New Delhi: While stress is common among school kids and college students during exam times, not many are aware of how it can affect their oral health.
Dr Gunita Singh and Dr Tanvir Singh of Dantem, the Dental and Orthodontic Clinic give an insight on the matter which are as follows:
1)Teeth Grinding :
One of the most common side effect of stress in young during exams is clenching your teeth at night. This can further lead to sleep disorders, headache, jaw pain, abnormal tooth wear.
To overcome this teeth guard or night guards are recommended. They reduce the clenching and in fact puts an end to it avoiding further damage to teeth.
Home tips:
Breathing exercises for ten minutes during morning and evening are a wonderful solution to overcome stress.
2) Gum Diseases:
Studies have shown that when the body is experiencing stress,its ability to manufacture immune cells to protect against bacteria gets compromised. Stress effects immune system negatively and allows bacteria to increase infection and inflammation in our oral cavity.
One sitting of cleaning before exams helps kill all harmful bacteria in the oral cavity. (after 15years of age).
Home tip:
Regular mouthwash and gum massage also does wonders. Drink a lot of water
3) TMJ Disorder :
TMJ disorders are one of the major complaint in young adults. We at Dentem are attending 1-2 teenagers every week who are walking in with severe pain. X-rays show no pathology but the patients complain of unbearable pain in the jaw. All these teenagers are appearing for exams and with our experience, we can conclude that 9 out of 10 such cases resolve soon after exams. Laser physiotherapy gives immediate relief to the patient.
Home tip:
Breathing exercise for 10 minutes in the morning and evening followed by hot fermentation for 10 minutes both in the morning and evening do good to the patients.
4)Staining of teeth:
Irregular Eating /sleeping habits during exams leads to bad oral hygiene and staining of teeth. Coffee is a savior in exams for the youth but actually, it is not. Caffiene in the short term can provide useful boost immediately but comes with lots of side effects, one of them is staining and erosion of the teeth.
Home Tips:
So limit the use of coffee and replace it with green tea/sugar-free gums and drinking lots of water is the mantra.
5) Oral Health Neglect :
One of the first thing we do when under stress with exams is neglected is one own self.We neglect ourselves resulting in suffering from poor sleep so finally no energy for daily chores like brushing, flossing and mouth wash. Nutritional choices also get disturbed during exams. Stress prompts us to take more sugary food, this can wreck one’s oral health. So health above all kids have a proper diet. Identify your stress, meet us at Dentem. We have a proper programme for teenagers to deal with stress during exams and have healthy oral cavity, say the doctors