Be Thankful for Dental Services

Posted: November 27, 2018 By: Comment: 0

A male dentist that is smiling at the camera and leaning against a dental chair. There are dental tools and equipment in the background.

Dental services are very advanced today compared to crude dental methods performed just over 100 years ago. Even services such as orthodontic treatment, mouthguards and more weren’t available in more recent years past. During this holiday season, see just how much dentistry has changed to bless your life!

 

Dentistry: How Important Is It?

Did you know that every person should be visiting the dentist twice a year? This is a recommendation in the United States given by the American Dental Association. These appointments are so important that most (if not all) insurance types cover them. But why is dentistry so important to you personally?

 

Studies show that problems with your teeth and gums are the most chronic problems that both American children and adults face. In fact, the National Institutes of Health reports that tooth decay alone is the most “chronic, prevalent” illness that Americans face. Often, this is because many people don’t realize the importance of their dental health, or they don’t realize that there are health problems happening in the mouth.

 

Tooth decay is the literal decay of your teeth. This happens over time due to plaque, which is a clear, sticky film that attaches to the teeth when you eat and drink. Plaque forms from a mixture of your foods and drinks with mouth bacteria, and it is acidic to your teeth. It wears them away and decays them from the inside out.

 

Once your teeth have decayed, you can’t get them back. You can only have dental professionals remove the decayed portion and restore what your smile looked like with dental implants and shaping with composite resin. Problems with the teeth will not only damage your smile and appearance, but it can lead to problems with your confidence, your ability to eat and how long you live. In the past, people literally died from toothaches that turned into infections, which stemmed from a simple cavity. Now, that is almost unheard of in the United States, and it’s all because of modern dentistry.

 

A close-up view of hands with latex gloves on them that are handling dental molds of a patient's teeth. The patient's dental x-rays are underneath the dental molds.

How Has Dentistry Evolved?

In the past, there were not dental services available to people except for ones that were painful and crude. For example, there were orthodontic methods that could get a smile straight centuries ago. However, one of those methods was to forcefully remove the teeth with forceps, reinsert them straight into the socket, and tie them to neighboring teeth while they (hopefully) healed into place. Similar methods were used in dentistry, such as filing the teeth down to a better size and shape, as was practiced by Pliny the Elder (23-79 A.D.).

 

Sumerian texts in 5,000 B.C. hold the first dental recordings. Throughout all the centuries following up until the 1700s (A.D.), various methods were concocted to remove cavities that formed or to remove the teeth altogether. For many centuries, surgeons or barbers (skilled in some invasive procedures) were the ones patients went to for tooth removal. Little was done for gums that were diseased, as the technology simply didn’t exist.

 

For many, cavities that started forming meant that a tooth needed to be pulled. If all your teeth ended up getting cavities, you had to live with diseased, painful teeth or have them all removed. We may also add that modern anesthetics were not invented until 1846, and even that was only nitrous oxide use. That meant every dentistry procedure had to be done with the patient still feeling all the work. Yikes! However, in modern times, patients benefit from sedation dentistry, nitrous oxide (perfected), IV sedation, oral medications, anesthetic shots, modern drills, custom-made teeth, crowns, veneers, teeth whitening and more.

 

A dentist doing dental work on a middle-aged woman in a dental office.

Be Thankful for Your Teeth

Pierre Fauchard was a French surgeon. In 1723, he became known as the “Father of Modern Dentistry” with his publication of “Modern Dentistry”. This was the first dentistry guide that created a comprehensive system to perform proper oral hygiene, avoid dental diseases and treat infections, cavities and more. With the introduction of this book, dentistry started to evolve rapidly.

 

The first dentist (John Baker, 1760) emigrated to the U.S. Porcelain teeth were invented in 1825, and dental chairs were invented in 1832. The first dental school—Baltimore College of Dental Surgery—began in 1840, where people could then formally train in dentistry. The American Dental Association formed in 1859, and after that time, many advances happened each decade such as composite resin creation, x-ray imaging, porcelain crowns, casting machines, novocain, acrylic bonding resin, etc.

 

The toothbrushes you use today weren’t even invented until 1938, and fluoride toothpaste didn’t hit the market until 1950. The invention of both of these significantly reduced the amount of cavities people developed in the first place. Most people don’t think about these advances in dental services, even though they significantly affect everyone. If you are reading this right now, you live in a time when access to quality dental work is a possibility for almost everyone in the U.S. That dental work can even be pain-free for the most extensive of dental work patients with severe oral health diseases have.

 

Give the Gift of a Healthy Smile

There are countless advances that have happened in the field of dentistry over the last 200 years. All of those advances help you to get a beautiful, straight, and white smile free of tooth decay, gum disease and oral health diseases. When you do have an oral problem, the exact problem can be detected and treated rapidly. That is definitely something to be thankful for! If you want to see how our office works and the dental services offered to you, call Dr. Ania’s office today at 303-443-0998!

AUTHOR

abhisake.jain

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