When should dental care start?

The most efficient dental care begins even before a baby’s first tooth appears. Many parents don’t realize but teeth actually begin to form in the second trimester of a pregnancy. At birth the baby already has 20 primary teeth, hidden inside the jaw.

After the baby is done feeding, run a damp washcloth over your baby’s gums to help prevent buildup of damaging bacteria. Eventually when your child has a few teeth showing, you can brush them with a child’s toothbrush or use gauze.

Help my Baby is teething!

Teething is inevitable and will happen to all babies. However, some experience more discomfort over others. The discomfort often occurs in the mouth and can cause your baby to become agitated and even irritable.  A trick we tell parents, to help ease the pain, is to rub a baby’s gums with a clean finger or wet soft washcloth. Don’t forget to give your baby regular oral cleanings after each meal. This will help establish good dental habits early on.

What role does nutrition play in healthy dental development?

It is a natural balance between healthy eating habits that will lead to healthy teeth. Many snacks that children eat that are processed and have added sugar can lead to the formation of cavities. Rather than picking the packaged crackers, cookies and cakes for a snack, choose nutritious foods such as fresh vegetables, low-fat yogurt and or low-fat cheese.

When should my child start flossing?

We get this question a lot, and a general rule is to start flossing your child’s teeth when the two teeth touch each other. As they learn good dental care hygiene from you, you can help them learn to floss. We recommend that you stay with them and floss together, in order to stress the importance of it. Make sure to use floss that doesn’t hurt their teeth and is comfortable on their gums.

What should I do if my child doesn’t want to brush their teeth?

Getting your child excited about brushing their truth isn’t always easy. But showing them the benefits and why we brush our teeth can go a long way.  You can get creative with how you show your child the importance of brushing teeth with an experiment. It can show your child how important brushing is in order to keep teeth strong, healthy and protected from acid attack.

Brush Your Teeth

When you brush your teeth use a soft toothbrush, or an electric toothbrush. You should brush at least twice a day for a minimum of 3 minutes. Ideally you brush your teeth 3 times a day after each meal. This will help prevent plaque build up from food particles that dig their way into your teeth.  By maintaining a healthy oral regimen you will feel more confident about your smile. Because when you take care of yourself you feel good.

Chew Gum

Chewing gum is a great way to get rid of plaque on your teeth. When we chew gum our mouths produce saliva, which helps remove unwanted left over food particles. Chewing gum is great to help reduce bad breath as well. Pick a flavor that you like and keep a pack in your desk, your glove department or purse.

Reduce Sugar Consumption

Limit the amount of added sugar you eat every day. This includes added sugar in teas, coffee and soft drinks. Many times we don’t even realize we are consuming sugar in our drinks. Reducing sweetened fruit juices and soda can drastically improve your smile. Plus when you consume less sugar you may decrease your likelihood to get cavities. Sugar can play a harmful role in tooth decay.

Maintain Regular Cleaning

Visiting your dentist every six months is one of the best ways to keep your smile looking bright.  This regular check up is one of the best methods to avoid any surprises down the road. Your Dentist can check for possible future problems and do a deep cleaning. This is affordable and easy to do.

Use Fluoride Rinse Method

Invest in a mouth rinse that helps prevent tooth decay and one that will also strengthen the outer enamel of your teeth. Brush your teeth thoroughly, and rinse vigorously for a clean healthy feeling.

Drink More Water

Drinking water is great for helping you get a bright smile because a lot of natural drinking water contains fluoride. The right amount of fluoride can prevent tooth decay by making your teeth stronger.  If your water does not contain fluoride there are supplements you can take, drinking bottled water or well water that contains little or no traces of fluoride is still good for your overall health. Drinking water after eating meals can help wash away food particles and prevent them from staying on your teeth.

If the wisdom teeth remain in the mouth, too often they are crowded at the back corner of the mouth and are difficult to reach with a tooth brush or floss. In these cases, cavities result and a decision is made whether to fill the cavity or extract the tooth.

If they are impacted, often times they will push forward on the second molars and create crowding and moving of the other teeth. They also may create an open avenue for bacteria to move down the back side of the second molars and periodontal disease destroys the bone supporting that tooth or decay. Research has also shown an increased risk of jaw fracture when the impacted wisdom teeth remain.

There are no easy answers. We dentists all love it when the wisdom teeth erupt into a healthy position. We wish they all did.

Twenty years ago, the only reliable choice to replace the tooth would have been with a bridge. The teeth on either side of the missing tooth are prepared for crowns and an impression is taken. Two weeks later, the lab returns the bridge, which is cemented in place.

Dental Bridge Pros:

• Relatively quick solution and lower cost than an implant

Dental Bridge Cons:

• More difficult to clean and therefore more prone to failure
• With a bridge it is often more difficult to obtain a good esthetic result

Dental Implant Pros:

With an implant the results are now very predictable. Success rates in the 90-95% range are the norm.

• Better esthetics and more natural appearance
• Easier to clean, therefore less prone to failure
• They look and feel like a natural tooth

Dental Implant Cons:

• More expensive and a longer procedure from start to finish
• Several months are required for healing and fabrication of the implant

So, which is best? Every case is different. Gather all the information available to make an informed choice.

Today’s composite fillings are a blend of plastic and glass particles (for strength), colored to blend with the teeth. The composite fillings can be bonded to the teeth for strength and are usually cured with a bright light for less than a minute until they are hardened. The bonding agents also help the fillings to achieve a better seal around their edges, which prevents leakage and future cavities. The composite filling materials can be polished to a high level, and when the color is matched correctly, will blend and virtually disappear in the surrounding tooth.

The composite fillings can be used to replace broken corners of teeth. The dental fillings are bonded, sculpted, shaped and polished for a completely natural appearance. The resulting repairs are a much more conservative and cost effective answer to a broken front tooth than placing a crown.

The most exciting use of these composite filling materials is in their use to replace silver fillings in the back teeth. The end result no longer has the darkened color from the old silver fillings and leaves a younger, more natural look.

Make an appointment to learn how our modern cosmetic dental care techniques will make your teeth look more natural … and with longer-lasting results!

Thirty years ago, modern-thinking dentists started using tooth colored composite (plastic) fillings on the back teeth. Sure these filling materials looked more natural, but they also presented some new problems.

The composite material was not as strong, so they would not last as long and it was more difficult to get them to seal at the edges of the filling. Also, where the filling would butt up against the adjacent tooth, it was difficult to get a tight contact, so food would impact between the teeth.

There are some exciting new developments in cosmetic fillings on the back teeth. The materials are stronger and the bonding agents will now give a better seal. We also have new techniques that allow us to keep the tooth fillings smaller and shaped to give a good contact between the teeth, which eliminates the food impaction problem!

These new techniques have enabled us to do fillings on the back teeth that result in a more natural smile. If you have older composite or strong silver amalgam fillings in your back teeth or suspect you have cavities that need treatment, make an appointment to discuss how we can give your smile a more natural look!

Quit The Cavity OF The Year Club

Does it feel like you belong to the “Cavity Of The Year Club”? Every check-up finds a new cavity or two? I see patients who are trying hard with their brushing and flossing, but become discouraged. They just can’t seem to prevent new cavities from occurring. New research is pointing towards a factor that may be causing the problem: pH.

We measure of how acid or alkaline a solution with a pH measurement. For example, the bacteria in our mouths give off an acid when they metabolize sugar, and this makes the mouth more acidic, or low pH. Most soda drinks are very acidic and have a low pH. On the other hand, baking soda is alkaline and has a high pH. Water is neutral and is neither high or low pH.

The bacteria that cause cavities and gum disease thrive in a low pH environment. If the mouth is changed to a high pH, alkaline environment, the amount of bacteria that cause cavities will diminish, and the teeth and gums will stay healthy.

We have seen wonderful results with patients when they get started on a program using toothpastes and mouth rinses that raise the pH in the mouth from acid to alkaline. The cease suffering tooth cavities and their gum health improves significantly.

If you want to quit the “club”, ask us what we can do to help improve your brushing and flossing regimen to improve your overall dental health and ensure a healthy smile for life!

Closing Front Tooth Gaps

One of the common dentistry cosmetic requests that dentists hear is “What can you do to fill the gaps on my front teeth?”

Gaps between upper front teeth (called diastemas) can be caused by teeth that are normal, but smaller than average, misshapen teeth or misalignments. With the newer dental materials and techniques, it is actually quite simple to bond tooth colored materials to the teeth to fill in the gaps.

Plastic composite filling materials can be bonded to the tooth and shaped to look perfectly natural in the mouth. It is an easy process, usually without numbing being necessary. If the shade of the composite is chosen well, the bonded filling will blend in and look very natural, giving a beautiful natural result.

Perhaps the nicest result can be achieved using either porcelain or a ceramic veneer to cover the front surface of the tooth. Less prone to staining and wear, they will allow the dentist to have more control with the shape and coloration of the final result. The ceramic materials show great promise; they are as strong as metal, but have a natural appearance of enamel.

Cosmetic dentistry has become a fun process, enabling the dentist to solve a multitude of cosmetic dental care challenges to help make your smile brighter! Ask us … we love to help.

Trouble with Tooth Dentures? Here are some tips to improve comfort.

Some denture-wearers are blessed with dentures that are easily worn due to an ample amount of ridge to support the dentures. Others have lost most of the ridges that support the dentures and fight a daily battle to function with loose, uncomfortable dentures.

Imagine if your denture could snap into place, resist coming loose when eating, and feel solid when you are chewing. Hard to imagine? It is part of what dentistry can do today. There are several ways to do this.

The easiest is to keep some of the teeth when extracting the teeth prior to fabrication of the initial dentures. These teeth are shortened, and an attachment is added to the top of the tooth. This attachment looks like the male part of a snap (like the snap on a western shirt). A female portion is placed on the underside of the denture. When the denture is place in the mouth, it snaps into place, and feels solid since it rides on the teeth. The snaps also help keep it in place when eating.

Have all of your teeth have been extracted? No worries. The same type of attachment can mounted on implants placed in the bone. For even more security, a bar can be spanned from implant to implant to support the denture. The bar gives the maximum support and retention for the denture.

All of these denture-fitting techniques work to make a denture work more like natural teeth. If you wear dentures and wish for improved comfort when eating and chewing please feel free to ask us what can be done to help your situation.

Should you have your teeth whitened?

Most of my patients tell me that they would like to have whiter teeth and a brighter smile. So let’s explore what options are available.

As a person ages, the teeth often become darker due to staining by foods (coffee, tea, or red wine), tobacco or bacterial pigments. Tetracycline antibiotics can also cause a gray staining of the teeth. Dental bleaching can help to lighten the enamel and reverse the staining of the enamel.

At-home tooth bleaching uses either hydrogen peroxide or carbamide peroxide gel applied to the teeth using thin mouth guard type trays. Over the counter whitening strips that go over the front teeth can also be used. The peroxide agents penetrate into the porosities in the enamel and oxidizes the stain deposits that build up on your teeth.

The strength of the peroxide and the length of time they are held against the teeth will determine how quickly the teeth are whitened. The effects of the bleaching can last for months, and but will be reversed by the same foods that caused the staining (coffee, tea and red wine). This means that periodic teeth whitening will be required in order to maintain that bright white smile.

The risk to the enamel from bleaching has been shown to be insignificant. Some temporary increase of tooth sensitivity or irritation of the gums may occur. The gum irritation is usually caused by the trays not fitting snuggly to the teeth. You should discuss bleaching with your dentist before starting.

So, if you have wished for a brighter smile, chat with your dentist about dental whitening and the choices available before deciding if it’s right for you.