If you haven’t made a New Year’s resolution yet, or if the one you made hasn’t worked out so well, here’s an easy one you can start today: improve your dental health. Improving the health of your mouth can improve your general health as there are several links between oral infections and systemic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and some types of cancer.
Making small changes to your daily routine can be easier than a plate of big commitments. If you’re brushing once a day, increase the frequency to twice a day. If you’re not a flosser, use floss or a similar substitute once a day. Substitute water for your favorite sugary or acidic drink (Gatorade, Red Bull, regular or diet soda) once a day.
If you can’t remember the last time you had your teeth cleaned or a dental exam, email or call us today to schedule it.Happy New Year!

When you think about a trip to the dental office, how do you feel? If your heart beats a little faster, your hands get clammy or your mouth feels dry, you’re not alone. It’s estimated that 35 million Americans avoid dental care due to dental anxiety. Many of these people have had previous bad dental experiences, sometimes as children. Other people simply dislike the sounds, smells and feeling associated with dental treatment. Being a dental patient puts people in a position where they can feel vulnerable and that they lack control over what may happen to them. This can feel particularly intimidating for abuse survivors.

We realize that dental visits are not something most people look forward to. Fortunately, much has changed in dentistry over the years to make dental visits easier than they have ever been. Some tips and resources are here to help you manage your visits. Putting off needed care is almost always more complicated, more expensive and less comfortable in the end.

How much soda pop does the average American consume in a year? 56 gallons, more than any other country in the world. This is one category where we shouldn’t brag about being #1, however. The health consequences of this are usually very evident to dentists, who can often spot frequent pop drinkers due to the damage done to their teeth.

The sugar in pop is part of the problem – the other part is the damage is caused by acids contained in the soda, including diet sodas. While sugar is converted to tooth-dissolving acid by decay-causing bacteria in one’s mouth, the citric, phosphoric and carbonic acids present in sodas also damage teeth. Teeth start to lose their calcium and phosphorous at pH 5.5; the pH of most sodas (including diet sodas) is around 3. Ongoing acid attacks weaken and soften tooth enamel, creating ‘cavities.’ Energy drinks are similar to sodas in their pH and sugar content. Sugared sodas have an average of 10-12 teaspoons of sugar per 12 oz. can. All these calories can also contribute to obesity.

Each sip of pop creates an ‘acid attack’ on teeth that lasts about 20 minutes. Sipping for several hours creates an environment that often creates long-term damage to teeth. To reduce tooth decay, enjoy soda in limited amounts and frequencies – make them a special occasion treat, not an everyday beverage. Use a straw to avoid contact of the soda with teeth, and rinse with water afterwards to dilute the acid content. Avoid using the twist-top type bottles that encourage sipping all day and consider drinking healthier alternatives to soda. Check out the labels of what you are drinking and visit your dentist regularly for checkups. Next time you’re in our office, ask us for some pH test strips to dip into your beverages and see for yourself what your teeth are bathing in!

Do I need x-rays? Patients ask this question of dental teams regularly for a number of reasons. Cost, radiation exposure and necessity for x-ray images (also known as radiographs) are all valid concerns behind the question.
Like any diagnostic tool or treatment, the risks of the procedure must be weighed versus the benefits gained. Since dental diseases are the most common infections in the United States and often can’t be detected on the basis of visual examination alone, x-rays provide valuable information about your oral health. The radiation from dental x-rays is extremely low. A full set of conventional dental x-rays creates the same amount of radiation exposure as 5% of the atmospheric radiation from natural sources that U.S. residents receive in a year. Digital x-rays create even less exposure, about 10-30% that of conventional x-rays.
The benefits of dental x-rays are that your dentist can detect conditions often in their earliest stages, allowing treatment that saves time, money and unnecessary discomfort. X-ray images can reveal small areas of decay between teeth, bone infections, gum disease, abscesses or cysts, developmental abnormalities and some types of tumors.
The American Dental Association recommends using the ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) principle to reduce radiation exposure to patients. This includes determining the need for and type of images to take depending on someone’s oral health conditions, age, their history and risk for disease and signs and symptoms of disease. The use of leaded aprons and thyroid collars is recommended. If you have questions about the type and frequency of dental x-rays that are most appropriate for you, ask your dental team!

Baby teeth – what dentists call ‘primary’ teeth, I often refer to as ‘practice teeth.’ ‘Milk’ teeth is another old term used that we don’t hear often anymore. When we’re young we all get a set that begin erupting around one year of age; the last baby tooth is usually lost around age twelve. Whatever we call these teeth, they serve some important purposes.

The first is being to allow us as children to chew adequately – the mouth is the first phase of our digestive system. The second purpose of baby teeth is to hold space for the permanent teeth to erupt properly. When baby molars are lost prematurely, permanent teeth may have difficulty erupting as they normally should.

The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry recommends that all children have a dental ‘home’ by twelve months of age. This is much earlier than dentists had recommended in past years for a child’s first dental visit, however it is entirely appropriate based on what we currently know. Dental decay can start as early as age one or two. Often times if parents wait until their child has an obvious problem to take him/her to the dentist, much damage has already been done. Most dental offices who see children will be able to do a quick visual exam with the child laying on the lap of the parent. The dentist will check for normal eruption of teeth, any problems with the soft tissues of the mouth and of course, cavities. In Eugene-Springfield, there is no community water fluoridation, so they may recommend prescription fluoride drops.

When the first tooth erupts in a baby’s mouth, the parent should start to clean their baby’s teeth daily with a soft pediatric toothbrush – there are many styles available. A small pea-sized dose of fluoride toothpaste should be used as soon as the baby will tolerate it. Every parent I’ve met wants their child to have healthy teeth and not suffer from dental disease. These simple actions take little time and go a long way towards helping a child have a bright dental future!

Halloween is around the corner, which for most children means bags of free candy and a chance to build up the stockpile of sweets for the winter. Being one of the most fun times of the year for families, Halloween can also present parents with a variety of health and safety challenges.

The American Dental Association, America’s premier source of oral health information, has prepared a list of 10 suggestions to help parents maintain good oral health for their children around the Halloween holiday and throughout the year.

1. Consume Halloween candy and other sugary foods with meals. Saliva production increases during meals and helps neutralize acids produced by bacteria in your mouth and helps rinse away food particles.

2. Avoid hard candy and other sweets that stay in your mouth for a long time. Besides how often you snack, the length of time food is in your mouth plays a role in tooth decay. Unless it is a sugar-free product, candies that stay in the mouth for a long period of time subject teeth to prolonged acid attack, increasing the risk for tooth decay.

3. Avoid sticky candies that cling to your teeth. The stickier candies, like taffy and gummy bears, take longer to get washed away by saliva, increasing the risk for tooth decay.

4. Drink more water. Consuming optimally fluoridated water can help prevent tooth decay. If you choose bottled water, check the label for the fluoride content.

5. Maintain a healthy diet and make sure the meals you eat are nutritious. Your body is like a complex machine. The foods you choose as fuel and how often you “fill up” affect your general health and that of your teeth and gums.

6. Avoid beverages with added sugar such as soda, sports drinks or flavored waters. When teeth come in frequent contact with beverages that contain sugar, the risk of tooth decay is increased.

7. Chew gum that has the ADA Seal. Chewing sugarless gum for 20 minutes after meals has been shown to reduce tooth decay, because increased saliva flow helps wash out food and neutralize the acid produced by dental plaque bacteria.

8. Brush your teeth twice a day with an ADA-accepted fluoride toothpaste. Replace your toothbrush every three or four months, or sooner if the bristles are frayed. A worn toothbrush won’t do a good job of cleaning your teeth.

9. Clean between teeth daily with floss or an interdental cleaner. Decay-causing bacteria still linger between teeth where toothbrush bristles can’t reach. Flossing helps remove plaque and food particles from between the teeth and under the gum line.

10. Visit an ADA-member dentist for more information on maintaining your oral health.

My grandfather used to joke that he didn’t have a sweet tooth, he had thirty-two sweet teeth. Some days, I sure feel like I’ve inherited those genes. Fortunately, a natural, healthy sweet alternative called xylitol is becoming more widely available to us. Xylitol has been around for a long time; it is a five-carbon sugar alcohol derived primarily from birch trees. It is found in some fruits, berries and vegetables and is produced in the human liver, which is why it’s safe for humans to consume.

What makes xylitol unique and increasingly recommended by dental teams is that it not only doesn’t cause cavities, it actually helps prevent them. Cavity-causing bacteria are unable to metabolize xylitol, so it is not converted into tooth-dissolving acid, as sugar is. This hinders the bacteria’s ability to grow. Xylitol contains about 40% of the calories that sugar does and is safe for diabetics to use.

For decay reduction, between six and ten grams of xylitol per day is recommended (three to five servings). Xylitol is available in gum, candy, toothpaste and mouthrinses, as well as in crystalline form. These products can often be easily found online (websites include www.drjohns.com, www.Carifree.com, www.spry.com) and in health food or local Market of Choice stores. We have several xylitol-containing products available in the office. If you haven’t tried it yet, ask us for a sample at your next visit!

I just returned from the American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine’s annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas. In addition to the Alamo, Riverwalk and some great Tex-Mex food, we heard a LOT of the newest information and research in using oral appliances to treat obstructive sleep apnea.
For those unfamiliar with sleep apnea, it is a destructive condition where people stop breathing for up to a minute, often several times per hour, during sleep. The chronic lack of oxygen causes damage to our blood vessels and tissues and thus contributes to hardening of the arteries, cardiovascular disease, strokes and a huge host of chronic medical conditions. Sufferers sleep poorly and are often chronically tired, interfering with their memory and enjoyment of life and increasing their risk of accidents while driving.
Obstructive apnea is most often and effectively treated with a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine, however many people find this treatment difficult to tolerate for a variety of reasons. People who have been diagnosed with mild to moderate apnea, are unsuccessful in using a CPAP machine, or who just snore loudly to the distress of their family members may often find successful relief with an oral appliance.
To learn more about this and whether you or a family member may be suffering, visit our Obstructive Sleep Apnea page and talk with your medical doctor.

A few weeks ago, I received a phone call on a Saturday evening from a patient. Her six year old son had been out playing on his scooter and somehow wound up giving a nice big kiss to the sidewalk. After a visit to Urgent Care to check for a broken nose or more serious lacerations (luckily, neither had occurred), the physician advised them to contact their dentist. When I saw them an hour later the tears had dried, although the road rash on his nose and fat upper lip would take longer to resolve. The worst damage appeared to be sustained by his two upper front teeth, which were quite loose and the surrounding gum tissue was bruised and bleeding. They had contacted the pavement and lucky again, were his already-loose baby teeth and not his permanent incisors. Nothing needed but advice to encourage the little guy to keep wiggling those teeth to help them exit and become the property of the tooth fairy.

A few things went really well in this whole situation (they don’t always go this well). First, mom had brought?her son in for an easy routine dental visit (exam and cleaning) several months earlier, so he was familiar with the dentist and dental office. That’s a much better scenario than when their first dental visit is as a result of an accident, especially if we had needed to do some treatment that night. Second, he will not suffer any permanent damage to his teeth and will hopefully be much more careful with the scooter in the future. Again, not always the case…but a good lesson learned, with no long-term consequences. With the weather warming up, let’s get outside but take it easy with the wheeled toys!