When it comes to dealing with bad breath, your family dentist should be your first line of defense. It is no secret that having bad breath can have a negative impact on your personal and professional life.
While it is easy to assume bad breath is a sign of poor oral hygiene or eating foods with strong odors, there are many other reasons why your breath might become stale.
The reality is, bad breath is often a sign of more serious health or dental issue.
A family dentist is familiar with the many causes of bad breath. In many cases, they can help to eliminate the offensive odor.
How a family dentist treats bad breath
Below are a few ways a dentist can improve your oral health to refresh your bad breath. Some treatments are simple remedies, while others may be quite intense.
Oral hygiene education
Oral hygiene goes a long way when it comes to keeping your breath fresh. It is virtually impossible to have fresh smelling breath when you do not clean your teeth and gums each day.
Dentists recommend brushing the teeth and gums at least two times each day. One of those times should be right before going to bed since the mouth is more vulnerable to the bacteria that causes bad breath during this period. By brushing right before going to bed, the number of bacteria in the mouth is reduced. Since fewer bacteria are present, they produce less volatile sulfur gas.
Flossing daily is just as important as brushing. It helps to remove plaque and bacteria from the tight spaces between teeth. People who brush regularly but fail to floss are still likely to have bad breath.
Diagnosing existing oral issues
A variety of dental issues can also cause bad breath. For example, tooth decay and gum disease are two of the most common oral issues dentist deal with, and both lead to bad breath. When such issues cause bad breath, brushing and flossing are not enough to rectify it.
A family dentist deals with bad breath caused by tooth decay by addressing the problem. The dentist might decide to seal a cavity with a filling or perform a root canal if the decay has already made its way inside the pulp chamber.
The same goes for gum disease. The dentist will treat the infection by performing a deep cleaning or root scaling and planing. In some cases, oral surgery might be necessary to remove bacteria and plaque from underneath the gums.
Removing plaque and tartar from teeth surfaces
Both tartar and plaque have a rather nasty smell to them. All one needs to do is smell a piece of floss after use to understand how bad plaque smells. While good oral hygiene can eliminate plaque from teeth surfaces, the same can be said for tartar. Given its calcified nature, tartar can only be removed with professional teeth cleaning with your dentist.
The family dentist will scrape the tartar off tooth surfaces, and the teeth will be polished afterward.
Are you dealing with bad breath?
If you have tried every remedy but cannot shake your bad breath, call our office for advice and treatment.
Our family dentist can speak with you and determine the best solution to end your bad breath.
Request an appointment here: https://whiteflintfamilydental.com or call White Flint Family Dental at (301) 273-1085 for an appointment in our Rockville office.
Check out what others are saying about our dental services on Yelp: Family Dentist.
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