ON AVERAGE, BOYS and men are up to 20% less likely to brush twice a day and even less likely to replace their old toothbrushes on a regular basis than girls and women. Luckily, it’s a simple problem to fix: make brushing for two full minutes a regular part of the morning and nighttime routine! And don’t forget to floss once a day as well.
Unhealthy Oral Habits
Because men are more likely to drink, smoke, and chew tobacco than women are, they put themselves at higher risk of serious oral health problems like periodontitis (advanced gum disease), tooth loss, and oral cancer. By avoiding harmful habits, men can do a lot to protect their oral health, which is why we recommend minimal alcohol consumption and complete avoidance of tobacco products.
Medications and Side-Effects
Dry mouth is a common side effect of high blood pressure and heart disease medications, and because men are more susceptible to those conditions, they are also more likely to get dry mouth, which increases the risk of developing cavities, gum disease, and chronic bad breath.
Oral Hygiene Matters!
Men are also less likely to keep up with their regular dental exams — and more likely to try to tough it out if they’re experiencing toothaches or other symptoms! This strategy is neither safe nor effective for addressing dental health problems. Going to the dentist isn’t unmanly, it’s smart, even if it’s purely preventative.
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.
EATING DISORDERS ARE incredibly dangerous, sometimes life-threatening mental conditions. The first health impacts that probably come to mind are the psychological toll they take and the malnutrition they cause if left unchecked. However, they also take a toll on oral health. Our teeth and gums require a variety of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals to stay healthy, in addition to daily oral hygiene habits and regular dentist visits.
Malnutrition Versus Oral Tissues
The eating disorder anorexia nervosa harms oral health through malnutrition. The disorder is characterized by severely limited food intake, sometimes paired with compulsive exercise, purging, or both. Without sufficient nutrients, the jaw bones can develop osteoporosis, increasing the risk of tooth loss.
Without drinking enough fluids, the salivary glands will struggle to produce saliva, leading to dry mouth. Dry mouth increases the risk of gum disease and tooth decay. Saliva is the mouth’s first line of defense. It neutralizes acids and washes away leftover food particles. In addition, without nutrients to help keep the immune system strong, our gums become more vulnerable to bleeding.
Bulimia: A Two-Pronged Attack on Oral Health
Bulimia is characterized by the combination of overeating and forcibly purging food by vomiting or taking laxatives. Frequent vomiting puts the tooth enamel in contact with strong stomach acid. As hard as tooth enamel is, it is extremely vulnerable to acid erosion. A person struggling with bulimia is at risk of tooth discoloration, decay, and even tooth loss due to this disorder.
Take Care of Your Oral Health
Oral hygiene is important for everyone who wants healthy teeth and gums, minty fresh breath, and sparkling smiles, but it’s especially crucial for someone battling or recovering from the effects of an eating disorder. Acid erosion can be minimized by rinsing with water and waiting half an hour before brushing. It’s critical to give your saliva plenty of time to neutralize any leftover acid before brushing so that you don’t cause additional erosion.
You Don’t Have to Win This Fight Alone
There is a lot of stigma surrounding eating disorders, but these are legitimate mental illnesses. Recovery can be long and difficult, and many people require help and support to achieve a healthy relationship with food and with their weight. This help could come from sympathetic friends, family members, or licensed mental health professionals. The National Eating Disorders Helpline is another great resource. Dental health professionals are always here too, to help patients maintain good oral health while they focus on their mental and physical health struggles.
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.
THE REASON DAILY brushing and flossing are so important for keeping harmful oral bacteria populations under control is that they reproduce very quickly. In a healthy, clean mouth, there might be anywhere from a thousand to a hundred thousand bacteria on each tooth surface, but that can quickly become as many as a hundred million to a billion bacteria per tooth without brushing or flossing.
Our Oral Bacteria
On average, an individual will have between 34 and 72 different types of oral bacteria. Once we get a strain of bacteria in our mouths, it probably isn’t going away. The trouble is that each person has different bacteria, so kissing or even sharing drinks with someone could introduce new strains.
Kids Don’t Have Adult Oral Bacteria Yet
This is more dangerous for children than adults. Young children don’t have as many types of oral bacteria as adults yet, and their immune systems aren’t used to dealing with them. Too many kisses from Mom and Dad can actually leave them more vulnerable to developing cavities.
Protect Your Child’s Oral Health
The best way to avoid sharing your oral bacteria with your child is to keep those kisses to the cheek, don’t share your spoon or fork with them, make sure they always have their own drink instead of giving them sips from yours, and don’t clean a dropped pacifier with your mouth.
As long as you’re taking good care of your oral health and hygiene, you don’t need to worry as much about spreading dangerous, cavity-causing germs with your kisses, but even then, avoid doing things that could spread oral bacteria to small children.
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.
IT’S COMMON ENOUGH to be tongue-tied in the sense of not being able to get your words out, but a tongue tie is also a real medical condition, as is a lip tie. These conditions are both caused by pieces of tissue in the mouth called frena. One frenum connects the tongue to the floor of the mouth, and another connects the upper lip to the upper gums. These aren’t the only two frena we have, but they’re the important ones for this subject.
Normal Versus Abnormal Frena
A normal frenum is thin and very stretchy, allowing for the free mobility of the lips and the tongue, which is important for normal chewing, talking, and swallowing. If the upper lip or tongue frenum is unusually thick or tight, it can restrict movement and make each of those functions harder. This is a tongue tie or a lip tie.
A person with a tongue tie may not be able to lift their tongue to touch the roof of their mouth, causing significant difficulties for word pronunciation, chewing, and swallowing. A person with a lip tie may have a large gap between their upper front teeth and a higher risk of gum recession. In infancy, they may not be able to effectively latch while breastfeeding.
How We Treat Lip and Tongue Ties
Fortunately, with modern dentistry, there’s an easy fix for lip and tongue ties. A simple surgery called a frenectomy can be done to remove or reduce the abnormal frenum. In cases where the lip or tongue’s movement is restricted and particularly if there is pain or discomfort, the procedure is definitely worth considering.
A frenectomy is a very quick procedure with a short recovery time. In most cases, the procedure is performed by oral surgeons or periodontists (gum health specialists). They will first numb the area, then make a small incision in the frenum to release, reduce, or remove it.
Some doctors use laser surgery to cut through the tissue and shorten recovery time. A laser also lowers the (already small) risk of complications. Make sure to follow all post-operation instructions to achieve the best results with the shortest recovery.
Your Dentist Can Diagnose a Lip or Tongue Tie
For most of us, frena aren’t something we ever have to think about because they aren’t causing us problems, but if you believe yours or your child’s might be interfering with the normal function of the lips or tongue, schedule an appointment with the dentist to find out. We can take a look and determine whether you would benefit from a frenectomy.
Taking care of our patients’ smiles is what makes us smile!
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.
WOMEN FACE A different set of challenges than men do in caring for their teeth and gums, and they also have different advantages.
Oral Health Issues that Affect Women More
Women make up 90% of temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD) diagnoses. TMD can be caused by bruxism, joint structure, stress, arthritis, vitamin deficiency, or hormones. Another condition that disproportionately affects women is Sjörgen’s syndrome, which causes dry mouth. Beyond making chewing and swallowing uncomfortable and muting the sense of taste, dry mouth is dangerous for teeth and gum health.
Hormone Changes Versus Oral Health
The hormonal changes of puberty, pregnancy, and menopause can cause oral health problems. Gingivitis and gum inflammation become more likely, which means brushing and flossing are even more essential. Dry mouth and bone loss in the jaw are associated with menopause, so it’s important to keep the dentist in the loop.
Eating Disorders
Teenage girls are twice as likely to develop eating disorders as teenage boys. Eating disorders attack oral health in two ways: weakening the oral tissues through malnutrition and (in the case of bulimia) destroying tooth enamel directly through acid erosion.
The Silver Lining
So what’s the good news? Women are better than men at taking care of their teeth! Women are more likely to keep up with their daily oral hygiene habits and regular dental visits. They’re also more willing to go to the dentist when they experience tooth pain, while men might try to tough it out. Even though women are more vulnerable to certain issues, they can significantly reduce the impact by taking care of their teeth.
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 EVERY BITE of ice cream or every sip of coffee gives your teeth a nasty jolt, then you know what it’s like to live with tooth sensitivity. At least one in every eight Americans (including kids) has sensitive teeth. Why does this happen to so many of us and what can we do about it?
The Basics of Dental Anatomy
It’s important to understand a little about dental anatomy when thinking about how tooth sensitivity works. The visible portion of the tooth (the crown) is made up of three layers: the outer tooth enamel layer (the hardest substance in the human body), the dentin layer (more like normal bone) and the dental pulp layer at the center (nerves and blood vessels).
Sensitive Exposed Nerves
The nerves at the center of each tooth sense what’s going on at the surface through thousands of microscopic tubules running through the dentin layer. If the enamel wears too thin, the tubules become exposed and the nerves in the teeth start feeling way more input than they’re supposed to, making temperature changes or even a sudden sweet or sour taste too much to handle.
What Causes Sensitivity?
Aside from enamel erosion, there are other things that cause sensitivity. Root exposure is one. Unlike the crown of the tooth, the root lacks the protective enamel layer. It relies mainly on gum tissue. Gum recession (often caused by teeth grinding or overbrushing) leaves the roots unprotected. Cavities or damage to a tooth like chips or fractures can also cause sensitivity, especially to hot or sweet things.
Protecting Teeth From Sensitivity
There are a few things we can do about sensitive teeth. Step one is to get rid of a hard-bristled toothbrush and buy a soft-bristled one instead. Soft bristles are enough to effectively clean away plaque, while hard bristles can damage the enamel and gum tissue even more. It’s also a good idea to switch to a toothpaste formulated for sensitive teeth. Cutting down on sugar intake and avoiding very acidic foods and drinks (especially sugar) will help as well.
The Dentist Can Help
If you’ve been dealing with tooth sensitivity, schedule an appointment so the dentist can discover the cause. Beyond what you can do to reduce the symptoms and strengthen your teeth and gums at home, the dentist can apply a fluoride varnish, prescribe a stronger desensitizing toothpaste if needed, or recommend a gum graft or dental restoration to repair any significant damage.
Your strong, healthy smile is our highest priority!
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.
MANY HEALTH ISSUES rarely impact children, but that’s not the case with gum disease. Harmful oral bacteria don’t care how old we are, and kids and teenagers are at risk of developing gingivitis just like adults.
Oral Hygiene and Hormones
The primary cause of childhood gum disease is poor oral hygiene. The gums become more vulnerable to irritation and inflammation when plaque is left to build up at the gumline and harden into tartar. For teenagers, hormones have entered the equation, increasing blood flow to the gums and making them more sensitive. Over half of teenagers have some form of gum disease.
Children Aren’t Good at Self-Reporting Symptoms
Children don’t always recognize when something is wrong because they don’t have a lot to compare it to, so it might not occur to them to mention any symptoms to their parents. Parents should keep an eye out for signs of gum disease like swollen or reddened gums, bleeding gums during brushing or flossing, gum recession, and persistent bad breath regardless of oral hygiene habits.
The Lifelong Battle for Oral Health
It’s a continuous fight to maintain good gum health. Effective oral hygiene habits are essential, and parents can set a good example by brushing twice a day and flossing daily. It’s always easier to prevent a dental health problem than to treat it after it appears, but good oral hygiene and regular dental exams are great for prevention and treatment.
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.
DO YOU HAVE questions for the dentist? There’s a good chance one of yours made our frequently asked questions list!
Question 1: How often do I need to visit the dentist?
For most people, we recommend a dental exam and cleaning twice a year. Even for patients with perfect oral hygiene, it’s inevitable that some plaque and tartar will still build up. We can give your teeth a professional cleaning to control plaque and tartar and we can catch any dental problems early, which will save you time, pain, and money in the long run.
Some people can benefit from more frequent visits, often for reasons like pregnancy, a history of gum disease, or a smoking habit. The ideal frequency of your visits is based on how healthy your gums are and how committed you are to maintaining good oral hygiene.
Question 2: Why do I need a filling if my tooth doesn’t hurt?
Not all cavities are painful. Cavities form when the acid produced by bacteria eats away at tooth enamel until it creates a hole in the tooth. Cavities usually don’t hurt in the early stages when they only affect the enamel. You don’t want to leave a cavity untreated until it hurts, because that means letting it progress until it reaches the dental pulp where the nerves are. At that point, a simple filling might not be enough.
Question 3: Is it really important to keep baby teeth healthy?
It’s true that baby teeth are temporary, but that doesn’t mean they don’t matter. Baby teeth are essential to a child’s ability to chew their food effectively, speak clearly, and master lifelong dental habits like brushing and flossing. They’re also important placeholders for the incoming adult teeth.
Question 4: What is making my teeth more yellow?
Teeth inevitably darken or yellow over time as a function of age, but trauma and environmental factors can make the effect much more pronounced. The biggest culprits of surface stains are cigarettes, wine, coffee, tea, cola, sports drinks, berries, hard candy, and even tomato sauce. If your smile is losing its sparkle, talk to us about whitening treatments.
Question 5: How bad are pacifiers and thumbsucking for my child’s teeth?
At first, they aren’t bad at all! These self-soothing habits only become an oral health concern when they continue beyond toddlerhood. Most children will grow out of them on their own, but after age three, it’s time to start considering strategies for discouraging the habit, like clipping a pacifier. We can help!
These aren’t the only habits that can damage teeth!
We Love Answering Our Patients’ Questions!
The more educated our patients are about their teeth and gums, the more confident they feel about how they’re taking care of their dental health. If you have any questions we didn’t cover here, give us a call or schedule your next appointment today!
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.
SMOKING IS AN incredibly unhealthy habit for the entire body, and that includes teeth and gums. 80% of oral cancer diagnoses are to those who smoke or chew tobacco. Early symptoms include odd white patches in the mouth, pain or mouth sores that persist, swelling, numbness, trouble chewing and swallowing, and a sensation of having something stuck in the throat. A key figure in catching oral cancer early is the dentist!
Smoking and Gum Disease
Smoking doubles the risk of developing gum disease and it also makes it harder to treat it. Leaving gum disease untreated paves the way for damage to the tissue, atrophy of the jaw bone, and even tooth loss.
Vaping: Not a Healthy Option
What about vaping and e-cigarettes? They aren’t the healthy smoking alternative they’ve been painted as. The vapor contains ultra-fine toxic chemicals, heavy metals, and nicotine (which reduces blood flow, compromising gum tissue health, making gum recession and tissue death more likely). Tobacco also reduces saliva production, leading to dry mouth and the variety of dental issues associated with it, and it can trigger bruxism.
Quitting Is Always Worth It
Heavy longtime smokers might believe they’ve already done so much damage to their health that there’s no point in quitting, but quitting will still improve health outlooks. It’s worth it, and it’s never too late to begin!
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 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 century to prevent cavities. The history of fluoride’s connection to public dental health is a fascinating one.
Natural Fluoridation in Colorado Springs
Local dentists in early 1900s Colorado Springs began to notice a strange pattern in their patients’ teeth. Many of them had something they called “Colorado brown stain” without having tooth decay. Today, we understand that condition to be fluorosis, a condition caused by too much fluoride exposure while the adult teeth are developing. Locals were getting it because of the high levels of naturally-occurring fluoride in the water supply.
Dentists wanted to find out if there was a way to keep the cavity-preventing qualities of fluoride without the teeth-staining effect. The test case was Grand Rapids, Michigan, where fluoride was added to the drinking water. Over the next few years, the rate of childhood tooth decay plummeted by a whopping 60% with only a few mild cases of fluorosis and no other adverse effects. This was huge.
Modern Water Fluoridation
After the success of fluoridated drinking water in Grand Rapids, communities across the country adopted fluoridated drinking water, and the CDC counts it as one of the top ten greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. Today, over half of American communities get the dental health benefits of fluoridated drinking water. It might not make a huge difference in the dental health of someone who can afford regular dentist visits, but it’s a game-changer for poor communities.
It might seem odd that adding fluoride to water could make such a difference, but it’s similar to the way we add iodine to salt in order to prevent goiters, bake with enriched flour to help digestion, and drink milk with added vitamin D to prevent childhood rickets.
Finding the Goldilocks Zone of Fluoride
The fluorosis of Colorado brown stain proved that too much fluoride is a bad thing, but no fluoride at all leaves teeth vulnerable to decay. The CDC recommended level of fluoride in drinking water is 1.2 parts per million. That’s a tiny amount, but it makes a huge difference for dental health. However, to prevent fluorosis, parents should be careful to only use small amounts of fluoride toothpaste to clean the teeth of their babies and toddlers, and everyone should spit it out rather than swallow it.
What Does Fluoride Actually Do for Our Teeth?
So what makes fluoride so good at preventing cavities? It’s actually a key building block in tooth enamel. When we eat and drink a lot of sugary or acidic things, minerals are pulled out of our tooth enamel, weakening it and leaving it vulnerable to erosion. Preventing demineralization is why it’s important to limit sugar consumption, but we can fight for our teeth on the other side of the equation with remineralization by brushing with fluoridated toothpaste and drinking fluoridated water.
Come to Us With Questions About Fluoride!
To learn more about the role of fluoride in toothpaste or drinking water, don’t hesitate to ask us or check out sources like the ADA or CDC. We want to make sure our patients have all the information they need to feel confident in their dental care and to understand why we put so much emphasis on daily dental hygiene habits.
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.
