Why Prevention Is The Best Way To Save Money On Your Dental Health
Find out why preventative care is the easiest way for you to avoid expensive dental treatment.
The cost of living crisis is impacting everybody in every area of life. There’s no getting around it, and at Abbey Road Dental we’re more than aware that it’s challenging our patients in various ways. For that reason, we want to help you avoid the cost of more expensive treatments with advice, tips and a range of suggestions that can help you keep your teeth and gums in great shape.
Why Prevention Is Better Than Cure
Here at Abbey Road Dental we can help you with every oral health issue with our highly qualified team, advanced tools and techniques, and years of experience. Root canal, periodontics, restoration work – we can get your teeth healthy and looking good again with the treatments we provide. However, at the heart of what we do as dentists is work hard to help you keep your natural teeth for as long as possible. We want you to have healthy gums and teeth that function well, feel great and look fantastic.
Even cosmetic dentistry like whitening and veneers require healthy, strong teeth to work well. Cosmetic dentistry on unhealthy teeth is building on weak foundations, and will likely result in extensive issues down the line.
Healthy teeth and gums are the core of our work at our St John’s Wood NW8 clinic and will always take priority over anything else. Prevention care, which we will talk about more below, is how we help you avoid bigger issues that can actively cause harm to your teeth and gums. This includes treatments, and tips and tricks we can give you to help you manage your oral health at home, between dental checkups and appointments. For you, this means you have a lot of control over the health of your teeth and gums. There is so much you can do to keep your natural teeth and avoid more extensive and expensive issues down the line. So many oral health issues are preventative, and with our help, you can avoid treatment and the associated costs with very simple and easy actions.
How To Prevent Major Dental Issues With Preventative Care
Here’s a quick overview of how you can help yourself, and how we can help you when it comes to maintaining beautiful, healthy teeth and avoiding extensive dental issues.
What You Can Do
Daily Brushing & Flossing
Brushing and flossing is incredibly simple and effective, and is at the core of a great oral hygiene regime. No need for expensive electric brushes, special toothpastes, top-of-the-range floss. Effective brushing techniques for two minutes twice a day, using toothpaste with 1,350 – 1,500ppm fluoride, changing your brush every six months (or when the bristles are worn), flossing once a day – this will help to keep your teeth in great shape between appointments.
Avoiding Unregulated Dental Products & Treatments
Online whitening kits, teeth whitening from unlicensed beauty boutiques, cosmetic dentistry abroad – these kinds of treatments and products could cause untold damage to your teeth and gums. Instead, avoid these products, and if you really do want cosmetic enhancement of your teeth, save up to have/use licensed, professional products and/or work done, or utilise our Abbey Road Dental 0% finance options to help spread the costs.
Quitting Damaging Habits
Habits like excessive drinking and smoking are incredibly damaging for your body, and that includes your teeth and gums. When you smoke you are more likely to have gum disease, plaque and issues related to dry mouth. Alcohol abuse is also related to decay and gum disease risk. The sooner you can quit these habits, the sooner you can save your teeth and gums, and the money associated with keeping up these habits, too. (You can find lots of quit smoking support here, and for alcohol dependence it is important to speak to your GP for medical advice as stopping suddenly can sometimes be dangerous).
Improving Nutrition & Exercise
Exercise helps to boost the oxygen that goes to your gums, and the blood flow to your gums, improving the health of the gums and the teeth which have blood and nerves inside. With nutrition, various vitamins and minerals are important for gum and tooth health, so a balanced, healthy diet can improve the overall health of your mouth.
Communicating Well With Your St John’s Wood Dentist
It is so important you let us know if you have any oral health issues, any challenges with your oral care regime, and any changes in health status, including the use of new medication. With the right information we can act accordingly and provide additional support where needed.
What We Can Do
Checkups
We can provide thorough oral checkups every 6 months to a year, ensuring that any oral health issues are identified quickly and the appropriate treatment, or preventative advice is given so that the problem does not get any worse.
Hygienist Visits
Our resident hygienist can help with gum disease prevention, reversal and management, as well as providing a deep regular clean so that your teeth and gums are as clean as possible in areas tricky for you to clean well, such as misaligned teeth. The hygienist can also provide advice on products, brushing techniques and even vitamins and other options to support your oral health regime and work around any challenges you may have with your dental care at home.
Quick Response To The First Signs Of A Problem
Abbey Road Dental will get you in as soon as possible when you call us about a problem, with extra urgency placed on emergencies. We’ll quickly diagnose the problem and provide treatment so that you are out of pain, and the issue does not get any worse. If an issue is found during a checkup we will discuss our findings with you first, and provide a transparent quote so you’re in full control of your health care and the next steps taken.
Advice & Tips
We’ll happily provide you with as many tips and pieces of advice as we can to help you keep your teeth healthy and looking great. We’re here to support every patient with their dental health journey, including support with core care and preventative actions to avoid oral health problems.
Prevention Is Essential
Abbey Road Dental is here to provide competitively priced oral health treatment, with an emphasis on preventing problems that can easily be avoided with a dedicated oral care regime. If you would like to book a checkup at our NW8 clinic, or speak to us about hygienist appointments, please call our friendly team on 02076241603 and we will be more than happy to help.