Dental care availability at our Surrey practice

A week ago today, the country entered its second lockdown to help reduce the spread of the Covid-19 virus. We all hoped that it wouldn’t come to this but it became clear that something quite drastic needed to be done as numbers started to rise exponentially. This will be a worrying time for many businesses, despite financial help from the government. Whilst some business closures might be frustrating for their customers, the first lockdown showed that it could have even more serious consequences.

During the first lockdown, all practices were made to close, including our own Synergy Woking dentist. Across the country, some people struggled to get emergency dental treatment and many had to manage by using painkillers for a few months. It is fair to say that the oral health of the nation probably deteriorated during this time as routine check ups were not allowed and minor problems were unable to be treated. Inevitably some problems would have worsened over time.

Second lockdown

Thankfully, there are differences this time around and a number of essential businesses are being allowed to open. This includes dental practices such as ours. This will come as a relief to both dentists and their patients across the country.

Most dentists are still working through a backlog of cancelled appointments from the first lockdown and are having to prioritise emergency cases over routine appointments. This will inevitably mean that some oral issues go undetected until they cause discomfort. We are all doing our best to reduce the backlog in these difficult times and we ask our patients to please bear with us whilst we do.

What services are available?

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So, why are only 1 in 8 of us doing so since lockdown?

A recent study has indicated that during and following the easing of lockdown, only one in eight of us have been brushing our teeth twice a day.

Perhaps equally worrying are the findings that nearly half of those asked admitted that they only brushed their teeth once a day at most and nearly 20% admitted to not brushing their teeth regularly on a daily basis at all!

Although we appreciate that lockdown disrupted our lives in many ways, it appears that some of this may have lingered on for longer afterwards, and probably into the future as well unless we change our habits.

As dental professionals, we find these results a little staggering. It is common knowledge that brushing your teeth is the single most important thing that you can do to protect your teeth on a daily basis. It appears though, that there are still some significant misunderstandings about how important this is. For the benefit of the Woking patients of Synergy Parkside, we attempt to address some of the likely issues below.

The ‘once a day is enough’ myth

It seems that some people believe that you only need to brush your teeth at night and that the mornings are much less important. The logic for this, we presume, is that this follows a day of eating, whereas, in the morning, you haven’t eaten anything since you went to bed so there is no need to brush. Whilst this might seem logical, it is a big mistake.

Although it may be true that you haven’t eaten whilst you slept, this is a time when potentially harmful bacteria can build up in the mouth, and in significant numbers, especially if you have a dry mouth. This can lead to both gum disease and tooth decay.  It is thought that over 3/4 of millennials have undetected tooth decay, and this could be one of the reasons why.

Not only will these bacteria accumulate overnight but, if you don’t brush your teeth in the morning they will stay with you for the rest of the day. This lengthy period means that a lot of damage can occur before you eventually brush your teeth at night.

Changing your habits

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Synergy Parkside dentist, Dr Dani Sharma, offers advice for those difficult teenage years

As parents, it can be hard to let go, but let go of our children we will inevitably do at some stage. As our children start to grow up and gain more and more independence, they will almost certainly make a number of decisions that we are not entirely happy about.  This is all a part of the process of growing up of course, but some of the decisions that they take may affect them for many years to come.

This is often particularly true when it comes to how they look after their teeth and gums. It may have been a long time since we were able to stand in the bathroom singing ‘row your boat’ whilst they cleaned their teeth under our supervision, but that doesn’t mean that we care any less about how they look after them.

Teenage years

As our children grow older, they naturally want less interference from their parents, especially in those day to day things like cleaning their teeth. As we know though, teenagers are not generally great at organising their life to do the more mundane things, instead always looking forward to going to see friends or playing the latest games on their X Box. In addition to perhaps neglecting to clean their teeth as well as they should, a teenager’s diet is likely to be high in sugars as they eat snacks that give them quick energy, or alternatively, tasty, but often unhealthy, ‘junk’ foods. A combination of these factors means that their teeth, which we had managed to help them keep healthy for so long, are now at risk.

Rotting teeth and sore and bleeding gums are a real possibility if care is not taken. Add in the possible addition of smoking, alcohol and even, regretfully, drugs, as they reach their later teenage years and there could be a lot of problems in store that could potentially leave them with poor quality teeth throughout their adult life.

How can you help?

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