Protecting Your Smile - E-cigs From a Dental Perspective
Learn why cigarette smoking damages your mouth, teeth, and throat, and how e-smoking offers a solution worth smiling about
There are many topics about e-smoking that get discussed time and time again. For instance, you can find out various benefits of switching to e-cigs by simply doing a quick Google search: no secondhand smoke, no tar, and no odor –just rich flavored e-juice and pure vapor. And you may have also heard how e-cigs are the perfect travel partner, giving you the freedom to smoke almost anywhere you want, and at a lower cost than traditional smoking.
But have you ever considered your smile as a reason to switch to an alternative smoking experience?
If not, perhaps you should...
A person’s smile is probably one of the first things you notice when you look at someone. In fact, some men and women won’t even consider dating someone if their teeth aren’t up to snuff. While it seems like such a minor feature at first, a good or bad smile can have a huge impact on not only a person’s physical appearance, but on their confidence and overall health.
You may have heard it said: “The world always looks brighter from behind a smile.” In other words, it’s hard to have a bad day when you’re too busy smiling. Unless you don’t like your smile, that is. Among other reasons, this is why dental care and hygiene is so important.
Just like your dentist tells you at every visit, brushing and flossing your teeth are crucial for keeping those pearly whites. But if you’re a regular smoker, having white teeth may be difficult to attain, no matter how good you are about oral hygiene.
How Traditional Cigarettes Destroy Dental Health
As a smoker, one of the biggest positive changes you can make to safeguard your smile is to stop smoking cigarettes that leave behind yellow teeth stains, and replace them with e-cigs instead. In addition to a host of other health issues, smokers routinely suffer from a range of dental problems, including:
- Tooth loss
- Yellow stains
- Plaque buildup
- Bad breath
- Gum-related infections
- Mouth and oral cancers
- And other risks...
Dental experts estimate that, on average, male smokers lose almost 3 teeth every 10 years because of traditional cigarettes, and women half that number. While tooth loss is a natural result of aging in non-smokers as well, the rate at which your teeth will fall out is double that of a non-smoker. Just do the math and you’ll find that if you started smoking in your teens or early twenties, then by the time you’re middle aged you would have lost 5 to 6 teeth –much too young to have lost that many chompers already.
The tar and ash from cigarette smoke also causes residue and plaque to accumulate on the surface of your teeth and in your mouth’s crevices, which causes tooth discoloration and calculus buildup in the long term. This is why many dentists can spot a smoker immediately.
If the yellow teeth stains don’t give a smoker away, then the bad breath will. Cigarette smoke is laden with chemicals which are not only carcinogenic, but also stick to the lining of the mouth and emit a putrid odor. This can lead to halitosis, or chronic bad breath, which is the third most frequent reason people seek out dental care, behind tooth decay and gum disease.
Speaking of the gums, smoking also appears to restrict blood flow to your gums, which affects wound healing and the overall well-being of the mouth. Even more disconcerting for smokers is cardiologists and periodontists (dentists specializing in gum disease) have long suspected a possible link between the health of your gums and the health of your heart. While this is yet to be proven, both dental and heart problems center around inflammation, which may indicate the two may be intertwined.
E-Smoking and Your Smile
E-cigs are the obvious smoking choice for a long list of reasons, one of which being the health and look of your teeth. Here’s why:
- No yellow teeth. The tar released from cigarette is the “smoking gun” behind tooth yellowing and discoloration. Fortunately, e-smokers need not worry because e-cigs emit no tar whatsoever.
- No odor. E-smoking leaves behind no smell or lingering odor. So, people who use e-cigs don’t have to be ashamed of opening their mouth because of that infamous “smoker’s breath.”
- No combustion. Cigarettes deliver nicotine through the process of combustion, or by burning tobacco. This releases harmful and irritating smoke. E-cigs, on the other hand, vaporize liquid nicotine, which is exhaled as harmless water vapor.
Also, fewer visits to your dentist's office also means you can avoid costly medical services and operations to fix your smile. Just another way e-smoking saves you money.
If it’s true that the world looks brighter behind a smile, then keeping your smile bright and white all the time is an important task. For smokers, switching to e-cigs can be significant progress on this front.
If you are ready to take the next step and join the EverSmoke e-smoking community, pick from one of our e-cig starter kits. Or if you would like to learn more about the different ways our e-cigs can make you smile, we invite you to browse our E-Cigarette Knowledge Center and blog today.