“Now that dentists have reopened their doors, they’re having patients show up with a nasty set of symptoms, which the doctors have dubbed ‘mask mouth,'” reports FOX News. “The new oral hygiene issue — caused by, you guessed it, wearing a mask all the time to prevent the spread of the coronavirus — is leading to all kinds of dental disasters like decaying teeth, receding gum lines and seriously sour breath.”

“We’re seeing inflammation in people’s gums that have been healthy forever, and cavities in people who have never had them before,” Dr. Rob Ramondi, a dentist and co-founder of One Manhattan Dental, told FOX News.

Beyond embarrassing and painful, dental infections are life-threatening confirms a study by the American Stroke Association: “Patients with gum disease were twice as likely to have a stroke caused by hardening of large arteries within the brain than those without gum disease.”

One Manhattan Dental told FOX News that they estimate 50% of their patients are suffering from mask-induced dental problems.

The dentists theorize that the oral infections are largely caused by people’s tendency to mouth breathe while wearing a mask. Mouth breathing has many more side-effects other than dental infections. Bypassing the nasal cavity denies the body of nitric oxide (a critical blood vessel dilator). The nasal cavity also warms and purifies air before hitting the lungs.

Of course, other studies have shown masks increase infection rates in other ways, so why not in the mouth? Possibly these dental problems are a result of “bacterial growth on a used and loaded mask” as Prof. Denis Rancourt speculates in his paper Masks Don’t Work. Masks create a moist environment in front of the mouth for bacteria to fester, while being unhindered by the body’s immune system.

Call me simple, but I can’t see how stressing one’s immune system with dental infections would help one fight SARS-COV-2. And, when we consider that randomized control trials show masks can’t even stop flu-like-illnesses, these oral objections are yet just another reason not to wear a mask.