Surprise Medical Conditions Your Dentist Might Find First

The mouth can say some things without speaking a word. In this case, we’re talking about how it can reveal symptoms of more than one hundred diseases. Dentists often serve as the early detectors of unforeseen health conditions.

Dentists don’t just clean and inspect teeth. They also look at all the soft tissues within the mouth. The way these tissues behave can reveal early signs of ailments requiring immediate medical attention. To learn how regular dental checkups can save you from life-threatening conditions that seem to have nothing to do with the mouth, read on.

A Dentist Can Detect Cardiovascular Disease?

It may seem strange that a dentist would take their patient’s blood pressure, but this practice serves an important purpose. In fact, dentists are often the first to detect a patient’s hypertension. Heart disease can reveal itself through red, bleeding, swollen gums. People with gum disease have been shown to have much higher rates of heart attack, stroke, and other heart-related issues compared to those who don’t.

A dentist finding an unusually smooth tongue or the inside of a patient’s mouth to be a pale shade of pink might be detecting telltale signs of anemia. With anemia, a patient lacks sufficient red blood cells.

What Other Health Conditions Can a Dentist Detect?

Dentists can serve as the first detectors of infectious diseases.

A dentist might uncover HIV by finding lesions in a patient’s mouth that do not appear in people with functioning immune systems. Since 2020, many dentists have also started testing patients for COVID-19.

Dentists can find telltale signs in soft tissues.

Other irregularities in the mouth’s soft tissues can reveal unexpected problems as well. A dentist might detect Crohn’s disease by finding swollen lips and dime-sized ulcers inside the lips and cheeks. A dentist finding white and red lesions on the tongue, floor of the mouth, or soft palate may indicate oral cancer. Regular dental visits can make one’s chances of surviving oral cancer greater than 90 percent when the condition is found early.

Dentists can find signs of other health conditions in the bones and teeth.

Dentists also pay special attention to the bones in the mouth which can reveal unseen health conditions. Osteoporosis has no outward symptoms and can go undetected until a bone breaks. Dentists can detect bone loss in the mouth and refer a patient to an appropriate specialist. People with diabetes are more likely to get gum disease. A dentist finding gingivitis and suspecting diabetes will likely recommend a blood test with the primary care doctor.

The dentist’s office does more for your health than just clean your teeth. The mouth can bear signs of a plethora of health matters, and the dentist is usually the only one paying sufficient attention to find them. Dental examinations every six months can detect such ailments early, allowing for speedy intervention, and, in many cases, reversal.

About the Author

Ahmed Saad, DDS, got his dental doctorate at the USC School of Dentistry and now leads Pace Dental of Vienna with over fifteen years of experience. The staff at the practice treat the patient with old-fashioned customer service and cutting-edge dental technology. To schedule an examination, contact him at his website or dial (703) 938-6800.