How Tobacco and Other Drugs Negatively Affect Your Mouth and Teeth

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Lee Hensley
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1 How Tobacco and Other Drugs Negatively Affect Your Mouth and Teeth With input from Jennefer To and Arshia Syeda Ages: 12 and up Lesson Materials Needed Harmful Effects of Drugs on the Mouth and Teeth color exhibit which shows photos of smoker s mouth, meth mouth, and other negative effects of drugs on the mouth and teeth. o We recommend you make enough copies of this exhibit so that your audience can see the full impact of the negative effects of drugs. 1 copy per 3 people is our recommendation. Supplemental Lesson Materials ToothFairy 101 Consequences of Tobacco Use worksheet o Ensure you have sufficient copies of the worksheets and/or handouts for each child/teen. Harmful Effects of Drugs on the Mouth and Teeth handout Key Points Drug use is harmful to your teeth, mouth and the rest of your body. Drugs cause cancer and other conditions that affect the teeth and mouth including dry mouth, lesions, inflammation, tooth loss, fungal infections and excessive grinding of the teeth. Lesson Your mouth is the gateway to your body What you put in your mouth affects every cell in your body. Today we are going to talk about some of the things that can sometimes seem cool but really can damage your body for the rest of your life. You have heard a lot about how your body is damaged by smoking and drugs, but we will concentrate today on something most people do not talk about and that is what do these things do to our mouth, tongue and teeth? Let s talk about tobacco ToothFairy 101 National Children s Oral Health Foundation: America s ToothFairy Lesson content contributed and prepared by Toothfairy Island LLC Lesson content also contributed and approved by the National Children s Oral Health Foundation Scientific Advisory Board

2 How Tobacco and Other Drugs Negatively Affect Your Mouth and Teeth What are some reasons why people, especially young people, may start smoking? Answers may include: peer pressure, looks cool or glamorous, looks more adult, my parents smoke, it calms the nerves, gives them something to do with their hands, controls weight, etc. These are reasons that people give for smoking, but what does it do to your body? Your body does not need tobacco In fact, your body tries to warn you when you first start smoking tobacco. Your throat and lungs burn, you cough, and some people even throw up Tobacco is a poison to your body. Everyone knows that smoking is poison to your body and creates health problems like heart disease, cancer in the lungs, throat, stomach and bladder. Tobacco can be smoked, chewed or snuffed. Tobacco contains nicotine and cyanide. Both of these can kill you in high doses. Nicotine is highly addictive. This means that once you start using something it is very hard to stop. You need more of it just to feel normal and without it you feel tired, cranky, or even sick. In the United States, smoking is responsible for about 1 in 5 deaths Smoking can quickly produce health problems in teens. *If you smoke you can look forward to developing wrinkles, loss of bone density, bad skin, smelly clothes and hair, giving up the chance to be competitive in a sport, causing your body to lose the ability to heal, making yourself weak, getting more colds or other illness like cancer. Bad skin because smoking can slow the flow of blood vessels preventing oxygen and nutrients getting to the skin. Smoking has been associated with psoriasis, a nasty red skin rash. Bad smelling clothes and hair - The smell of stale smoke sticks to everything around the smoker books, cars, furniture. Poor sports performance - Smoking affects the heart, circulation and lungs causing the person to perform poorly. Higher risk of injury and longer healing times Smoking inhibits the body s ability to produce collagen. All injuries and especially sport injuries take longer to heal because the body has lost the ability to produce collagen which is a protein that is considered the body s glue and essential for healing. Risk of illness - Studies show that smokers get more colds, flu, bronchitis and pneumonia than nonsmokers. Some teens think that smoking helps control their weight, but because they smoke they are not eating the nutrients they need to grow, develop or fight off illness properly. Doesn t sound so sexy and attractive, does it? ToothFairy 101 National Children s Oral Health Foundation: America s ToothFairy Lesson content contributed and prepared by Toothfairy Island LLC Lesson content also contributed and approved by the National Children s Oral Health Foundation Scientific Advisory Board

3 How Tobacco and Other Drugs Negatively Affect Your Mouth and Teeth If the audience is old enough share the following information: Smoking can cause fertility problems and impact sexual health in both men and women. Girls on the pill or other hormone-based birth control (like the patch or the ring) who smoke have a higher risk of serious health problems, such as heart attacks. Earlier, I said your mouth is the gateway to your body. We know smoking hurts our body, but does it affect your mouth? Take a few answers. One of the first things most people notice about smokers is the smell. Not just the smell that sticks to their clothes and hair but their breath. Bad breath is called halitosis, and it doesn t go away with the use of mouth wash or gum. You are actually smelling the smoke that is now in the saliva and throat of the smoker. Smoking dries out the palate and tongue leaving even more smoke coating the mouth. This increases the bacteria in the mouth because it is your saliva that helps wash the mouth and teeth. Smokers patches which are lesions can appear on the palate. A lesion is an area of tissue that has suffered damage. Hyperkeratinization can also appear in the tissue of the mouth. These are also white patch lesions. Long term irritation to the tissues of the mouth can cause leukoplakia. Leukoplakia is a plaque that looks like a white patch on the soft tissue of the mouth and tongue. It is potentially malignant and needs to be seen by a dentist if it appears. Smokers patch, hyperkeratinization, and leukoplakia affect the tissue of your mouth, but what about your teeth? What does smoking do to your teeth? We said smoking dries out the mouth and this can be an irritation to the gums and teeth that need a moist environment. Just as smoke coats hair and clothes, it also coats the teeth. I am sure you have seen pictures or people whose teeth look yellow because they smoke. Teeth are affected when the tissue around them become irritated. Gums become red, swollen and sometimes bleed when irritated. They may even pull away from the tooth causing teeth to become loose and fall out. Tobacco also contains sugar to improve the flavor. Bacteria in your mouth eat the sugar and as they do they produce acid which strips your teeth of minerals. The acid creates cavities. None of this seems like a benefit to me There are a lot of rumors that some products are OK to use because you are not really smoking when you use them. ToothFairy 101 National Children s Oral Health Foundation: America s ToothFairy Lesson content contributed and prepared by Toothfairy Island LLC Lesson content also contributed and approved by the National Children s Oral Health Foundation Scientific Advisory Board

4 How Tobacco and Other Drugs Negatively Affect Your Mouth and Teeth Hookah/Water Pipe Some people think it is safer to smoke using a hookah because the smoke passes through water. All you have to do is look at the black residue in the hookah hose and mouthpiece to see that the same gunk is getting into the smokers mouth and lungs. E-cigarettes The latest item added to the smoking list is E-cigarettes. Although they seem like a great idea, they also contain cancer causing chemicals including a compound used in antifreeze. E-cigarettes do not contain tobacco but they do contain nicotine which is what makes smoking addictive. The nicotine is a liquid that turns into vapor/gas that is inhaled into the lungs. Because e-cigarettes do not contain tobacco, they are not regulated and have not been approved for use and have no health warnings. E- cigarettes are supposed to help a person stop smoking, but they still contribute to addiction and poor health. Marijuana Smoke is smoke and whether you inhale tobacco or other substances the same things are happening to your mouth and body. Well if smoking is so bad for your lungs then what about smokeless tobacco? Isn t it better for your body? Chewing Tobacco or snuff products contain at least 28 chemicals. It increases your risk for mouth cancer, cancer of the throat and esophagus. Chewing tobacco contains higher levels of nicotine than cigarettes making it more addictive and harder to quit. One can of chewing tobacco is equal to 60 cigarettes. Smokeless tobacco typically contains sand and grit which can wear down your teeth and irritate your gums. Leukoplakia is common for smokeless tobacco users and there is a higher rate for developing oral cancers, esophageal cancer and pancreatic cancer. 90% of people with cancer of the mouth, lip, tongue and throat use tobacco. Tobacco users are 6 times more likely to develop these cancers. The bottom line is: There is no such thing as a safe nicotine product Anything smoked causes damage to our mouth and body Take a look at your ToothFairy 101 Consequences of Tobacco Use worksheet. This explains how the body becomes addicted to a harmful chemical, such as tobacco. It also shows the cost of such an addiction. Smokers and smokeless tobacco users spend THOUSANDS of dollars a year on their habit. Drugs such as marijuana, meth and alcohol are addictive too. ToothFairy 101 National Children s Oral Health Foundation: America s ToothFairy Lesson content contributed and prepared by Toothfairy Island LLC Lesson content also contributed and approved by the National Children s Oral Health Foundation Scientific Advisory Board

5 How Tobacco and Other Drugs Negatively Affect Your Mouth and Teeth What are some positive things you could do with thousands of dollars? Allow children/teens to answer. Your mouth and alcohol: Alcohol: Drinking alcoholic beverages such as beer, wine or liquor (vodka, whiskey, rum, gin, etc.) How does alcohol abuse negatively impact the mouth? Your mouth is a damp environment, and your saliva is always trying to keep the mouth washed clean. Alcohol is very drying to the mouth and many alcoholic drinks contain a lot of sugar. We know that a dry mouth irritates the gums and can cause bleeding, red, swollen gums and we know that sugar coating the teeth invites bacteria, acid and cavities. Glossitis is the inflammation of the tongue, which can develop bald smooth areas where the taste buds have disappeared. The tongue can become painful and affect the way you speak and eat. Alcohol abusers often have a fungal infection called candida. This infection can be in the mouth but can actually spread to other parts of the body. People with an alcohol problem almost always have an overgrowth of candida yeast. Alcohol is a sugar, and it is candida s favorite food source and what makes it grow. Candida is difficult to get rid of and usually requires both medical treatment and a diet change. Methamphetamines and your mouth: Methamphetamines can be smoked, snorted or injected. Also known as meth, ice, crystal, glass, tik. What are harmful results of methamphetamine usage on the mouth and teeth? "Meth mouth" is characterized by broken, discolored and rotting teeth. Xerostomia or dry mouth - The drug causes the salivary glands to dry out allowing the mouth's acids to eat away at the tooth enamel and cause cavities. Meth users compulsively grind their teeth (bruxism), binge on sugary food and drinks, and neglect to brush or floss for long periods of time. 1 Methamphetamines can destroy a mouth in less than 4 months To review Your body does not need tobacco or drugs and the use and abuse of these can hurt you for life. 1.How Meth Destroys the Body, PBS, Frontline. Retrieved from ToothFairy 101 National Children s Oral Health Foundation: America s ToothFairy Lesson content contributed and prepared by Toothfairy Island LLC Lesson content also contributed and approved by the National Children s Oral Health Foundation Scientific Advisory Board

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7 Harmful Effects of Drugs on the Mouth and Teeth Photo Source: METH MOUTH, TOOTH DECAY, BROKEN TEETH, BAD BREATH INFECTION, BLEEDING GUMS Photo Source: METH MOUTH, TOOTH DECAY, ROTTING TEETH, BAD BREATH TOOTH LOSS Photo Source: SMOKERʼS PATCHES OR LEUKOPLAKIA (WHITE PATCHES ON THE TONGUE, CHEEK, ETC.) Photo Source: GLOSSITIS (BALD SPOTS ON THE TONGUE) Photo Source: ORAL CANCER Photo Source: ORAL CANCER, TOOTH LOSS, GRINDING OF THE TEETH, TUMORS

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SODA AND FRUIT JUICE CAN DISSOLVE YOUR TEETH AND CAUSE TOOTH DECAY

SODA AND FRUIT JUICE CAN DISSOLVE YOUR TEETH AND CAUSE TOOTH DECAY Dear Michael, Welcome to our SUMMER email newsletter! If you have not yet checked out our office website lately, I encourage you to visit by clicking here. We are working hard to keep it up to date with