Why Baby Teeth are Important

As we have mentioned before, it is recommended now that you bring your children in for a checkup by their first birthday. That way, your friendly Valencia Dentists can make sure there are no major problems in your child’s dental health and development. It may seem early to be so concerned, but your child’s baby teeth play a vital role in their development.

1) Baby Teeth Shape the Jaw

The baby teeth, or deciduous teeth, save room in a child’s mouth for their adult, permanent teeth to develop beneath. Until the grown up teeth are ready to emerge, the baby teeth ‘save a slot’ for them to push through. If the child were to lose their baby teeth too early, it would result in the other teeth shifting and bunching, which would lead to major problems down the road. For instance, the adult teeth would no longer have a space to fit into nicely. It would also cause the jawbone to alter its shape to fit in the newly misaligned teeth. Overall, not a fun time. Because of this, your child’s dental health is of major importance, and tooth decay and cavities are easily preventable.

Should your child lose a baby tooth due to an accidental or to decay, ask your Valencia Dentist about a ‘space maintainer’, which will help hold that space in the jaw for the adult tooth to emerge. It will limit problems down the line.

2) Baby Teeth Develop Healthy Speaking Skills

A child needs to develop speaking skills in order to feel socially accepted by their peers, as well as to express their needs and desires. Baby teeth help your child to develop proper consonant and vowel shapes and allows them to keep their tongue in check when speaking. Without the baby teeth as a guide, their syllables may seem ‘off’, which can cause other children to tease and poke fun. Of course, it is natural for their speech to be thrown off once they lose their baby teeth, especially their two front ‘teef’, but without the baby teeth there during development, they may never learn a natural speech pattern.

3) Baby Teeth Help to Eat

Teeth are required to be able to chew, and chewing is a skill that is learned with a lot of practice, so baby teeth are vital to the development of eating. A child that has dental issues is more likely to be malnourished and underweight, studies find, so making sure their teeth are in top order is imperative to their health. Your Valencia Dentist will be able to determine if there are any issues with the baby teeth’s alignment, which may make chewing difficult for your child. Or they can check for decay, which may cause pain for your child while chewing and could potentially scare them away from it.

4) Baby Teeth Help Develop Self-Confidence

Even at a young age, a child is able to tell when someone has a crooked smile or bad teeth. Bad and crooked teeth send out a less-than-positive impression, and children are as receptive as everyone else. If your child has a crooked smile or decayed baby teeth, they may become self-conscious in social settings, and even be scared to smile. It is imperative that you instill proper brushing and flossing techniques starting at a younger age, and introduce your child to your Valencia Dentist at a young age (before they turn 1). Dentists are able to make all visits a comfortable visit, and your child should never be afraid.

Working together with your Valencia dentist, you can ensure your child has a healthy and bright dental future!

Navigating through the Toothpaste aisle at the Drugstore

With thousands of dental hygiene products on the market, choosing the right ones for you may seem daunting.  Commercials and ads promising “whiter” and “cleaner” teeth can be misleading.  Fancy designs and creative marketing can lure you into buying products that are not the best fit for your dental needs.  In general, I think that the basic four hygiene aides that must be in your bathroom include: 1) Toothpaste; 2) Toothbrush; 3) Floss; and 4) Mouthwash.  Here are some guidelines to help you decide exactly what would work for you.

1. Toothpaste

- There are hundreds of toothpaste brands and formulations to choose from, but choose one that has Fluoride. Fluoride is the most important ingredient in toothpaste, which helps to remineralize tooth structure and prevent decay.

- Those with generalized sensitive teeth may benefit from “Sensitivity” toothpaste that contains Potassium Nitrate.This can take a few weeks to take effect, but in most patients, it works well to stabilize sensitivity.

- If you are prone to contact allergies, you may want to avoid cinnamon-flavored products, which may cause mild sloughing of the gum tissue. Another ingredient to avoid is Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, commonly found in most brands to create the “foamy” feeling while brushing.

- Whitening toothpastes contain abrasive particles that mechanically remove superficial stains. Studies have shown that there is no significant change in tooth color by using these products.

2. Toothbrush

- Always choose a Soft Bristle toothbrush.There is a misconception that hard-bristled brushes work better to remove plaque, but they actually harm your teeth. Aggressive brushes can create scooped-out ridges on your teeth.  

- Electric toothbrushes are a great investment. I’ve noticed a huge difference in patients who have made the switch from conventional manual brushes. The electric toothbrush does all the work for you. You move from tooth to tooth, surface to surface but you do not rotate your hand or brush back-and-forth.  Most models also have timers, so you know that you have brushed a full 2 minutes.

- When using a manual toothbrush, angle the head at 45 degrees and brush in a small circular motion along the gumline. Avoid the back-and-forth motion and use a gentle touch.  Again, aggressive brushing does more harm than good.

3. Floss

- Waxed vs. Un-waxed: It’s a matter of personal preference. Research shows that there’s no significant difference between the two, as long as you are flossing everyday.  For those having difficulty sliding floss through the teeth, waxed floss works well.

- Patients who are on-the-go may find floss picks very convenient. They have a handle with a small piece of floss at the end, intended for one time use.  Make sure that you are rinsing between each tooth and that you are engaging both sides of the teeth, not just snapping the floss through.

- One final note, water picks are not a substitute for traditional flossing.They are helpful at cleaning debris underneath bridged teeth or through braces, but they do not remove plaque between teeth.

4. Mouthwash

I strongly encourage patients to incorporate a mouthwash into their daily regimen. This is not a substitute for traditional brushing and flossing, but everyone can benefit from it. There are two types of rinses, which can be used according to your specific dental needs.

- Anti-plaque/Anti-gingivitis: These rinses are for patients who are struggling with gum disease.  These antiseptic rinses contain essential oils that fight bacteria that cause inflamed, irritated gums.

- Anti-cavity: Patients who have been diagnosed with more than 3 cavities should use a rinse that contains Fluoride to prevent new decay.

Hopefully, this run-through of the indispensable products from my medicine cabinet will help you decide what will work best in yours. If you have any questions, come visit us at Go Dental so we can help you create a customized dental regimen that will fit your needs!

Tooth Decay

Tooth decay, the silent epidemic.

Around 40% of children reaching Kindergarten age are shown to already have dental caries (bacteria that can cause the tooth decay) and other oral diseases. As early as the age of three, 10% of children are already impacted. This is five times more common than asthma, and up to seven times more common than hay fever. The thing about tooth decay, though, is that it is entirely preventable. Meeting with your Valencia Dentists to educate yourself and your family is a very important step.

A healthy parent leads to a healthy child.

Did you know that the bacteria responsible for tooth decay are easily transferred from the parent to the child from such small things as sharing an eating utensil to kissing? For a brief period of history, scientists believed that proneness to tooth decay was an inherited genetic factor, but they soon realized that it was actually a range of bacteria responsible for tooth decay. The bacteria live in plaque, hiding along your gums and between your teeth, eating away at your enamel. If you are prone to dental woes, such as cavities, sharing your meal with your toddler can lead to trouble for them down the road. This is why it is so important for you to keep a healthy mouth. Not only that, but your child will see you maintaining strong oral hygiene and want to do it, too!

Start them young!

The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry recommends that you bring your children in to see your dentist as early as the age of one, preferably before. Baby teeth are tremendously important in your child’s dental development, as well as their speech and skeletal development. Your dentist will ensure your child is developing safely, and can discuss health care tips with you. They can teach you methods to do at home to help prevent tooth decay in your infant, as well as tips and tricks for getting them accustomed to a toothbrush. It is important that you bring them in early as you can detect and fix problems before they get a chance to turn major.

First impressions last a lifetime.

Are you nervous to visit the dentist? Had a bad experience when you were younger? Be careful not to project those fears onto your child. A child’s first experience with a dentist should be a positive one to prevent hesitation in the future. Dentists in today’s world offer a wide variety of solutions to help your child feel their most comfortable, from light sedation using laughing gas to television screens. And never you fear, parents! You can always sit in the room with your child and give them your support. There is no need to be afraid anymore, not with your Valencia Dentist.

Fluoride is not the only solution.

While fluoride is very beneficial in the prevention of tooth decay, dentists and scientists alike have been discovering alternative methods to help keep those dental caries at bay. Xylitol, which is used as a food sweetener and often appears in chewing gum, has been shown to inhibit the growth of some bacteria known to cause tooth decay. As an added bonus, Xylitol contains up to 33% fewer calories than regular sugar. Licorice root extract is also shown to help bring down the number of cavities, and can be found in candies. However, the best method of prevention is through the regular brushing and use of fluoride-infused toothpastes and mouthwashes.

As always, ask your friendly Valencia Dentists for an appointment for you and your child. They can help you decide what is best. They are always there to answer your questions, and strive to make your family a healthy family.

What’s with all the pictures?

Your favorite Valencia dentists take a lot of pictures here at your Go Dental: radiographs, intraoral cameras, digital SLR cameras. We so take it for granted that all of this visual information will be available for us in communicating with our patients that we forget it is not universal. To us, it is central to our ability to communicate with you and for you about your treatment needs.

Just last week I had two new patients thank me for showing them the x-rays and pictures that explained why they needed treatment. No one, they said, had ever done that before. These were mid-career professionals, not teenagers, and these were not going to be their first fillings. “Never?” I asked. Both replied: No, they had always just been told you need a filling, or a crown, or a deep cleaning, schedule on your way out.

I really don’t understand. At Go Dental we believe in a relationship built on trust, right from your first visit. We will always take the time to discuss treatment decisions with you and answer your questions. If we suggest treatment for you, we will always be able to tell you why. Always. You will not be bullied or coerced into making choices without the opportunity to ask questions. That is our commitment to our patients here at Go Dental.

Dental Implants With Low Risk and High Reward

Our practice has been placing dental implants for over 25 years. Over the years, there have been many changes which have improved the implant process from the evolution in design of the implant to the methods we use to restore the implants. And with each step forward, the procedure of dental implant placement and restoration has become better, faster and stronger (apologies to Steve Austin aka the Six Million Dollar man). As a practice, we have definitely benefited from the improvements in design and technology through the years.

As discussed on this blog before, implants process of placing implants is quite straightforward. It begins by profoundly numbing our patients, carefully separating the gum tissue away from the jaw bone, placing progressively larger drills slowly into the jaw bone then finally torquing a titanium screw into the sites prepared by the drills. While the procedure was relatively straightforward, it involved cutting with a scalpel and sewing the site back up with stitches.

In the last 2 years, there have been 2 advancements which we have adopted, that have completely changed the way we approach doing dental implants.The first advancement was the improvement and cost reduction of a diagnostic tool called Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT). This device enables us to quickly and accurately see images of the jaw in 3 dimensions and in “slices”.  We are now able to plan the entire implant case on our computer workstation.  Instead of relying on visualizing anatomic obstacles and limitations at the time of surgery, we can visualize them at the time of planning. Placements of our implants are done accurately and predictably for every patient. We can even show you what your tooth will look like after the implant is placed before we even place it!

The second huge advancement, is the ability for us to fabricate a surgical guide. A surgical guide is fabricated with a special milling machine (located in Belgium!) and uses all the information we have generated from our implant planning software. We now can accurately duplicate the depth, angulation and width of the implant that we have planned on the computer.

What does this mean for our patient? It means that we are able to complete our surgery in less time with fewer complications. Our actual surgical time for a single implant placement is 10 minutes.  Most of the time, no scalpel or stitches are required. Our patients are very comfortable doing this under local anesthesia although nitrous oxide and twilight sleep is available for those whom are a little anxious. The healing process is very fast as well and we are able to achieve integration of the implant into bone in about 6-10 weeks.

Simply put, we are able to place implants more accurately and predictably than anyone in the world. That is a big statement, but we are able to do so because our amazing technological advancements. And you will be surprised that your cost will be less than most places that don’t have the CBCT and surgical guide technology.

If you or someone you know may be interested in getting a tooth replaced by a dental implant, have them come by for a free implant consultation from your Valencia Dentist at Go Dental  We’ll be happy to explain all their options.  And as always, no pressure or up selling.

I had a root canal. Why does my tooth still hurt?

Persistent pain following root canal (endodontic) treatment can be discouraging. Anywhere between 5% and 15% of patients will experience a flare-up of pain following a root canal. The good news is that the pain is usually not a sign of a significant problem.

When a tooth requires a root canal, there is commonly inflammation and/or damage to the bone and tissues surrounding the tooth. Like any other part of the body, this damage takes time to heal. During that healing phase, it is not uncommon to get short flare-ups of pain. For most people, this pain can be treated effectively with short-term oral analgesics like Ibuprofen (Advil^®, Motrin^®) or Acetaminophen (Tylenol^®).

 If your pain persists for more than about a week or does not respond to pain medication, you should have your tooth re-evaluated by a dentist. Common and easily fixed findings would be a recurrent infection that could be treated with antibiotics, or the tooth being ”high”. Severe or prolonged pain may indicate something more significant going on within the tooth, In these cases evaluation with a Cone Beam Computed Tomography scan (Cone Beam CT or CBCT), like the one we have here at Go Dental, is recommended. These 3-dimensional x-ray images can show missed canals, cracks, or other pathology that traditional x-rays cannot show. We are constantly amazed at how things that are invisible on a traditional x-ray are obvious on CBCT.

The most important thing to do, though, is to communicate with your dentist. Here at Go Dental - Valencia Dentist we are always willing and happy to take the time to discuss your concerns. We would much rather take a few minutes to tell you everything is okay than have you walk around for weeks with something we could fix.

What Allergy Season Means For Your Mouth

It is spring yet again and we all know what that entails. This is the season where allergens are everywhere!  Though seasonal allergies tend to not be life threatening, unlike food and drug allergies, they can get rather annoying. So what do we tend to do when our seasonal allergies begin to affect our daily routine? We take antihistamines. Some of us real “sneezers” plagued by frequent allergy attacks may even take our Claritin or Zyrtec on a daily basis.

Because taking allergy medication is such a common practice, we tend to forget that those little white or pink pills are just that: a medication. Every medication has its side effects on the body and we need to take those into consideration. Sure some may have the common drowsiness, nausea, dizziness, and headaches, but one really common side effect that we tend to look over is a dry mouth.

Dry mouth, or Xerostomia, is very common with medications but usually is not taken seriously. The fact of the matter is that our mouths are full of bacteria. To be honest, they are the most bacteria-ridden places in our bodies. Besides washing away food, saliva helps to ward off some of these bacteria by neutralizing the acids the bacteria create in our mouths. When our mouths stop producing saliva, the bacteria has the opportunity to grow and cause more problems. This not only causes bad breath, it is also important because, as stated in our previous blog, your oral health can be a major influence on your heart health and overall health.

So how can we avoid it? Well unfortunately, you cannot avoid the dry mouth caused by your allergy medication unless you stop taking it and for some of us, that’s not an option. There are, however, some extra oral care practices you can take to make sure that the dry mouth you experience doesn’t cause you any other health issues. Just taking extra care of your mouth can save you from all the harmful symptoms of a dry mouth. Here are some quick tips to help guide you:

• brush more often
• drink lots of water
•  use mouth wash when you feel like your breath is starting to smell bad
• chew dentist recommended gum to encourage the production of saliva
• do not smoke

If you follow these practices, you will find that the dry mouth will not cause very many issues. Make sure you also read the information on the medicine bottle before taking anything. If you are unsure about whether or not you should be taking a specific medication or you have questions about it, you should contact your primary care physician. If you have any questions or the negative side effects of a dry mouth, you can always ask your favorite Valencia Dentist from Go Dental.