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Benefits Of Quitting Smoking Timeline Show me that winning smile! All of us want a great looking toothy grin. But if you’re like me, your teeth aren’t quite Hollywood perfect. As a child and young adult, my dentists always told me I had healthy teeth; strong enamel, good roots, the whole nine yards. Except for a couple of cavities, my teeth are in pretty good shape, although years of drinking sodas has caused a little staining.

After working in a hospital for over 20 years, I have treated lots of patients who just had horrible teeth. As a respiratory therapist, you notice things like this, because you have to administer inhalers, breathing treatments, manage breathing tubes that stick out of the patient’s mouth, etc. So I’m here to tell you, I know what bad looks like.

We once had a patient that came up out of the OR with an oral breathing tube that needed adjustment.

Well first of all, he had what we call “ortho-breath”. Now I can’t really explain what Benefits Of Quitting Smoking Timeline that is, you just have to experience it for yourself. It seemed like all patients that had hip or knee replacement surgery, had this funky odor coming from their mouth. Anyway, as I retaped the breathing tube, I saw the patient had a few teeth missing and the rest didn’t look very good.

I didn’t think much more about it until I read his chart. He seemed to have had a fairly normal background and history. He lived in the suburbs and had normal looking family members. His only problems were arthritis in his hips and he was a smoker. There was nothing there that said he should have rotting teeth. Now, however, we may have our answer as it seems a new study out of Australia tells us why he may have been losing his teeth.

We all know that smoking is bad for the lungs and heart.

It causes numerous types of cancer. It exacerbates many other diseases. Now we know it has a strong correlation to tooth loss. Apparently, smokers and former smokers have a significantly higher odds of losing their teeth than do nonsmokers. This risk declines once the smoker quits smoking, however, the risk for tooth loss continues for at least 30 years after cessation. They also noted that people who were exposed to environmental tobacco smoke for six or more hours also had a higher risk for tooth loss than those who were not exposed.

Just add one more reason as to why you should stop smoking. Benefits Of Quitting Smoking Timeline Like I said, it’s hard to believe people would need one more reason, but here it is anyway. When deciding to quit smoking, it’s really all about the reason isn’t it? Perhaps keeping all your teeth isn’t what really motivates you to quit smoking, but eventually something will. It may not be a dentist pulling out a rotten tooth, it might be a physician telling you they found a mass in your lungs instead.