Your Mouth Is A Swamp!

DON’T TELL THE PARKS AND RECREATION MANAGERS AT THE VENERABLE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, THAT UP AT THE TOP OF THE TALLEST TREE, THE HSR IS PLAYING AROUND AND GETTING CUDDLY WITH BALD EAGLE BABY CHICKS IN THEIR NEST, WHILE THEIR PARENTS ARE PERCHED ON A BRANCH RIGHT NEXT TO THEM, OBSERVING AND ALLOWING A TOTAL STRANGER TO GET UPCLOSE TO THEM, but I digress, because your “nothing’s going to stop me from meditating and harmonizing with the ever-present global and galactic “synthwaves”” smile, just loves it when you visit your backyard aviary, filled with different, brightly-feathered birds fluttering here and there every morning!

Yes! You heard me right!

Especially right after you wake up in the morning! Taste it?!

Come on...let's all say it at once...Yuck!

No, but, really, the mouth is the only portal where food, air, and liquids come into our bodies.

But so much more enters into our oral realms…and a lot of it isn’t pretty at all!

A whole shipload of almost bubbling...stuff!

And if we were to break that other stuff down to a microscopic level and see all of the intruders that happen to enter in, and how they look up close and personal, it might be enough to cause a person to gain an upset stomach!

Let’s take a look at some of the stuff that can enter the mouth, through eating, drinking, breathing, and putting our fingers and other things into the mouth (breathing through the nose can really cut down on many larger particulates from reaching the deeper and more vulnerable lung tissues):

-dust, pollution

-aerosolized chemicals

-airborne, food borne, or waterborne bacteria- at least 700 types reside orally

-airborne, food borne, or water borne viruses

-airborne, food borne, or water borne protozoans

-airborne, food borne, or water borne fungi

- airborne, food borne, or water borne prions

-airborne, food borne, or water borne parasites

-processed foods carrying preservatives, dyes, and other chemicals of questionable health promotion value and safety

-ozone, which can, with exposure during prenatal stages, be a factor in promoting oral clefts.  

-the grease that is used to fry foods

-candy and junk food

-and then healthy fruits and vegetables

-I could go on and on… but you get the idea!

So, there is at all times, a war in our mouths between us humans, and the many microbes and mucks that seek to invade and live off of us.

Many of those small bacteriological bad boys like to hang out in the mouth in very specific regions where they thrive well.  But we’re talking millions and millions of them per square inch!

The mouth is an oasis to them: it’s warm, wet, and offers regular food exposure, so these microyucks can fill up and rub their fat bellies!

Yes, you are actually feeding the animals in your own personal oral ecological microzoo!

Sores, infections, dental caries, periodontal disease, and other oral maladies can be the result of the presence of some of them. And bleeding gums can provide some of these agents an entrance way into the rest of the body, possibly damaging many organs far away from the mouth!

Dental plaque is a type of biofilm, and it contains concentrated layers populated by the enemy, that is ever-present and ever-growing in our mouths: we can’t eliminate these colonizing catastorphies, but, alas, we can control them.

There are also free-floating bacteria in our mouths and many of those are swallowed and they adapt to the conditions in the esophagus, stomach, and the intestines, and, yes, many of them are ultimately excreted.

The ultimate daily chore that you can do to “de-swamp-ify” your mouth is to lower the amount of your dental plaque bioburden by flossing, brushing, and rinsing early and often.

In the end, there are so many things that enter our bodies through our mouths all day and every day—intentionally and unintentionally—so, keep those opportunistically ingressing elements as healthy as possible!

May you have many…I think I’ll buy some of that 5 cent lemonade that the little girl is selling on the corner, because it also has ice in it, and I’m hot!...”anything goes” in love and in war, but just don’t let “anything go” into your mouth!...I’m glad that I woke up this morning, and I’m glad that you did, too!…smiles!