June 7, 2008
What Your Dentist Should Do, #3: Adapt Diagnostics To Consider Diabetes
Make sure your dentist adapts his or her diagnostic process when giving you your regular check ups to include baseline data about your diabetes and to evaluate how that’s affecting your oral health.
Unless your dentist is working with you to learn more about your diabetes and is including that in his or her evaluation of your oral health, you run the risk that not all the factors that are affecting your oral health and your general health are being considered in your care. Good dental care specific to known issues that people who have diabetes experience is critical for both your ongoing oral health and physical health.
As we’ve discussed throughout this blog, periodontal disease is often worse for people who have diabetes. Let’s recap some of the dental problems typical to diabetes:
- More severe gum disease, which leads to a host of other problems like deeper pockets in the gums, bone loss and loss of periodontal ligaments that connect the teeth to the alveolar bone.
- More destructive effects from gum disease once it develops – in some people who have diabetes research has found four times the alveolar bone loss of those who don’t have diabetes. Remember, alveolar bone is critical to keeping teeth stable and healthy in your mouth.
- Higher rates of tooth loss from gum disease. Loss of bone puts you on the road to tooth loss. Remember, the frequency of toothlessness in people who have diabetes is high – 15 times higher than it is in people who do not have diabetes.
Did you know that all dentists are not equally prepared to assist people who have diabetes with their dental health? For more diabetes information, get your free five-lesson mini-course on diabetes and your teeth at DentistryForDiabetics.com.
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