One of the most difficult aspects of our work is telling some patients that, as things stand, they are unsuitable for dental implants.
This can occur for a number of reasons, but it is normally due to either extremely poor oral health or an underlying medical condition that makes the likelihood of their dental implant procedure being a success unlikely.
Do you ever have bad dreams about your teeth falling out, or wisdom teeth removal flashbacks, or that your dentist is approaching you with a 6-foot drill? In truth, we should call these nightmares, but whatever terminology we use, it is a fact that many people report having bad dreams about all sorts of horrible things happening to their teeth. The question is where is the line between these just being dreams, them being a foretelling of reality?
If the phrase ‘dreams come true’ is to be believed it would suggest that dreaming about cracked, broken or missing teeth is a sign that in the future you may have to deal with these dental issues. It is certainly the case that there are people who have such dreams and within weeks or days the dental problem they dreamt about comes true. However, and before you panic, is also true that for every person where the dream became reality, there will be thousands where it did not.
Nevertheless, we are told by those who study dreams that they do have some meaning to them, so what about those dreams where teeth and dentists are the focus? Well, here are some suggestions.
One of the reasons that dentists will never run short of patients is the fact that so many people have bad habits that invariably harm their oral health and in particular, stains their teeth, all of which could result in the need for dental implants. What compounds this problem is that most of these harmful habits take place at home which is where everyone spends the majority of their time.
Another issue that arises from these bad habits is that many of them are not just harmful to oral health by staining teeth, but are also harmful to one’s overall health. It is also true that whilst they can all take place at home, the fact that you can also do some of them in other scenarios such as at work or when out having fun, adds to the time that they have to stain teeth.
No doubt you could probably guess at one or two of the habits in question, but there are also one or two which may surprise you. As you read through the seven bad habits below, be honest about whether or not you are guilty of any of them. Even if it is just occasionally, ask yourself if they are worth it, given the staining and discolouration to your teeth that can occur.
