Dr. Jerry Farrell on Why People Should Not Defer Maintenance on Their Teeth
We get busy in life and there’s lots of reasons. We’re juggling, taking care of all of the different priorities that we have, and we put things off. Some people get away with minimal maintenance, but the people that can kind of stay on it seem to do better than the people that put out. Some people get away with it—not irregular maintenance, but it’s a good direction to kind of head with everything: cars, tires, oil, engine, house, teeth. Put us on the list of things that ought to be looked at, especially the more problems you have. If you have a lot of dentistry in your head, we’re trying to protect that investment. If you have a complicated, expensive car, it needs more maintenance. Some teeth in dental situations are more forgiving, they just aren’t as susceptible.
If you have a periodontal problem, if you have a history of diabetes, if you’re changing your meds and you’re going into a dry mouth situation … we do see with older folks their meds change, they get poor, they’re eating more candy, they get spikes. They need to be on top of what they’re doing more than, you know, a 25-year-old. They can drink a lot of soda before they get into trouble.