Healthy mouths chew more easily, are less prone to sensitivity and are less likely to need fillings in the future. Good oral hygiene always starts at home, but preventative dentistry at the clinic is just as important.

Regular check-ups with your dentist are necessary for good oral health. We recommend you visit your dentist every 6 to 12 months.

Regular check-ups help spot the earliest signs of tooth decay and gum disease, allowing these problems to be sorted before they escalate into anything serious. Your dentist can also help you understand how to take care of your teeth. This can differ between patients, making personalised advice invaluable.

A regular, strong oral hygiene routine is the key to having healthy teeth and gums, now and into the future. If you’re looking for the best way to avoid problems with your teeth, as well as issues such as bad breath, then getting into a regular positive oral hygiene routine will be key.

Mouth cancer is one of the least well-known cancers but has a higher proportion of deaths per number of cases than breast cancer, cervical cancer or skin melanoma. Mouth cancer has a mortality rate of around 1,700 people per year, despite treatment, and this figure is predominantly the result of late detection. It’s important to find out about mouth cancer so that you know the symptoms and the risks.

Here at Smilepad we spend a lot of time fixing problems that have arisen with people’s teeth that originate from a lack of care.

Tooth decay, cavities and periodontal disease are just some of the issues we deal with on a daily basis, all of which can have long lasting effects on oral health.

Gum disease is often underestimated as a problem for oral health. There are different types of gum disease and these can affect your mouth and health to varying degrees. Gingivitis is probably the most common type of gum disease, an early sign that there may be problems to deal with. Without treatment, gingivitis can progress to periodontitis, which can cause gums to shrink back from teeth and may be responsible for tooth loss, as well as dental pain. Perhaps the most dramatic type of gum disease is acute necrotising ulcerative gingivitis, which causes bad breath, ulcers and fever.

You’ve cleaned out the cupboards, thrown out old clothes, reinvigorated the garden and dusted the house from top to bottom ready for the warmer months, but that’s not where your spring clean should end. Now that you’ve finished preparing your home it’s time to move on to your mouth with these great tips for an oral spring clean.

News reports last month highlighted how tooth decay has become a serious problem, not just for adults in the UK, but for children too. Statistics analysed by the Health and Social Care Information Centre revealed that over the past four years we have seen a rise of 10% in the number of children admitted to hospital with severe tooth decay. Since 2011, 128,000 decayed teeth have been removed from the nation’s children. What the statistics also revealed is that, in many cases, this could have been prevented – Prof Nigel Hunt, the dean of the dental surgery faculty at the Royal College of Surgeons said that 90% of tooth decay is preventable.