum. If the bristles are too stiff and dangerous, you should get another one. After a long period of illness you should consider changing your toothbrush because some harmful microbes can still be trapped in your toothbrush. Always keep your gum healthy by blushing and flossing daily, mouthwashe can also be helpful.