Your Dental Health Benefits from Fluoride Treatments

Have you tried to understand why you receive fluoride treatments from the dentist near me after examining and cleaning your teeth? If you haven’t, the dentist or hygienist applies in-office fluoride to strengthen your enamel, helping them battle against cavities. The mineral fluoride occurs naturally in food and water. Your tooth’s enamel layer adds and loses minerals every day. The loss of minerals occurs because acids left by bacteria attack the enamel and weaken it.

Fluoride treatments from the dentist in Canton help re-mineralize the enamel with calcium and phosphate to combat the enamel’s mineral loss. Excessive mineral loss without sufficient re-mineralization to repair the enamel layer is the primary cause of tooth decay.

Fluoride treatments help prevent tooth decay, making the tooth resistant to acid attacks from plaque and bacteria in your mouth’s sugars. Fluoride also reverses early tooth decay. Children below six years benefit because fluoride becomes incorporated with the development of their permanent teeth, making it challenging for acids to de-mineralize their teeth. Fluoride treatment adults also help re-mineralization by disrupting acid production in permanent teeth.

What Are Forms of Fluoride Treatments Available?

Fluoride is available in food and water. Fluoride treatments are available from the best dentist in Baltimore who apply fluoride to the teeth as a varnish, foam, or gel. Fluoride treatments only require a few minutes and do not cause any anxiety but only deliver benefits for your dental health.

In-office fluoride treatments are concentrated and contain more fluoride than is available in water and toothpaste. The Baltimore dentist completes the treatment in few minutes, instructing you not to have any foods or beverages for 30 minutes after fluoride treatment. The restriction is to allow your teeth to absorb the fluoride completely.

What Is Your Requirement for Fluoride?

Suppose you are at a higher risk of dental caries or cavities. In that case, you require in-office fluoride treatments once every three, six, or 12 months as recommended by the American Dental Association. However, your dentist may recommend a fluoride rinse or gel for use at home regularly if you are prone to this problem.

Your risks of developing cavities are higher if you consume alcohol or drugs excessively, maintain inadequate oral hygiene and neglect professional dental care, have eating disorders or subsist on a poor diet, have weakened enamel or conditions like xerostomia or decreased saliva.

How Your Dental Health Benefits from Fluoride Treatments?

Fluoride treatments function by restoring minerals to tooth surfaces where bacteria have eroded the enamel. Fluoride also inhibits the growth of harmful bacteria in your mouth to prevent further cavities.

Don’t assume fluoride removes tooth decay. It creates a robust outer surface for your teeth to help tooth decay from penetrating the deeper parts. Therefore getting fluoride treatments from the Baltimore dentist shouldn’t make you overconfident that you can continue with your regular dental hygiene practices without improving them.

Who Benefits from Fluoride?

Everyone benefits from fluoride, including children. The sooner children are exposed to fluoride; they are less likely to develop cavities. Studies conducted on children and adolescents receiving fluoride treatments for a year revealed the children participating in the study were 43 percent less likely to be affected by tooth decay or cavities.

Before the inclusion of fluoride in toothpaste, studies revealed that people drinking fluoridated water were less likely to develop cavities. It is why the ADA and the CDC recommended the addition of fluoride in drinking water.

What Is the Best Way to Receive Fluoride Treatment?

The optimal way to receive fluoride treatments is to visit your dentist for cleanings and exams twice a year when you receive fluoride treatments at the end of the procedure. If you are prone to the problem of tooth decay and cavities, it helps to inquire with your pediatric dentist Baltimore how you can prevent the problem by adopting simple self-care measures.

Your dentist may recommend the following to help prevent the occurrence of tooth decay in your mouth:

• Brush your teeth at least two times a day for two minutes each using fluoride toothpaste.
• Floss your teeth at least once a day.

Avoid smoking.

• Limit your intake of sugary snacks and beverages.
• Schedule appointments with your dentist every six months for checkups when you also receive fluoride treatments to strengthen your enamel.

It helps if you don’t neglect fluoride treatments because of the many benefits they can provide for your dental health.