9 Simple Ways to Keep Your Teeth Healthy

We’ve all seen, heard or read them many times before. Let’s sort things out once and for all. Here are nine simple ways to keep your teeth healthy and strong.

• Brush Regularly: You should do this at least twice a day in the morning and right before bedtime. The use of fluoride products is highly recommended. Also, use a toothbrush with soft bristles.
• Floss Regularly: Dental floss removes food particles lodged between the teeth.
• Antibacterial Mouthwash: Gargle right after brushing and flossing.
• Avoid Cola and/or Soda: The citric or phosphoric acid content has a corrosive effect on your pearly whites. If you can’t help it, at least minimize your consumption.
• Say No to Tobacco: Tobacco products all have the same effect on your teeth. They stain and weaken them. If that’s not enough to steer you away from it, try cancer.
• Chewable Gums: They’re sweet. They’re fun. And they help clean the teeth by removing unwanted germs and bacteria. Pick out a gum that’s specially made for after meals. Avoid those that increase sugar content in your mouth; those kinds attract germs to your teeth.
• Alcohol: Just drink in moderation. Remember, too much of something is bad enough and can cause something bad like tooth decay or gum disease or awful, like cancer. Heavy drinkers, take heed.
• Healthy Diet: Sensible food choices help maintain a fit and healthy body as well as strong teeth and gums.

• Visit Your Dentist: Have your pearly whites checked at least twice a year.

What You Need to Know about Enamel Microabrasion

There are a lot of factors that cause discoloration of our teeth. Take coffee, colas, and cigarettes, for instance. Their ingredients contain chemicals that stain the teeth. In fact, even fluoride, an active ingredient in toothpaste, can cause mottling and produce a white or brown stain on the teeth. To eliminate these unwanted teeth stains, most patients undergo a procedure known as enamel microabrasion.

Enamel microabrasion is a procedure where the dentist pats a compound on the patient’s teeth to get rid of the discolorations or stains. The usual patients under this procedure are adults. So is it okay for children to undergo this type of procedure? Yes, says the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry.
Children and even infants can also have teeth discoloration. It could be due to an infection or trauma on their baby teeth. Sometimes even high fevers cause teeth discoloration. Large doses of fluoride, whether in their food, drink, or toothpaste, produce white or brown stains on children’s teeth. As a remedy, microabrasion is a safe procedure for kids. In fact, most dentists recommend this procedure as their first choice for discolored teeth treatment in kids.

However, the success of the procedure depends on the extent of the stain. For example, speckled teeth (i.e., white spots appear on the teeth) can be easily remedied with microabrasion. But there can be instances where the stains are persistent and can be difficult to remove completely. This is where other treatment options come in, but they can be more expensive compared to microabrasion.

Endodontic Treatment: Saving One Tooth at a Time

If a patient experiences tooth pain over a long time period for no apparent reason, most dentists would likely attribute it to the tooth’s pulp. When the tooth becomes severely painful, has become very sensitive to changes in temperature or has an exposed tooth pulp, dentists generally recommend an endodontic treatment for the patient.

Endodontic treatment is basically a “rescue attempt to save the tooth.” Each tooth has a pulp, which holds the tooth’s nerve and blood vessels. If the pulp becomes infected or otherwise injured, endodontic treatment is carried out to try to save the tooth. This procedure can be performed on both primary and permanent teeth.

Primary teeth are also known as baby teeth. They are essential for occupying the spaces that the permanent teeth will soon replace once the baby teeth fall out.

With regard to baby teeth, dentists can perform two types of endodontic treatment on them: (1) vital pulp therapy and (2) non-vital pulp therapy. In the former, the pulp is removed from the tooth’s crown but not the root. Moreover, the tooth should not be loose, and there should be no swelling around it.
Non-vital pulp therapy, also known as root canal treatment, involves removing both crown and root. Here, the pulp is beyond repair and has to be removed. After its removal, the dentist usually fills the inside of the tooth with a special material.

Both kids and adults may undergo endodontic treatment. There may be soreness after the procedure, but it can be dealt with by pain relievers.

Endodontic Treatment on Baby Teeth

Dentists perform endodontic treatment for people who experience tooth pain due to severe sensitivity or exposed tooth pulp. This procedure can be performed both on permanent and baby teeth. And even though baby teeth will fall out eventually, dentists would still opt to fix them. After all, these baby teeth occupy the spaces that permanent teeth will replace once the former fall out. Otherwise, the neighboring teeth would occupy the space and block the growth of the permanent tooth, causing it to tilt out of place.

When a patient experiences pain in his/her baby tooth, the dentist will usually provide the patient with the option of pulling it out or having root canal treatment performed instead. Accordingly, there are two types of endodontic treatment procedures for baby teeth: (1) vital pulp therapy and (2) non-vital pulp therapy.

In vital pulp therapy, the tooth in question should not be loose or characterized by abscess or swelling. Under this procedure, the dentist would only remove the decay from the tooth if the pulp is not damaged or infected. A filling is placed in the tooth to replace the decayed part while a protective material is dressed over the pulp, if exposed.

Non-vital pulp therapy is also known as root canal treatment. This procedure is resorted to when the pulp is already damaged or infected beyond repair. Here, the dentist will remove the pulp from inside the tooth. To seal it, a special filling will be placed inside the tooth. Protective materials are also placed to protect the outer tooth.

Conscious Sedation Methods Used by Dentists

Most kids become uneasy when they go to the dentist’s office. We can’t really blame them, though, with all they’ve heard from friends or seen on TV and in movies. Nevertheless, dentists put up with all that anxiety. After all, it’s their job. So what do they do to keep kids at ease? Simply, they use sedation techniques to keep kids sitting still long enough for the procedure to be done.

In conscious sedation, the dentist may give a medicine to relax the child. With this method, the child remains conscious and is able to respond to the dentist. There are various ways of doing this. The most commonly used method to induce sedation is to give the child a pill. Other methods involve giving injected or intravenous sedatives. Also, there’s one method that leaves the kids laughing.
Colloquially known as laughing gas, nitrous oxide is often used to ease the fears of nervous children.
This way, they receive dental treatment in a safe and comfortable manner. Here, laughing gas is delivered through a gas mask, which the child will be asked to breathe through.

If the laughing gas doesn’t work, medicines are orally given to level the child’s anxiety. Though he or she may become sleepy, the child can still respond to the dentist’s commands.

If the dentist needs the child to be asleep during a dental procedure, he or she may induce unconsciousness by giving general anesthesia. Here, the child won’t feel any pain and will sleep during the entire dental procedure.