The health of your body and mouth is closely interconnected with your mental health. It is widely noticed that people who suffer from mental illness or any mental disorder also suffer from poor oral health.
Patients with poor mental health usually have symptoms like anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and eating disorders and self-harm. All these symptoms can have a negative impact on their oral health. Let’s try to understand why this happens:
- Neglecting Oral Health:
To maintain good oral health, a person has to take care of the teeth and full mouth regularly. We can’t expect our teeth to be perfect without brushing, flossing and regular dental clean-ups.
The life of people with poor mental health is quite different from others. Due to disorders and mental illness, these people can’t focus on regular oral care. This neglect of their dental care routine often leads to poor oral health.
- Dental Phobia:
Patients with mental illness are very sensitive, and many of them suffer from dental phobia. It means that these people don’t like to visit dentists for their check-up and dental procedures.
These people start panicking and have severe anxiety attacks after seeing the machinery of a dental clinic. Due to all this, they face problems while having dental treatments, and their oral health suffers.
- Wrong Brushing Actions:
Brushing your teeth is an art which requires expertise. People with problems like bipolar often perform the task of brushing in an over-enthusiastic way.
Due to this practice, they brush off their tooth enamel; which is very necessary for the good health of your teeth. Without the enamel, their teeth become easy prey of bacteria and germs; which results in poor oral health.
- Bad Eating Habits:
Patients of mental diseases become so oblivious of their own self that they start neglecting their physical health. They eat anything without giving much thought about healthy food or a balanced diet.
Bad eating habits can also affect oral health. Overconsumption of sugary and acidic substances can ruin the teeth and gums. But, a person who is already suffering from severe mental conditions often side-line all these issues, and that adversely affect his oral health.
- Medication:
Several medications can also impact the oral health of patients with mental issues. These people have to undergo various treatments and have to take many medicines in order to fight their mental illness.
Some of these medicines result in dry mouth and low saliva productions. This can be a problem for their oral health. But, they have to attend to their mental conditions so; they can’t stop these medications.
- Anxiety:
Anxiety is a big issue due to which people with poor mental health can’t take care of other aspects of their health. Most of the people suffering from anxiety issues like to be alone and feel afraid in the company of new people.
They don’t like to visit dentists due to which they can never get feedback on their oral health.