CHILDHOOD IS A TIME of scraped knees and bumps and bruises as kids run around discovering the world. As pediatric dentists, we want to help parents minimize the risk of their kids getting preventable tooth injuries while they’re enjoying what childhood has to offer.
The Main Tooth Injury Risks
For babies and toddlers, the majority of tooth injuries happen from a slip in the bathtub. Keeping a close eye on them while they’re in the tub will help, as will a non-slip bath mat.
Playground equipment is a common cause of tooth injuries in older kids, including monkey bars, jungle gyms, and even swings. Make sure to talk about safety with the kids when they’re playing on this kind of equipment. Balls and frisbees are also a risk, so stress the importance of not aiming for each other’s heads when playing with them.
Plan for an Accident
Even when we’re careful, accidents can still happen, so make an emergency plan. If a tooth gets knocked out and it wasn’t a baby tooth that was already loose, try to put it back in the socket and get to the dentist. Store it in a glass of milk if it won’t go back in.
We can also protect our kids’ teeth by keeping them healthy! Healthy teeth are less vulnerable to getting knocked out than teeth weakened by decay and gum disease.
The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.
DAILY BRUSHING AND flossing are essential to keep a growing child’s smile healthy, but we already know that. We hopefully also know how important it is to set regular dental appointments. Cutting back on sugar intake and limiting it to mealtimes instead of little snacks throughout the day is another important way to reduce the risk of tooth decay.
These aren’t the only things that go into a healthy smile, however. Certain vitamins and minerals help build and protect them.
Important Vitamins for Oral Health
Saliva is the first line of defense our teeth and gum have against tooth decay and gum disease, and vitamin A keeps the saliva flowing. We can get it from foods like melon, sweet potatoes, beef liver, and spinach.
One powerful antioxidant that helps our bodies fight inflammation and heal is vitamin C. Not getting enough can mean gums that are more prone to bleeding and looser teeth, including for kids. Citrus fruits are great sources of vitamin C, but they’re also acidic, so it’s a good idea to rinse with some water after eating an orange!
Vitamin D is what ensures that we can make good use of the other vitamins and minerals we consume. Vitamin D signals our intestines to absorb them into the bloodstream. Getting enough of it will lead to stronger, denser bones, and we can get it in our diet by eating fish, eggs, and dairy products.
Vitamins B2, B3, and B12 are important for oral health too. They all reduce the risk of oral canker sores, and B3 also helps us convert our food into energy. Good sources of B3 are fish and chicken, there’s plenty of B12 in pasta, bagels, almonds, and spinach, and B2 sources include red meat, chicken, fish, liver, and dairy products.
The Minerals Our Teeth Are Made Of
It’s common knowledge that calcium builds strong teeth and bones and that we can get plenty of calcium from dairy products, but magnesium, zinc, and iron are also important minerals for our oral health. Magnesium helps the body to absorb calcium, and we can get it from leafy greens, beans, nuts, seeds, and whole grains.
Iron helps to maintain the oxygen levels in our cells. Having an iron deficiency results in problems like increased risk of infections, mouth sores, inflammation of the tongue, and more buildup of oral bacteria. We can get iron from red meat and liver.
Finally, zinc makes it harder for plaque to build up along the gum line, making it easier to fight oral bacteria. Foods like wheat, cereal, cheese, wild rice, and beef contain zinc. Cheese is particularly good because it also contains casein, which helps keep our tooth enamel strong.
What about calcium sources for those who can’t eat dairy products?
Building and Keeping Lifelong Healthy Smiles
If your child hasn’t been getting each of these nutrients for building a strong, healthy smile, we recommend incorporating more of the foods we mentioned into their diets. Sometimes allergies or food intolerances can make this tricky, so the pediatrician may be able to recommend multivitamins and supplements. Whatever your situation, don’t forget the brushing and flossing!
We’re looking forward to seeing those growing smiles again!
The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.
STAYING INFORMED ABOUT the symptoms and risk factors of oral cancer is incredibly important. We oral health professionals are on the front lines of the battle against oral cancer, and we want to recruit our patients to fight with us.
Oral Cancer Risk Factors
By far the biggest risk factor is tobacco use. Another is frequent, heavy alcohol consumption. Oral cancer affects twice as many men as women and people over age 45 are at greater risk. Other risk factors include too much sun (which can cause lip cancer), HPV, and neglecting oral hygiene. Children are less at risk, but that can change if they start using tobacco — just one more reason why parents should discourage their kids from smoking or vaping.
Symptoms of Oral Cancer
Oral cancer symptoms include red or white patches in the mouth, a sore that doesn’t heal, strange thickness in the cheek, an unusual lump, numbness of the mouth or tongue, a persistent feeling of having something stuck in the throat, chronic bad breath, and difficulty chewing or swallowing.
The Dentist Can Help
The great news is that survival rates for oropharyngeal cancers have been increasing for the last 30 years. The way we continue that trend is with awareness and early detection. The first person to spot early signs of oral cancer is often the dentist during a routine dental exam!
The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.
WHAT DOES A CAREER in dentistry look like? Being a dentist is an incredibly rewarding career, and beyond helping our patients maintain lifelong healthy smiles, we hope our team inspires at least a few budding dentists out there! We want to make sure you know all the different directions you can go within the field of dentistry because there are more options than you might think.
Becoming a Dentist
To become a dentist, you should find out the prerequisites for which courses to take in your undergraduate program to qualify for the dental school you want to attend. Most require several science courses and labs, and a four-year degree is recommended. A year before dental school, you must pass the Dental Admissions Test and apply. Dental school takes four years to complete.
Here’s one example of what dental school is like:
What’s The Difference Between DDS and DMD?
Some dentists come out of dental school with a DDS attached to their name while others have a DMD. DDS means Doctor of Dental Surgery and DMD means Doctor of Dental Medicine, and which one you get depends on which school you go to, but the qualifications are the same. Dentists who want to specialize in a particular area of dentistry will go on to get additional training and certification in their specialty area.
Private Practice Dentists Aren’t the Whole Story
The dental career everyone is most familiar with is the private practice dentist, meaning an individual dentist or a partnership working with local patients in their own practice. That’s the kind of dentist we all go to for our normal dental health needs, but not everyone who graduates from a four-year dental program goes in this direction.
Other Types of Dentists
Academic dentists add a teaching role and help usher in the next generation of dentists. Research dentists get to be on the cutting edge of new advancements in treatments and technology. Some dentists go international and work with organizations like the WHO, UNESCO, and FAO. Finally, there are dentists who work alongside physicians in hospitals.
Dental Specialties
About 20% of dentists undergo additional years of training in one of the nine dental specialties: Dental Public Health, Endodontics, Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics, Pediatric Dentistry, Periodontics, and Prosthodontics.
The Team Is More Than the Dentist
Aside from the dentists themselves, other essential roles in the field of dentistry are dental hygienists, dental assistants, and dental lab technicians. Hygienists and assistants interact closely with patients to ensure a high level of care, while dental lab technicians work behind the scenes designing the dentures, crowns, and braces used by dentists. Most of these support roles require at least an associate’s degree or training program.
And, of course, we wouldn’t get far without our office staff!
The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.
IF YOU’RE SHORT on fun topics of conversation for your next party, might we interest you in some weird mouth trivia? We’re sure you’ll be able to impress your friends.
1. The Bumps on Newly Erupted Adult Teeth Have a Name
You might remember what it was like when your adult front teeth came in and they had bumps on the ends of the chewing surfaces. If not, maybe you’ve seen those bumps on your child’s teeth. Well, those bumps are completely normal and they are called mamelons. The theory about why we have them is that they help the teeth erupt from the gums, and in most cases, they will wear away over time from chewing.
2. Our Sense of Taste Relies on Spit
None of the ten thousand taste buds we have on our tongues would be any use if it wasn’t for our saliva. That’s because we don’t taste the food molecules on their own; they have to be dissolved in our spit before the receptors on our taste buds can detect them.
3. More on Those Taste Buds
Most people assume that the visible bumps on our tongues are taste buds. Those bumps are called lingual papillae and they contain many taste buds each. Individual taste buds are too small to see with the naked eye. Lingual papillae come in four different types: filiform, fungiform, foliate, and vallate. They serve slightly different purposes, but all types except for the fungiform ones contain taste buds.
Tying this back to oral health, the difficulty with the bumps on our tongues is that they make a rough texture where bacteria love to hide. When we let it build up, it can give us a lingering bad taste in our mouth and make our breath very sour. What’s more, it can actually dull our sense of taste! This is why it’s so important to clean our tongues every day, and the best tool for the job is a tongue-scraper, not just a quick scrub with your toothbrush.
4. Guess Which Group of Muscles Doesn’t Need Bones to Move
The tongue! It’s the only muscle group we have that doesn’t rely on the skeleton to move, and it has an amazing range of motion. The tongue can curl, uncurl, lengthen, shorten, and some people can even roll theirs. If it couldn’t do all of this, we’d have trouble eating and speaking! The tongue is composed of eight muscles, four of which are intrinsic (the ones that form the tongue itself) and four of which are extrinsic (the ones that attach the tongue to the throat and mouth).
5. The Incredible Stamina of the Tongue
There’s a myth that the tongue is the strongest muscle in the body, and while that one isn’t true, the tongue does have incredible stamina. It has many built-in redundancy systems thanks to being made up of eight different muscles working together, so it doesn’t really get tired after a workout.
6. Our Adult Teeth Start Developing Before We’re Born
As early as six weeks into the development of a fetus, the baby teeth begin developing, and it only takes another six weeks before the adult teeth follow suit. It takes many more months for the baby teeth to finish forming under the gums and years for the adult teeth to become fully formed, but isn’t it wild how early that process starts?
Share Your Weird Mouth Trivia With Us!
As dental health professionals, we love mouth facts, even if that’s not always the most popular trivia category at parties. We’d love to hear any weird mouth facts that you know the next time you come in for a dental exam!
The most important fact: we have the best patients!
The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.
ONE OF THE most prominent figures of the magic of childhood is the Tooth Fairy, but depending on where and when you are, the traditions around lost baby teeth are very different from what we have in our culture!
Baby Teeth in Medieval Europe
Centuries before the Tooth Fairy came along to swap teeth under pillows for quarters, she might’ve needed to dig them up or find them in fireplaces, because Medieval Europeans believed that witches could control people through their teeth, so they would burn or bury theirs.
Kids also burned their baby teeth to help guarantee a peaceful afterlife, because there was a belief that they might be doomed to search for their teeth for eternity as ghosts if they didn’t destroy them.
A Warrior’s Prized Accessory
A little farther north, the Vikings had a very different view: baby teeth were such powerful symbols of good luck in battle that warriors would buy them to put on necklaces! We can’t decide if that would look very intimidating or very strange. Probably both.
The Tooth Mouse
Even today, not everyone pictures a Tinkerbell-type figure. Many Latin and European countries actually have a Tooth Mouse! In France, she’s called Le Petit Souris (the little mouse), while many Spanish-speaking countries have Raton Perez, and the tooth mouse replaces baby teeth hidden under pillows for small gifts or coins.
The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.
MOST OF US can still remember what it was like to lose a baby tooth, especially that major Big Kid milestone of losing the first one. How did it happen for you? Did it take longer for you to lose a tooth than most of your classmates, or were you the one who knocked a tooth out on the playground before you knew it was loose? Regardless, losing a tooth is a big deal for kids, and now that we’re parents, we want to help that be a positive experience for them.
Establish the Right Mindset First
While losing baby teeth is a perfectly normal part of growing up, it can still be a scary new experience for little kids, particularly the first time it happens when they don’t yet know what to expect. Parents can make it easier by encouraging the right mindset. Emphasize that losing a tooth is part of being a big kid! Help them focus on what an achievement it is to lose a baby tooth instead of dwelling on how it might hurt. This can be exciting!
Helping With a Loose Tooth
The technique is as important as a good mindset. We would discourage parents from chasing their kids down with a pair of pliers or tricking them with that old “I just want to feel it!” ruse to get close enough to pull the tooth. Encourage them instead to gently wiggle the tooth on their own with their tongue, a tissue, or a clean finger. Let them set the pace and only intervene if they ask for your help pulling the tooth.
You can also make it fun by coming up with a creative way to pull it, like this:
Come Up With a Creative Reward
The standard way of giving a child a good incentive to brave the pain of losing a tooth is the Tooth Fairy, but why not make things a little more unique? Your child might be more motivated by a promise of a trip to the ice cream shop or a new toy. What would be the most exciting prize for your child when they complete this rite of passage?
Come to Us With Your Concerns
If you’ve followed all these tips for how to make it fun and exciting but your child is still afraid of losing a tooth, we can help! As a pediatric dental practice, working with children is our specialty. If their teeth don’t seem to be becoming loose when they should, you can also bring them to us so we can investigate why that is.
We’re excited to hear about your child’s adventures with their loose tooth!
The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.
MARCH IS WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH, so we’re celebrating two trailblazers for women dentists in North America. They paved the way for women in all dental specialties, including pediatric dentistry, orthodontics, and endodontics.
Lucy Hobbs Taylor
Lucy Hobbs Taylor, born in 1833, was the first woman to earn an actual dental degree in North America. After multiple rejections at dental schools, she found a professor to teach her privately and opened her own practice at age 28.
She was soon recognized by her male peers for her skill and gentle chairside manner and was accepted into the Ohio College of Dental Surgery. She received her degree in 1866, married a Civil War veteran, and trained him to be a dentist too! They established a successful practice together in Lawrence, Kansas.
Emeline Roberts Jones
Like many dentists in the mid-1800s, Emeline Roberts Jones, born in 1836, didn’t receive a formal degree. Because she was a woman, she likely would have been rejected by the newly established all-male dental colleges anyway. At age 18, she married a dentist. He was dismissive of the idea that a woman could be a dentist, but she took that as a challenge and trained herself behind his back using extracted teeth.
Eventually, she became his partner and even continued practicing dentistry after he died to support their children. She traveled around Connecticut with her portable dentist’s chair until finding a permanent home for her practice in New Haven, where she worked until retiring in 1915.
The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.
CANKER SORES MIGHT be small, but they tend to mean days of distracting discomfort. They are shallow ulcers that can develop on the insides of our cheeks or lips, and eating or even talking around them can be difficult. There are a few things that are common triggers of canker sores.
The Major Canker Sore Triggers
The usual suspects for causing canker sores tend to be one of the following:
A tissue injury from a bitten lip or cheek. When the area swells up after the first time you bite it, it only makes it easier to bite again!
Long periods of high stress can put a lot of strain on the immune system, leaving the mouth more vulnerable to canker sores developing.
Sickness strains the immune system too, which means we’re more likely to develop canker sores on top of an infection we’re already fighting off.
Highly acidic foods can be hard on the tissues of the mouth, such as lemons, strawberries, tomatoes, and pineapple. Spicy foods too!
Poking braces wires or ill-fitting dentures can rub the cheeks the wrong way and lead to canker sores.
Easy Remedies for Canker Sores
It’s very helpful to identify the main trigger if you are prone to canker sores because that will make it easier to prevent them and fight back. Things like cutting back on acidic foods, using dental wax to protect against poking brackets and wires, and working to reduce our stress levels and give our immune systems a break will all help. If these solutions don’t apply to what’s causing your canker sores (or if you’ve tried them and they don’t seem to be helping), try these tips:
Rinse your mouth with warm salt water to help the healing process go faster and reduce inflammation.
Use topical medication or painkillers to reduce discomfort.
Find a toothpaste that doesn’t contain sodium laurel sulfate (but still contains fluoride!).
Minimize irritation by brushing with a soft-bristled toothbrush.
Preventing Canker Sores
As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and in the case of canker sores, it’s better to stop them from forming than having to deal with them once they appear. This includes things like getting lots of B12, iron, and folate, which we can do by incorporating carrots, salmon, parsley, spinach, kale, and yogurt into our diets.
Good oral hygiene is also critical. In the same way that being sick makes us more vulnerable to canker sores, not keeping plaque under control in our mouths can make it harder for our bodies’ natural defenses to effectively prevent oral health issues, canker sores included.
Come to Us With Your Questions About Canker Sores
We hope we’ve addressed your big questions about canker sores, but we’re happy to answer any you may still have. We want to supply our patients with all the information they need to maintain the best oral health possible.
The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.
NEXT TO BRUSHING, the best tool we have for preventing tooth decay and gum disease is daily flossing, which is why it’s important to help our kids develop a flossing habit early on. Here are some great tips for parents with kids who are learning how to floss:
1. Explain what flossing does for their teeth. They will be more motivated to floss if they understand why it’s important.
2. Help them see flossing as one of the coveted Big Kid skills, like tying their shoes or riding a bike without training wheels. They’ll be excited to prove how grown up they are by flossing.
3. If using traditional floss, demonstrate pulling out the right amount (about eighteen inches) and loosely wrapping it around their middle fingers, with just an inch or two left in the middle to slide between teeth.
4. Help them get the hang of good flossing technique. Use a back-and-forth motion and form a C-shape around a tooth to slide the floss down to the gums without snapping. Flossing should be gentle, not painful!
5. Show them how to move the floss along so they’re using clean floss for each tooth. The point is to get rid of plaque, not just move it around!
6. If traditional floss is too challenging, use floss picks or flossers instead.
The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.
In my 57 years of life, Dr. Simon is the best dentist I’ve ever seen. We are a military family and have moved several (more than I care to count) times. With each move comes the same challenges relating to finding new doctors, dentists, etc. A good dentist is particularly hard to find, as they are f… Read more
Colleen Moore
Service is great, staff is knowledgeable and courteous. Highly recommended.
Roy Johnson Sr.
I recently went to visit Dr.Simon and was informed that I needed quite a bit of dental work, this came as a shock to me and I was of course very nervous. Dr.Simon and his staff were very kind and accommodating through the entire process. The work that he did was excellent, he takes pride in what he … Read more
Dr. Simon is very sincere and thorough. He takes the time necessary to explain the procedures, expected outcomes and future care. His compassionate approach with a healing hand to all orthotic procedures make him a well-trusted dental professional and an exemplary human-being.
I’ve been a patient of Dr. Simon for many years and he’s the best! I’m faithful about having a check-up every six months because Dr. Simon is always on time and very considerate. I like the Brandermill location and his staff is professional, friendly and courteous.
