Patient Education

Vending Machines: Cavity Dispensers

Vending machines put out all kinds of stuff. But vending machines at work or school can dispense cavities right along with the candy and soda pop that we love so much in afternoon pick-me-ups. So-called soft drinks don't do teeth any favors. Not even diet soda. That's because sugar isn't the real culprit. It's carbonic acid—the stuff that gives soft drinks their fizzy bubbles can be deadly to tooth enamel. [...]

Vending Machines: Cavity Dispensers2017-07-18T00:00:26-07:00

What You and Your Mouth Need to Know About Cancer

Early Detection Remains Key Just as in any good crime show, the sooner the heroes discover the problem and get to work solving it, the better the outcome. Looking inside your mouth provides us a unique opportunity to detect other potential health problems, particularly the signs of oral cancer. Did you know that you get what amounts to a mini-cancer screening with every routine dental examination? And we continue to [...]

What You and Your Mouth Need to Know About Cancer2017-07-04T00:00:31-07:00

Dental Choices Are Up to You!

Dental care has progressed to where we can now offer you a veritable smorgasbord of choices, a buffet of beautiful smiles. New materials and techniques allow us to treat your teeth more conservatively than ever, and decades of research have gone into developing materials—ceramics, polymer compounds, resin compounds and more—to repair worn, damaged or missing teeth. Unlike your father's dentist, we now have several effective ways to treat a toothache. [...]

Dental Choices Are Up to You!2017-06-27T00:00:52-07:00

Dental Phobia

Not in my mouth you don't! The bad thing about dental phobia is that it prevents people from seeking the care they need—when they need it. The good thing about it is that, today, we can treat fear as successfully as we treat tooth decay or crooked teeth. Over six million people experience some degree of anxiety when they visit the dentist. Two million dental patients are just plain scared, [...]

Dental Phobia2017-06-13T00:00:03-07:00

Bad Oral Habits Explained

Tooth-related habits, too, can be conscious (brushing and flossing) or unconscious—chewing on pencils, for example. Dental habits become bad when teeth are expected to do things they're not cut out for—opening bottles, chewing off the little plastic tags on new clothing, trimming nails, and so on. And bad dental habits can be downright dangerous. To name a few: Swiss Army Mouth Mistaking your teeth for a sort of all-purpose bottle-cap-removal-unit-plus-toolbox [...]

Bad Oral Habits Explained2017-06-06T00:00:37-07:00

The Rubber Dental Dam

Throughout your treatment at our office, we want to keep you comfortable and safe while providing the best possible care. During many of our procedures we use a rubber dam (aka dental dam) to help. The rubber dam is a thin sheet that allows us to isolate the teeth we're treating. By stretching the rubber shield over a U-shaped framework, only the teeth being treated are exposed to the water [...]

The Rubber Dental Dam2017-05-09T00:00:16-07:00

Tongue-Thrusting

Train that Tongue Without therapy, the wrong oral habits, sooner or later, will cause tooth movement, breathing and speech problems You'd think swallowing is easy as falling off a log. But some of us need help retraining muscles that we've been using wrong all along. A "bad" swallow is just the luck of the draw, usually caused by unbalanced facial muscles or enlarged tonsils. When you swallow normally (and we [...]

Tongue-Thrusting2017-04-18T00:00:33-07:00

Save Money By Preventing Dental Expenses

Everyone is concerned about money these days. But the only way to save wisely is to calculate your net gain (or loss). We agree that it's silly to drive 20 miles to save 3 cents a gallon on gas, but it's just as foolish to skip your dental appointments. With the cost of everything increasing, an excellent way to save money is to prevent potential problems before they become big [...]

Save Money By Preventing Dental Expenses2017-04-11T00:00:50-07:00

Alcohol and Your Health…

Just the Facts There's so much conflicting information regarding drinking alcohol blasting at us these days. A glass of red wine is good? Is even drinking at all a good idea? It's a matter of proportion. The facts are these. First, alcohol affects women more than men. Because men tend to be heavier in muscle mass, their bodies can process slightly more alcohol with fewer negative consequences than women's. But [...]

Alcohol and Your Health…2017-03-21T00:00:25-07:00

These are Times that Stress Kids’ Mouths

What does a student facing exam pressure have in common with a World War I soldier—or an 18th-Century British sailor? More than you might think. Kids surviving on junk food and stress are at risk of two retro tooth-and-gum woes: trench mouth and scurvy. Trench Mouth (named for the soldiers) is better known today as ANUG, or Acute Necrotizing Ulcerative Gingivitis. While it's similar to periodontal disease, what sets ANUG [...]

These are Times that Stress Kids’ Mouths2017-02-28T00:00:54-08:00
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