IN ORDER TO EARN the ADA’s Seal of Acceptance, a tube of toothpaste must contain fluoride and must NOT contain sugar. Trace amounts of fluoride have been added to drinking water across the country for the better part of a…
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HAVING A PLAN already in place can make a huge difference if an emergency comes up, and that definitely applies to dental emergencies like oral injuries. How do we plan ahead for unexpected injuries? That will depend on the particular…
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TOOTHACHES ARE NEVER fun, particularly for little kids who might not know what’s happening. They can be caused by a variety of things and are usually worth a visit to the dentist, especially if it’s still hurting after a couple…
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PEOPLE HAVE USED some form of paste to help keep their teeth clean since at least 3000 BC in ancient Egypt. Modern toothpaste first appeared in the 1700s and was usually homemade. A dentist first added soap to dental paste…
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DIABETES (ANY TYPE) tends to make good dental health a much more difficult goal to achieve, and poor oral health also makes diabetes harder to control. More than one in five diabetics will develop a form of gum disease, which…
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AROUND 35 MILLION people in the US are affected by temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD or TMJ), which is why we’re observing TMJ Awareness Month. Our jaws get an almost constant workout throughout the day. We open and close our mouths…
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WHY IS SUGAR so bad for our teeth? Because harmful oral bacteria love to eat it, then excrete acid onto our teeth. Even though tooth enamel is the hardest substance in the body, it is very vulnerable to erosion by…
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TWO OUT OF every five kids develop one or more cavity by the time they turn eleven. That makes dental caries the most common disease of childhood. The good news is that it’s very preventable when parents prioritize their kids’…
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MANY PEOPLE HAVE the idea that gum recession is only a concern for older people (that’s where the saying “long in the tooth” came from), but it can start at any age. While we can’t do anything about a risk…
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TIKTOK ISN’T THE best place to go for dental health advice — unless your dentist is active on the app. We’ve seen a lot of worrying DIY dental procedures popping up recently, so now is a great time to nip…
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PARENTS CAN DO a few different things to give their kids’ smiles a healthy start. 1. Find an Effective Toothbrush They Like It should have soft, polished bristles and be the right size for their hands and mouths, but otherwise,…
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AS A PARENT, maybe you spend a lot of your time worrying about whether your child’s teeth will develop cavities. Obviously, it’s critical to teach them how to brush and floss and encourage them to do so daily, but there’s…
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THERE ARE SO many choices of toothpaste in our grocery stores. With an entire aisle of toothpaste options to choose from, we want to help our patients narrow things down a little based on their individual dental health needs. Whitening…
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PEOPLE HAVE BEEN getting cavities as long as there have been people, and people before modern dentistry had some strange theories about what was causing them. A popular one believed around the world for thousands of years was the idea…
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MOST MEDICATIONS come with a list of possible side effects, including side effects that impact oral health. These side effects are common even when the medications have nothing to do with your teeth or gums, so it’s helpful to know…
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A PACIFIER OR THUMB/finger-sucking habit that lasts beyond the toddler years can have a negative impact on a child’s teeth and jaws. A Healthy Self-Soothing Habit In infancy and toddlerhood, these are perfectly healthy self-soothing habits. They help the child…
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IT’S NOT ACTUALLY true that it takes more muscles to frown than to smile; smiling takes at least ten muscles while frowning requires as few as six. We think the saying should be changed to “smile to burn more calories!”…
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YOU MAY HAVE heard the insult “mouth-breather” in recent years thanks to the popularity of the show Stranger Things. There are actually many good health reasons to avoid breathing through your mouth if nose breathing is possible. We should consider…
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A COUPLE OF the biggest rites of passage in childhood are the first baby teeth coming in and the first adult teeth coming in. We’re here to give parents a brief guide on the general timeline to follow. The Baby…
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40% OF KIDS WILL develop at least one cavity by the time they turn eleven, which makes tooth decay the most common disease of childhood. That might seem scary, but parents can make a big difference, and that starts with…
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“SWIMMER’S CALCULUS” SOUNDS more like advanced mathematics than anything to do with teeth, but it’s actually the term for yellow or brown stains a swimmer can develop on their teeth after prolonged exposure to acidic chlorine ions in pool water.…
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WE TEND TO ASSUME that people from earlier eras (especially the pre-industrial ones) must have had terrible dental health, but that’s not always true. While we get to benefit from modern dental care, braces, and root canal therapy here in…
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TEETH HAVE MANY different uses, from chewing our food to helping us speak clearly to forming the structure of our faces. They also give us our smiles! These are the uses our teeth are for, but we risk causing serious…
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PARENTS CAN DO a lot to help their child come into the dentist’s office feeling relaxed and positive. (We’ll take things from there.) 1. Start early. As soon as a child has teeth, they can benefit from dental care, and…
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PARENTING CAN BE such a wild time that you might struggle to find a moment to brush your own teeth, let alone brush theirs and teach them how to do it themselves. We have a few tips we hope will…
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THERE WON’T BE a pop-quiz later, but we still want our patients to be familiar with the anatomy of their teeth, starting with the crown and going down to the roots. Everything visible above the gums is the crown, which…
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NOT MUCH WAS understood in Medieval England about cavities or gum disease, but they did care very much about keeping their breath fresh. They didn’t know about germs, and they believed that bad smells were infectious on their own, including bad…
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SOME OF US remember the soreness and discomfort of our incoming adult molars, not to mention how hard it was to chew. It’s the same for teething toddlers, but there’s a lot parents can do to help them through this…
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SLEEP APNEA AFFECTS over 18 million adults and up to 20% of habitually snoring children in the United States alone. Sleep apnea is a sleep disorder characterized by brief, repeated interruptions to normal breathing during sleep. It can have many…
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WE HEAR A LOT that it’s bad to chew ice. It’s because ice can do a lot of damage to our teeth and gums. Extreme Temperature Changes Versus Enamel Tooth enamel might be the strongest substance in the body, but…
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