Key Takeaways
- Smoking can your risk of developing oral cancer and severe gum disease, called periodontitis.
- Quitting smoking can improve your oral health significantly even after smoking for a long time.
- Smoking can cause bad breath and cause sores to heal slowly.
- Do not smoke for as long as possible after getting a tooth removed to decrease your risk of developing a dry socket.
- Tooth whitening toothpastes can help to prevent and remove stains that develop on the surface of teeth from cigarette smoking but professional dental cleans may still be needed.
Smoking and vaping both affect the health of the mouth. They can affect your oral health in different ways. If you smoke or vape, it is important to visit the dentist often.
How can smoking affect my mouth?
Smoking causes negative health effects. It can affect your mouth, gums and teeth in many ways. It can:
- stain your teeth
- cause bad breath
- affect how you taste foods and drinks
- cause sores in your mouth to heal slowly
- affect how much saliva your body makes
- increase your risk of severe gum disease, called periodontitis
- increase your risk of oral cancer
Smokers are more likely to lose their teeth than non-smokers.
The nicotine and tar in tobacco smoke can stain teeth. Quitting smoking will stop this staining from developing.
Brushing your teeth 2 times every day can help to prevent stains from forming. It can also decrease the amount of stain that develops. Whitening toothpastes can help to prevent and remove stains.
You may not be able to brush away all stains from the outside surface of your teeth. You will need a professional clean from a dental practitioner to remove these stains. A dental practitioner can include:
- a dentist
- a dental hygienist
- an oral health therapist.
Tooth whitening treatment may also help if smoking has caused the colour of your teeth to change. This treatment will try to lighten the colour of your teeth. It is also best to see a dental practitioner for this treatment.
Smoking cigarettes can affect your breath. People sometimes call this ‘smoker’s breath’. The ingredients in cigarettes have their own smell and smoking makes the mouth dry which helps certain bacteria grow. These bacteria make toxins and gas which smell and cause bad breath.
Smoking also makes you more likely to get gum disease which can cause bad breath. The bacteria that cause gum disease can build up around and under your gums.
The best way to stop bad breath caused by smoking cigarettes is to quit smoking. Other good habits include:
- brushing your teeth twice per day with a fluoride toothpaste
- cleaning between your teeth every day
- staying hydrated by drinking tap water during the day
- chewing sugar-free gum – this may also help to increase the amount of saliva in your mouth.
See your dentist if you keep having bad breath after you quit smoking. They can check that there is not another cause.
Saliva plays an important role in protecting your teeth. Smoking can affect the type and amount of saliva your body makes. Your teeth are less protected if you have a lack of saliva or saliva that is thick and frothy instead of thin and runny.
Smoking can cause sores inside the mouth to heal slowly. This is due to decreased blood flow to the gums.
An example is healing after having a tooth removed. It is important to avoid smoking for as long as possible after having a tooth removed. Smoking can increase your risk of developing a dry socket. This is when the area where the tooth was removed from stops healing. This can be very painful, and you need to return to your dentist.
Smoking tobacco can increase your risk of developing severe gum disease called periodontitis. Periodontitis can cause:
- bone to be lost from around teeth
- teeth to move
- teeth to become loose.
If periodontitis is not treated, the damaged teeth may fall out or need to be removed. It can be hard to see the early signs of gum disease, like bleeding gums. This is because people who smoke have less blood supply to their gums.
People who use tobacco are 2 times more likely to develop oral cancer than people who don’t. This includes tobacco that is smoked and chewed. Drinking alcohol and smoking at the same time can increase your risk of oral cancer even more than each alone.
Once you quit using tobacco, your risk of developing oral cancer will start to decrease.
Is vaping better than cigarettes for my oral health?
Vaping is not recommended as a replacement for tobacco smoking. Or as a way to quit tobacco smoking. There is currently not enough evidence to show that e-cigarettes are effective in helping people to quit smoking.
E-cigarettes or personal vaporisers (vapes) are just as harmful to your health as cigarettes. However, they contain harmful chemicals that can damage your lungs and oral health. You should not think of vaping as safer than smoking cigarettes.
Read more about e-cigarettes and vaping
Will quitting smoking improve my oral health?
Yes, definitely! The best way to improve your oral health if you smoke is to quit.
Quitting smoking can decrease your risk of developing periodontitis and oral cancer. Research shows that the risk of developing periodontitis in people who quit smoking becomes similar to people who have never smoked.
It is never too late to quit, even if you have been a smoker for a long time. You can speak to your dentist about your options for quitting cigarettes.
Where to get help to quit
- Your doctor
- Your pharmacist
- www.quit.org.au or call Quitline 13 78 48
- Quitline for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
More information
-
Effects of smoking and tobacco by Department of Health and Aged Care
-
Smoking - effects on your body by Better Health Channel
All articles are thoroughly researched and reference high-quality studies and information to support the subject matter.
Our experts continually monitor the oral health space. As research and recommendations change or we get reader feedback, we update the information in our articles.