Dental Education Lecture: A Daunting Task

In the last lecture, we discuss difficulty in keeping teeth clean if they are not straight.  Even if we are very diligent in oral hygiene, we may still have gum infection and bleeding in a very small area.

Most of us are lazy.  When we have misaligned teeth, we usually give up our best effort,  So we may have lots of dental problems as shown here.  This photo shows six of the bottom front teeth of a 60-70 year old gentleman.  You may note his teeth are pretty crooked.  Three of these teeth are darkly stained, particularly two of them in a hidden area.  They have gum diseases.  The other three teeth look better, because they have just had heavy duty cleaning. Four out of these six teeth have cavities (arrows).  Without braces, it is a daunting task to keep the teeth clean and healthy.  

Xin Wei, DDS, PhD, MS 1st edition 07/15/2009, last revision 07/19/2009