Canker Sores: Causes And Treatment

HAVE YOU EVER TRIED to enjoy one of your favorite foods, but that angry, swollen lump on your gums or the inside of your cheek kept stinging and hurting? Then you know what it’s like to have a canker sore.

These sores are round ulcers that can develop on the inside of the lips and cheeks, on the gumline, or even on the tongue, and spicy, hot, or acidic foods can painfully agitate them. Let’s take a look at what causes these sores, how we can avoid them, and how we can help them heal faster.

What Causes A Canker Sore

Canker sores can develop for a variety of reasons. They can be the result of a viral infection, a food allergy, or a mouth injury, but other factors like stress, hormonal fluctuations, and vitamin or mineral deficiencies can also make them more likely. Another factor that can contribute to the frequency of canker sores is braces. Dental wax can help shield sensitive oral tissues from the protruding pieces of an orthodontic appliance.

Treating A Canker Sore

If you have a canker sore, you want it to go away as quickly as possible. One way you can do that is by brushing with a soft-bristled toothbrush, because it is gentle on the gums. If your current toothpaste is painful, try swapping it out for a toothpaste without the ingredient sodium lauryl sulfate.

To relieve the irritation, you can use a topical medication, a special mouthwash, or oral pain relievers. Rinsing daily with salt water is also a great way to reduce inflammation and encourage faster healing (just make sure you don’t swallow it).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrwkzMe-TCA

Preventing Future Sores

A few foods, such as salmon, kale, carrots, parsley, spinach, and yogurt, can help reduce future ulcer breakouts because of their high vitamin B12, iron, and folate content. Flossing daily and brushing your teeth twice a day also help reduce ulcer breakouts, because a clean mouth is healthier.

The Dentist Can Help Too!

If you’ve been struggling with canker sores, schedule a dental appointment! There may be an underlying cause that needs diagnosis and treatment with prescribed medications.

We love to see those healthy smiles!

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.

Protecting Your Child’s Teeth From Injury

WE ALL REMEMBER WHAT it was like to be a kid. Running around, playing outside, discovering the world around us, and making great friends. We also remember the scraped knees and bumps and bruises that came along with all of that. As parents, we want our kids to have all the same great experiences we did, but hopefully without some of the injuries — particularly tooth injuries.
 

Tips For Tooth Safety

There are a few simple things we can do to keep our kids’ teeth safe, whether they’re at home or playing with friends.

• The most common cause of tooth injuries in babies and toddlers is in the bathtub. All that slippery porcelain makes it easy for them to fall and hurt their teeth. To minimize this risk, never leave a baby or toddler unattended in the bathtub.

• Frisbees, balls, and other things meant for throwing can easily cause tooth injuries. Before your child goes out to play, talk to them about safety and stress the importance of not aiming for each other’s heads.

• Playground equipment such as swings, a jungle gym, or monkey bars are not kind to teeth if a child falls on them face-first. Make sure your child knows to be careful before going on the playground.

• The most common cause of tooth injuries in young children is sports. Active children can find themselves playing multiple sports in a given year, and from that comes many different types of risks. Help to protect the risk of damage to their teeth by using protective mouth guards when necessary, it could make all the difference!

Plan Ahead

Sometimes accidents happen even under careful adult supervision and when the children understand potential hazards and use caution. Don’t panic if your child loses or injures a tooth. If it’s an adult tooth or if it’s a baby tooth that wasn’t already loose, try to put it back in place, then come straight to the dentist. Reattachment isn’t always possible, but this will give it the best chance.

If you can’t easily put the tooth back in place, store it in a glass of milk to keep the root alive while you’re on your way to the dentist. The faster you get to us, the better chances the tooth will have of being saved. Make sure you don’t try to clean the tooth or put it in water, though, because this will kill the root!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KyR4ULIEQw

Keep Those Teeth Healthy

Another important way to protect your child’s teeth from injury is to keep them healthy with twice-daily brushing and daily flossing, as well as regular dental appointments. Healthy teeth are stronger and more resistant to injury!

We love to see those healthy smiles!

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 White Spots On Your Teeth?

THERE ARE A LOT of things that can leave stains on our teeth, and stains can come in many different colors. You could see yellow stains, brown stains, or even the temporary stain from eating brightly colored candy, but what about when the stain is white? Where do those white spots come from, and is there anything we can do about it?

White Spots From Fluorosis

Surface stains that affect the tooth enamel sometimes appear on a tooth that is otherwise healthy. One cause of this kind of stain is fluorosis. Fluorosis occurs when developing adult teeth are exposed to too much fluoride. It doesn’t damage the teeth, but it does unevenly bleach them, leaving white spots on them before they even grow in.

To avoid white spots from fluorosis, make sure to limit the amount of fluoride toothpaste you use when brushing your child’s teeth. A tiny smear (no bigger than a grain of rice) is sufficient for babies and toddlers, and a pea-sized dab is the most you should use for a young child. When they begin brushing their own teeth, encourage them to continue going easy on the toothpaste.

The Effects of Demineralization

A more harmful cause of white spots is demineralization. Demineralization is the gradual leaching of crucial minerals like calcium from the tooth enamel. Plaque buildup and acid exposure over time lead to demineralization, and people with braces are particularly susceptible to it.

Preventing demineralization is all about good brushing and flossing habits, as well as regular dental visits. We all should be brushing for two minutes twice a day and flossing daily, and orthodontic patients should take extra care to clean away all the food residue and plaque around the brackets to avoid white spots when the braces come off.

Enamel Hypoplasia

For an unlucky minority, white spots don’t come from demineralization or fluorosis, but from enamel hypoplasia, a condition that leaves the teeth with thinner enamel than usual and therefore more vulnerable to stains and decay. Causes of enamel hypoplasia in a child’s teeth include the mother smoking while pregnant, malnutrition, and premature birth.

Treating White Spots

It’s always better to prevent white spots from developing to begin with, but if they do appear, there are a few ways to treat them, such as microabrasion and bleaching. With microabrasion, a thin layer of enamel is scraped away to restore the tooth’s uniform appearance. Whitening treatments can improve the results of microabrasion even more, or it can be its own solution, as with bleaching. If you choose the bleaching route, we recommend professional whitening, whether in the dentist’s office or using a dentist-approved home whitening kit, for the best possible results.

Not all stains can be removed with these methods, and in these cases, veneers are an excellent option. The way these work is that the dentist attaches thin pieces of porcelain to the teeth, for a natural, uniform, white appearance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC-9odrbdZE

Do You Have White Spots?

If white spots on your teeth have been bothering you and making you less confident in your smile, come see us so that we can determine the best solution. We want all our patients to be able to share their smiles freely!

Keep up that brushing and flossing, and we look forward to seeing you soon!

 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.

Protect Your Teeth This Cold And Flu Season

THE LAST THING YOU WANT to worry about when you’re sick is your dental health. Unfortunately, your teeth can be extra vulnerable when cold and flu season strike. If you find yourself under the weather, read on for helpful tips on protecting your mouth!

Watch Out For Dry Mouth

You know that feeling when your nose is so stuffy you can’t breathe out of it even if you tried? We all have the potential to become mouth breathers when we’re sick, especially at night. Consequently, our mouths become dry, creating the perfect environment for bacteria to thrive.

Some of the medications we take when we’re sick–such as antihistamines, decongestants and pain relievers–can cause or worsen dry mouth. Without as much saliva to fend off bacteria in our mouths, our risk of tooth decay goes way up! Protect yourself from cavities and make sure to drink plenty of water when you’re sick.

Being sick can often cause bad breath because of congestion and dry mouth. Learn more about it here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWhF0WYG7P4

Go Sugar-free

We all know how bad sugar can be for our teeth. But it’s not usually something we think about when we’re in dire need of a cough drop! Next time you buy cough drops, go sugar-free. Sucking on a sugary cough drop all day is just the same as sucking on a jolly rancher or other sugary candy, and it can do just as much damage to your pearly whites.

Stick With Water

Orange juice, sports drinks, tea sweetened with honey or sugar–these are all beverages we reach for when we’re sick. Just remember to rinse your mouth with water after drinking them, to protect your teeth from all that sugar.

Water will also be your best friend if you have the stomach flu. Vomit is very acidic and can wreak havoc on your teeth. Instead of trying to brush your teeth immediately after, however, just rinse your mouth out with water and make sure to stay hydrated!

Keep Up On Oral Hygiene

Remembering to brush and floss your teeth on a normal day is easy: in the morning when you wake up and at night before going to bed! When you’re sick, the days and nights often run together as you try to rest and recuperate. Losing that sense of routine can be bad news for your teeth if you are forgetting to take proper care of them.

You may be surprised, but brushing your teeth may actually make you feel better! The health and cleanliness of our mouth can have a profound effect on our overall sense of well-being. When your mouth is clean, you feel refreshed and rejuvenated. So, don’t forget to keep up on your oral hygiene routine, even when you’re not feeling so hot.

We Hope You Get Feeling Better!

We sincerely hope that none of our patients get sick this cold and flu season. If you are feeling unwell, get feeling better soon! As always, thank you for choosing our practice as your dental home!

We love our 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.

Reasons To Be Thankful For The Dentist This Holiday Season

WE’RE ALMOST AT the end of another year, and one of the best parts of the holiday season is getting some time to take stock of all the things we’re grateful for. From our families to our careers, our homes to our country, those lists can be pretty long, and one more great thing to add to your list is your dentist!
 

We Owe Our Smiles To Our Dentists

You might think it’s silly to include your dentist on the list of things you’re thankful for, but we can give you a few great reasons why they should make the cut. Between their advice on how to take care of our teeth and their treatment of dental problems that arise, dentists do a lot to keep us healthy and happy.

Thanks to dentists, we know…

• …the right way to brush our teeth. Brushing too little leads to plaque buildup, cavities and gum disease. Brushing too hard contributes to gum recession and strips away enamel. Thanks to our dentists, we know to brush twice a day for two minutes with soft-bristle brushes.

• …how often to floss. When we don’t floss, plaque can build up between our teeth even when we brush the rest away from the outer surfaces. Daily flossing like the dentist tells us to keeps the in-between spaces just as clean as the rest!

• …tricks for beating bad breath. While bad breath can have a variety of causes, good habits like daily brushing and flossing, making sure to clean our tongues, and breathing through our noses instead of our mouths can really help!

• …how important dental check-ups are. One of the best things we can do to keep our teeth and gums healthy is to schedule twice-yearly dental visits. It’s always better (and cheaper) to catch dental problems early on than to suffer through the pain and have to get more intense treatment later on!

• …what to eat (and avoid) to reduce tooth decay. Cutting down on sugary foods and drinks means giving less food to the bad bacteria in our mouths, which means our teeth and gums are healthier. We can replace them with fruits, vegetables, and sugar-free treats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO3fP5sljTo
 

And We’re Just As Thankful For Our Patients!

We love helping our patients keep their smiles healthy, which is why we love nothing better than getting to see you when you come in for your appointments. You make our days and our lives brighter! We hope to see your smiling faces again soon!

Make the end of this year wonderful!

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.