How to Raise Cavity-Free Kids, Part 5: Baby’s First Visit to the Dentist

The goal of your baby’s first visit to the dentist is to give him or her a chance to get to know the dentist and dental office in a friendly, unthreatening way, and so your dentist will likely try to keep the visit very simple.

Although busy, working parents might sometimes have a grandparent or babysitter take a child to the doctor or dentist, It is important, at least for the first dental visit, that a parent or legal guardian be present, because he will be asked to fill out health-information forms about the child, discuss general health issues, and advise the dentist if the child has any specific medical condition or problem.

During the exam, the dentist’s movements will be slow and gentle, and he or she will speak to the child in a low, calm voice. Most dentists who are comfortable working with young children are able to handle all types of youngsters in a friendly, patient, and understanding way.

During this visit, the dentist will:

• Thoroughly examine your child’s teeth for tooth decay,
• Examine your child’s gums and soft tissue for disease or problems,
• Evaluate your child’s bite,
• Evaluate your child’s dental-eruption pattern and Identify any potential problems,
• Identify and talk about any habits that might be damaging to existing or future teeth,
• Talk about diet and nutrition needs for healthier and stronger teeth,
• Show the parent proper methods for cleaning the child’s gums and teeth at home,
• Talk about your child’s fluoride requirements, and
• Answer your questions or concerns.

If the child seems to be enjoying the first visit, then he or she may also get his teeth cleaned and polished, and have fluoride applied to his teeth. If the child seems apprehensive, the dentist might want to proceed with the examination with the parent holding the child in his lap or sits next to him, but often, a child behaves better if his parent is not present in the treatment room, and so you might also be asked to wait outside the treatment room.

A baby’s first visit to the dentist should be a fun experience for both child and parent. Remember, your child will take his cue from you. The most helpful thing you can do to help your child stay calm is for you to relax and stay calm yourself. Be prepared to ask a lot of questions. If you take your camera along, you’ll get some candid shots both you and your child will enjoy in the years to come!

Halloween Candy Buy Back Day: Thursday November 3, 2011

SmilePlus Dentistry participated in Halloween Candy Buy Back Program this year to support Operation Gratitude. The event took place at our office last Thursday November 3, 2011 from 3-7pm. We paid $1.00 per pound (up to 5 pound) to whoever brought their leftover unopened Halloween candies. We collected little over 70 pounds of candies! Candies were packed and shipped to OPERATION GRATITUDE in Van Nuys, CA. They will include candies into individual holiday care packages along with other necessary and fun items for our troops & ship them overseas to our soldiers stationed in war zones. We are thankful to everyone who was generous to share and donate their candies for this cause!

Don’t forget to check out Time magazine’s recent coverage regarding the program.

http://healthland.time.com/2011/10/31/why-halloweens-not-as-sweet-as-it-used-to-be-how-kids-are-getting-tricked-out-of-their-treats/

Enjoy some photos for the event.  

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Going Swimming? Shield Your Teeth!

Summer isn’t much fun if you can’t take a few plunges into a swimming pool, but, as we all know, pool water can dry out our skin and hair. What most people don’t know is that it can also permanently stain and erode our teeth.

 One study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology back in 1986, concluded   that, out of 747 competitive swimmers surveyed, 39 percent suffered from enamel erosion of their teeth.

 http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/123/4/641.abstract

 In a more recent paper, in May 2011, dentists from the New York University College of Dentistry reported the case of a 52-year-old man who had complained of his teeth’s sensitivity, staining, and enamel loss—all symptoms that had come on quickly, in about five months. The only sudden change in the man’s routine was his newly adopted, 90-minutes-per-day swimming routine. Upon further inquiry, the researchers learned that the patient did not have professional pool maintenance, and he didn’t know the pH of his pool water. Their conclusion was that the pool water’s pH was to blame for the man’s dental problems.

http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2011/05/23/is-your-swimming-pool-safe-for-your-teeth.html

So, if you are lucky enough to have a swimming pool in your back yard, it is a good idea to have it maintained professionally. If you do choose to maintain it yourself, use pool pH strips to check the pH level of the water. If you keep the pH number at about 7.2-7.8, you should avoid spoiling your teeth!

A Black Tea a Day Keeps the Dentist Away?

Black tea—keeps the dentist away? Well, not really, but it will certainly help reduce cavities and fight gum disease!

Not too long ago, a group of students from the University of Illinois uncovered a truth about black tea: that it can help fight cavities. Americans love their coffee, but we all know that, worldwide, many people prefer having a cup of tea to having a cup of coffee. Now it seems that those tea-drinkers may, unknowingly, be protecting their pearly whites from a dreaded cavity invasion.

Another study, this one by Japanese scientists, has suggested that consumption of green tea helped to reduce dental cavities and improve oral hygiene.

Let’s explore the results of these studies.

What is the effect of black tea in your mouth?

• Black tea has been found to be able to suppress, or even kill, the plaque bacteria that produce harmful acids that weaken and destroy the teeth.
• Black tea targets a specific enzyme, glucosyltransferase, which is responsible for converting sugars into the sticky matrix material that makes plaque stick to the teeth.
• Black tea causes other types of bacteria in the mouth to lose their ability to combine with plaque, thereby lessening its buildup.

Both these discoveries confirm another Swedish study that concluded that there were beneficial results to be derived from rinsing the mouth with black tea for 30 seconds at some time during the day, because the tea prevented plaque buildup.

These dental benefits of drinking tea—whether black or green—can now be added to the list of tea’s many other favorable effects, like being a good source of antioxidants, helping to boost the immune system, lowering the blood pressure, preventing heart disease, fighting cancer, losing weight, and so forth.

So, next time you’re at your local barista’s, you might consider foregoing that “cappuccino grande” and asking her to make you a “chai”—a cup of tea—instead.

Please call our office at 510-796-1656 if you have any questions regarding this or any other topics.

Dental Tourism—Is It for You?

Over 80 percent of our patients travel less than fifteen miles to visit our office, but a growing number of patients nationwide travel thousands of miles for dental procedures. They go outside the U.S. in an attempt to save money on their dental bills. 

A Google search lists thousands of medical-tourism Web sites offering 65–75 percent savings over U.S. prices. These companies advertise medical “vacations” that include airfare; hotel accommodations, excursions, and medical care—at a fraction of the cost for the same care in the United States. Is this smart?

Choosing to entrust your mouth to a dental-tourism caregiver is a big decision. Here are some things you need to consider:

• Training: Although there may be a number of providers with training comparable to U.S. dentists’ (and many are even members of the American Dental Association), most dentists and patients nevertheless agree that no other country in the world has such stringent dental regulations as the United States. Dentists trained in the U.S. graduate from a dental school accredited by the American Dental Association Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA), and must pass national examinations and meet state requirements before they earn a license to practice. (Even dental-lab technicians in the U.S. are likely to have received a higher degree of training in their specialties than they might receive elsewhere.)
• Infection:  In the U.S., infection control is governed by strict CDC (Center of Disease Control) guidelines.  Dental materials, drugs, and instruments used in the U.S. are regulated by the U.S Food and Drug Administration.  Do you know what the regulations are in dental-tourism destinations?
• Records: The ADA (American Dental Association) recommends seeing a dentist on a regular basis, to ensure preventive services and continuity of care. Your U.S. dental office is your “dental home,” and your own dentist is the one who knows your case and has records of your dental history. Consider talking to your dentist in the U.S., both prior to your visit and afterward, to ensure continuity of care. Be sure to arrange a safe and secure transfer of records from your U.S. dentist to the outside provider—and back again.
• Extra costs: Be aware of the potential costs of corrective procedures to your non-U.S. dentistry, in the event that your dentist in the U.S. needs to make any adjustments to it after you get home.
• Insurance coverage: Find out if your employer or insurance-company dental plan covers the U.S. follow-up treatment and potential repairs or replacements of prosthetics or appliances fabricated outside of the U. S.
• Recovery: Consider that many elective procedures, such as extractions and dental implant placements, are surgical in nature. Surgery carries post-treatment risks of swelling, pain, and infection. You might not feel up to that post-treatment vacation you’re planning. Consider also that, after your recent oral-surgical procedure, changes in airplane-cabin pressure on the flight home can sometimes cause pain or discomfort. 

 The most important thing, of course, is the standard of care. Most patients who travel overseas do so for particularly expensive elective procedures, like dental implants or full-mouth rehabilitation.  Months and years of special training and a lot of experience are required to master the skills to perform these procedures. Do you know what training and skills your dental-tourism dentist has?

After you have done your homework and considered all the items listed above, if you still want to go to a dental-tourism caregiver, and then talk to your “home dentist.” To ensure the best possible outcome, make him or her part of your team.

Good luck!

www.smileplusdentistry.com

510-796-1656

Attention, Men: Looking to Advance Your Career? You May Want to Start with a Visit to the Dentist. . . .

A recent online poll of 289 general dentists and consumers reported that men were far less likely to visit the dentist than were their female counterparts.* Why should that be? Here are the reasons the poll’s respondents gave for this rather startling figure:

• Approximately 45 percent said that men just did not see a need to visit the dentist;
• About 30 percent said that men were afraid or embarrassed to go;
• Almost 18 percent said that men just didn’t have the time for a dental visit; and
• About 5 percent said that men didn’t visit the dentist regularly, because most of them didn’t even have a regular dentist.

Not so very long ago, most men worked for only one or two employers over the whole span of their working lives, and so perhaps they didn’t need to think so much about how their overall appearance might affect their professional lives. Today, however, the environment is much more competitive. The unfortunate reality is that, with lay-offs and continuing business closures across the nation, middle-aged men seeking positions in higher management have to compete with their much-younger colleagues, and so they’re looking for an edge, and they realize that having a presentable, attractive appearance can give them that edge. Suddenly, looks matter.

Dentists today are seeing more and more men sitting back in their dental chairs for more than just maintenance. Now they’re inquiring about procedures that used to be looked upon as “only” cosmetic dentistry and have begun to consider the serious side of time and money invested in such procedures as teeth-whitening, veneers, Invisalign, and cosmetic bonding.

An impressive smile has value in the business world, and men are seeking a return on investment—in terms of jobs available to them or promotions that open up within an organization. Then, once men get into the routine of regular dentist visits, they begin to see the importance of overall oral health and biannual check-ups.

We dentists are not complaining. Whether they’re concerned about health, good looks, or their careers, it doesn’t matter to us. Whatever their reasons for coming in, we’re just happy to see them, and we’re happy, too, to see that more men are taking care of their oral health than ever before.

*Poll conducted by the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD), an organization of general dentists dedicated to continuing dental education.

Smile—Because That’s How We Read Faces in America

Did you know that culture plays a major role in how we interpret facial expressions? If we compare American and Japanese cultural interpretations, for example (according to behavioral scientist Masaki Yuki at Japan’s Hokkaido University), people from Japan tend to look at a person’s eyes for emotional clues, while Americans tend to look at a person’s mouth.

Americans frown or smile to show emotions, opening their mouths wide and raising the corners of their mouths exaggeratedly to display happiness.

People from Japan, on the other hand, whose culture tends to value humility and suppress shows of emotion, look to the expressive muscles around the eyes for clues to a person’s genuine emotions. (Since the eyes are more difficult to control than the mouth, the eyes probably do provide better clues about a person’s true emotional state—even if he or she is trying to hide it.)

Take a revealing look at differences in electronic communications’ symbolism in Japan and the U.S.: emoticons.  Aside from American emoticons’ being horizontal and Japanese emoticons’ being vertical (which relates to the differences in American and Japanese keyboards),

Americans use emoticons with upturned mouths as happy faces . . .

 :-)

And with down-turned mouths as sad faces. . . .

 :-(

The Japanese use emoticons for both happy and sad faces have emotionally neutral mouths, but show differences in eyes.

Japanese happy faces have crinkly eyes . . .

(^_^)

And their sad faces have uncrinkled eyes (and tears). . . .

(;_;)

Seeing the differences between American and Japanese virtual emotions, or emoticons, illustrates the cultural differences in flesh-and-blood people from both cultures: People from America actually do show emotions mostly with their smiles, and people from Japan, mostly with their eyes. Although general rules governing an attractive smile apply universally, proportions of the individual anterior (front) teeth do not. Asians tend to have narrower front teeth than Caucasians. In fact, the more Western the country, the larger and brighter its inhabitants’ teeth are inclined to be. In the most Western countries, the smiles considered most attractive are wide enough to reveal ten to twelve upper teeth.

One thing is certain: No matter where your family came from, your smile makes a strong and lasting impression on your social life—and on your career.