Matters that the elderly should pay attention to in order to protect their teeth
Protecting the teeth of the elderly so that they can chew well helps digest food and reduce the burden on the gastrointestinal tract, which is of great importance to the physical and mental health of the elderly. To protect the teeth of the elderly, the following measures can be taken.
(1) If the elderly have tooth surface abrasion, cold and hot stimulation to produce pain, the condition can go to the hospital for treatment, in order to consolidate the treatment effect, can make desensitizing toothpaste or anti-acid toothpaste. When there is no medical condition, you can use raw garlic, raw walnut skin and raw tea leaves to prevent and control dentin allergy; the specific method is: chew any of raw garlic, raw walnut skin and raw tea leaves repeatedly on the allergic area so that the juice acts on the allergic area and plays a desensitizing effect. In order to consolidate the effect, do not chew fried and harder foods during the treatment period.
(2) To prevent gum recession and reduce the degree of gum recession, gum massage methods can be used to promote blood circulation in the gums.
(3) Use vertical brushing methods to prevent food embedding and avoid gum damage.
(4) Avoid bone food or sand choking the teeth to cause tooth fracture.
How to protect the filled teeth
A filled tooth is a general term. Strictly speaking, a filled tooth is either a tooth with live pulp (tooth with nerve) or a tooth with dead pulp (tooth without nerve). The loss of filling material on the living pulp teeth can cause tooth pain; the loss of filling material on the dead pulp teeth can cause inflammation and swelling of the root tip of the tooth, and some dead pulp fillings are loose, and the tooth can be fractured by chewing pressure. Therefore, it is important to protect the filled teeth.
(1) When the tooth is just filled, you cannot chew food immediately, especially after filling with silver amalgam, you can chew food only after 24 hours.
(2) You cannot chew harder foods. If there is not much remaining tissue and the cavity wall is weak, it looks “weak to bite”, so it is better to make a crown on the filled tooth to protect it.
(3) Prevent staining. Composite resin, glass ion, silicone adhesive powder, etc. are used for filling the front teeth, and their color is closest to the normal tooth color. If the filling is not protected after filling, color change can occur. For example, the filling materials of people who like to drink tea or smoke tend to stain certain colors, such as brown and brown-black. If these colors exist for a long time and chemical reactions occur, they are difficult to remove.
(4) The elderly mostly have root surface caries and wedge-shaped defect, when filling these parts of the defect, the material is often not easy to be firm, and it is necessary to pay attention to not to use too much force when brushing teeth.
Movable dentures or fixed dentures are good
Teeth are the gateway to health. After the loss of teeth not only affect the chewing function, and affect the aesthetics, timely restoration is necessary. There are two types of dentures: one is fixed and the other is movable. So, which restoration method to choose after the loss of teeth? These two types of dentures have their own advantages and disadvantages, the choice is based on the number of missing teeth in the mouth and the health of existing teeth to decide.
Fixed denture: In medical terms, it is called a fixed denture or fixed bridge. It is the use of missing teeth adjacent to the good teeth on both sides of the gap to fix the denture on it. It is like building a bridge that must have a solid foundation and cannot be removed and worn by the patient himself. Its advantages are small size, comfort, no foreign body feeling, easy to get used to after fitting into the mouth; chewing function is greater than movable dentures. The disadvantage is that the condition of the abutment teeth at both ends should be good, and in the preparation, many abutment teeth have to be grinded away, which is time-consuming and requires high preparation conditions for the doctor, and some of these teeth made by the wandering doctors are definitely not up to the scientific standard. Some people often do not welcome fixed dentures because of the pain caused by grinding, in addition, fixed teeth have a metal crown set is not beautiful, not too many lost teeth, to 1 to 2 missing teeth is appropriate. Currently, porcelain teeth are widely carried out in China, the color is very ideal, is the cost is higher.
The movable denture: is the use of plastic as a base, relying on mucosa, bone tissue for support, relying on the retention of the denture and the retention of the base, can be freely taken to wear a prosthesis, so called movable denture. It has the advantages of easier operation, less tooth grinding, better aesthetics than metal crowns, and easy acceptance by patients. The “living denture” should have a wide range and can restore more missing teeth, from one missing tooth to several or even the whole mouth. The disadvantage is that it takes a long time to get used to the implant and it takes a long time to get used to it.
How to protect and use dentures
After the denture is restored, the important issue is the use and protection of the denture. Proper use and protection of the denture will not only prolong the life of the denture, but also play a great role in your remaining teeth and oral health care.
People who wear denture for the first time, especially the movable denture plastic base is relatively large, easy to produce foreign body feeling, feel a lot of saliva, slurred speech, some even feel nauseous. We say that it does not matter, you can get used to it if you insist on wearing it for a few days. Fixed denture may have symptoms of hot and cold sensitivity when you first wear it, but if there is no spontaneous pain, you can continue to observe.
The movable denture is usually made of plastic and stainless steel wire, its chewing ability is worse than the real teeth, so do not eat too hard and too sticky food, especially when wearing the denture for the first time, you should eat soft food first, and then gradually increase the hardness of the food.
When putting in the denture, do not use strong force, but gently put in the denture in the direction of the common seating path (the most reasonable direction when the denture is put in), and do not use teeth to bite it into place, so as not to break the plastic base part analysis and deform the stainless steel wire.
When the denture is put in, it may produce pain and ulcers in the oral enamel membrane due to the pressure of the abutment, and pain from gum irritation due to over-tightening of the carabiner or the tip of the carabiner arm, it is best to go to the hospital as soon as possible to modify the denture, and be sure to wear the denture half a day before going so that the doctor can accurately determine where the problem lies.
The removable denture is easy to clean, so you should take it off and rinse your mouth after each meal to prevent food residue from being retained in your mouth and causing tooth decay or periodontal disease. Before going to bed, you should use toothpaste or tooth powder to wash and brush your dentures with soft bristle brush, don’t use too much force to prevent excessive wear of plastic teeth or abutments, and soak your denture in cold water when you don’t wear it temporarily, don’t use alcohol and hot water to disinfect it.
It is wrong not to wear the denture for a long time after it is made. If the same denture has two teeth, they should be used alternately, because the denture is easy to deform when it is dry for a long time, and the situation of the mouth may change, such as the neighboring teeth tilting to the gap side.
The base of the movable denture is plastic, if it is inadvertently broken, the parts should be kept well and brought to the hospital for repair, which can generally be restored to its original form.
What is the problem of bad breath in the elderly?
Unclean oral cavity, stagnant in the gap, gingival margin, denture base under the food residue fermentation corruption, is the main cause of halitosis. Periodontal disease, mucosal lesions caused by necrotic tissue and pus by bacterial decomposition will also occur bad odor. The elderly because of the decline in immune function, the oral environment is active in bacteria, so the phenomenon of halitosis is often more significant than in young adults. Bad breath in the elderly should also take into account systemic diseases, such as gastrointestinal disorders. Stomach ulcers and other can be accompanied by bad breath; respiratory infections in the mouth of patients, can smell the bad smell due to bronchial pus decay; diabetes often occurs in the mouth of rotten apple-like odor; uremia or renal failure in the mouth of patients can have ammonia and urine smell.
To solve the problem of halitosis, the first thing to distinguish its nature, the way to distinguish is to close the lips, from the nostrils to blow outward, such as smelling the obvious odor is the presence of some systemic disease. If you do not smell the odor, you can then pinch your nose with your hand, hold your breath for a moment, and then open your mouth and gently puff, then if you smell the odor that the lesion in the oropharyngeal cavity. Treatment of halitosis can start from the oral cavity: treat tooth decay, remove the residual root and crown, perform full mouth cleaning (scaling), instruct the elderly to strengthen oral hygiene, if wearing dentures, brush the teeth to take off and brush inside and outside. If the halitosis is not reduced after local treatment and the examination proves that the halitosis originates from the internal organs, the patient should be referred to an internal medicine doctor for a clear diagnosis and treatment.
There are some non-pathological factors can also cause bad breath, such as overeating leading to indigestion, eating onions, garlic, etc. Some drugs such as anti-tumor drugs, antihistamines, diuretics, atropine, etc. can also cause bad breath because of the inhibition of saliva secretion, reducing the self-cleaning effect of the oral cavity. And chewing gum, mints, tea, etc. by promoting saliva secretion, increase oral movement and improve the self-cleaning condition, have a certain inhibitory effect on bad breath.