Don't
you feel warm when somebody displays a fine set of teeth in a smile?
You can then imagine how unpleasant a sight it would be if the person's
mouth had no teeth or bad teeth.
The medical director of Divine Dental Home, Isolo, Lagos, Dr.
Olukayode Segun Adeyanju, a dentist with close to 30 years of practice,
has shed more light on what you need to do to keep a healthy good
looking teeth.
Read the interview below and enlighten yourself;
Would you say that Nigerians recognize the need to go to see dentists on a regular basis?
No. From my close to three decades of practice as a dentist, I have
found that awareness about dental care is very, very low in the
country. The low awareness is a function of culture. The truth is that
we are just trying to graduate from the traditional to the Western
practice of medical and dental care. What people still adopt is the
traditional way or do-it-yourself (the well-known doctor-at-home
practice).
People still don’t value professionalism when it comes to seeking
healthcare. Dental care is a highly specialized care and it doesn’t come
to the fore, when people begin to consider healthcare needs and
options.
Could this be attributed to cost?
Yeah that is possible. Because it is a specialist care, it is
expensive. It is more expensive to treat toothache than to treat
malaria. You can get to the average hospital and treat malaria at an
affordable cost, but this is not so with dental care, because it is a
specialized practice. Traditionally, people hold this belief that it is
expensive and prohibitive, so they never give going to see a dentist a
thought.
Secondly, most people go to a dentist when the situation is bad,
when they are in pain. And for that reason, people have come to
associate dental care with pain, and thereby rarely desire to go to a
dentist. That is a very bad perception that people need to overcome and
drop. Dental procedures are also not too friendly as our instruments and
equipment scare people off. Drilling, chiseling and all that, strike
fear in people. So in essence, cost, pain and the dental care
environment all make people uncomfortable about dental care.
But these days, dental procedures are absolutely painless because
modern equipment have changed the face of dental care. Now there are
different anaesthesia that are involved in dental care practice.
What are the things that people do wrong when it comes to dental care?
Number one is the choice of toothbrush. Most people feel, and
wrongly too, that the harder the brush, the better. That is a big
fallacy. People brush their teeth in the wrong way and with the wrong
brush.
Two, the way or manner most people brush, involves the exertion of
energy. What is more important is deploying the right brushing skill
than energy. In fact people tend to ‘punish’ their teeth, as it were,
rather cleaning them with the brush.
Three, people overuse toothpaste. What you need is just a pea-size
amount of toothpaste. It is used moderately, just a pea-size, so that it
can be used effectively and adequately. But you find that people put so
much of the toothpaste on the bristles, covering the bristles from one
end to the other.
Four, when people have toothache, they do bizarre things to their
teeth. People have told me that somebody advised them to drop a little
acid on the aching tooth to burn it. Some people would tell you that
they went to see one mallam in Idi Araba area of Lagos. Simply put,
people do all sorts of terrible things to their teeth. All these often
lead to complications. When the complications begin to manifest, that’s
when they come to seek solutions to problems, which would not have
arisen in the first place if they had bothered to see a dentist
beforehand.
What are the implications of not doing the right things?
The tooth is the strongest tissue in the body. It is stronger than
bone; that is why the teeth can crush the bone. It has the enamel layer,
which is the outermost and strongest part of the tooth. The tooth has
nerves and blood vessels underneath the dentine. But when the enamel is
over-abused, of course, it becomes damaged as it is worn down. At some
point, the nerves and blood vessels underneath become exposed and that’s
when you begin to feel excruciating pain. After the enamel is the
dentine, which is softer than the enamel. When the dentine becomes
compromised, it gives way and the nerves are then exposed.
What causes dental caries?
Basically, sweet things like cake, chocolate, soft drinks and any
food that is naturally sweet and sticky. And particularly if you don’t
brush at night before going to bed and after eating various things
during the day.
We are having children that are exposed to a lot of sweet things from a very early life.
What is your advice to parents?
We are going to have a generation of Nigerians, when the dental
care industry will experience a big boost. There will be more dental
care patients and this will create a need for dental care specialists,
but we don’t have enough dentists. We are not producing enough dentists.
So in some years to come, all these children that eating a lot of sweet
things will become dental patients. That is why you should expose
children from early life to dental care. That way any potential problem
can be identified early and treated before it becomes a major problem.
Parents should encourage their children to develop a culture of
seeing a dentist, by taking them to visit the dentist, even if it is
just to interact and chat. The dentist will check their teeth, even
though there may be no problem at all. That is one way of making
children feel free and comfortable around dentists. You must have seen
that some parents put their children’s teeth in braces to align the
teeth and give the dentition an appealing look. Such treatment and the
process help children develop a culture of dental care. Proper brushing
‘seminars’ and other dental care awareness programnmes can be organized
for schools.
All these go a long way to neutralize the phobia of dental care. In
essence, parents should not wait until problems develop before they
take their children to see dentists. If a child begins to see a dentist
as he/she goes through the milestone ages, namely, five, seven, 10, 12,
15, 18, then the chances of developing major dental problems later in
life will be reduced as any manifestations can be picked up early and
resolved before they become dental problems. With that practice of
seeing dentists ingrained in children, they lose the phobia, such that
they can walk into a dental clinic and get appropriate care without
fear, because they already feel at home and friendly with the dentist.
In situations where this practice was not started early, the child can
still start at 10 years.
In what other ways can people care for their teeth?
You need to use the right toothpaste, which must contain fluoride
and perhaps bicarbonate. The bicarbonate creates an alkaline environment
in the mouth and makes the bacteria less potent. Again, we also
recommend any toothpaste that has herbal component. You should also
adopt a practice of using dental floss to clean between the teeth after
brushing. The reason is the bristles of the brush cannot get between the
teeth. Again, after eating a meal, use both a toothpick and dental
floss. You should also have a tongue scraper and use it every morning
after brushing, to remove bacteria from the surface of the tongue. The
bed of the tongue is like a carpet of bacteria, because bacteria
accumulate on the surface of the tongue to a high degree.
Then at the policy level of government, scaling and polishing
should be offered to Nigerians as a component of the primary healthcare
programme of the country. Unfortunately, dental care is not covered
under the primary healthcare part of the Nigeria Health Insurance
Scheme.
Statistics show that gum disease is one of the most prevalent
diseases affecting mankind around the world. The problem is also
prevalent in Nigeria. The government needs to revisit this and include
dental care under primary health care.
In developed countries, dental care is offered as primary health care. Nigeria can do no less.
The current thinking whereby dental care is seen as secondary care
is very wrong. The belief is that until there is a problem then there is
no problem. We must recognize that a stitch in time saves nine. Doing
regular check on the teeth should necessarily be included in primary
healthcare. You shouldn’t go to see a dentist only when there is pain.
Unfortunately, in Nigeria, that is only when people go to see a dentist.
This needs to change.
Source: The Sun
0 comments:
Post a Comment