Jul. 6th 2017
Fruit, yogurt, citric and soft drinks, may seem like harmless, but improper consumption and overuse may lead to devastating and permanent damage to teeth. It’s known as tooth erosion, the break down of tooth structure caused by the effect of acid on the teeth that leads to decay.
According to David Bartlett, BDS, PhD, lead a discussion at the Academy of General Dentistry’s 55th annual meeting in San Diego, back in 2007, titled, “Acid Erosion-Why is it Important to My Patients?” “Early diagnosis and prevention of the effects of tooth erosion are fundamental to keeping teeth healthy for life.”
Dental enamel is the thin, outer layer of hard tissue that helps maintain the tooth’s structure and shape while protecting it from decay. According to Dr. Bartlett Sipping or holding acidic drinks in the mouth before swallowing increases the risk of erosion on dental enamel.
Jun. 20th 2017
Scientists from The Ohio State University has examined the stress levels of parents whose young children either had no cavities or so many cavities that the children had receive anesthesia before undergoing dental treatment. The team also looked at the parents’ education levels and income, and noted if they were single parents. Finally, they measured the parents’ stress levels again after the children had received dental treatment. As they expected, they found that low income, having little education, and being a single parent led to increases in parental stress. They also discovered that the more stressed parents are, the more likely their children were to have decay. Last, they found that apparently having one’s child’s dental decay treated actually could decrease the stress of being a parent.
Jun. 16th 2017
According to a study published in the 2008 issue of General Dentistry, parents more often than not do not know what to do with a traumatically affected tooth and do not take proper steps to respond to the injury, which can affect their child’s oral health permanently. A child can lose a primary/baby tooth prematurely, or they can lose a permanent tooth. With primary/baby teeth a common mistake parents make is that they often don’t believe that the loss of a primary tooth is especially important since a permanent tooth is supposed to come in and replace it. However, it is important to keep baby teeth because they maintain the spacing for permanent teeth. Keeping baby teeth in place will also increase the likelihood that permanent teeth come in straight. The mistakes made with the loss of a permanent tooth is that parents often delay in seeking treatment and/or fail to store the tooth properly en route to the hospital. According to AGD spokesperson Mark Donald, the chance for success is directly related to the amount of trauma and the length of time the tooth is outside of the oral cavity. The tooth should be placed in a moist solution like milk while en route to the dentist. Dr. Maia (The study’s lead author, Lucianne Cople Maia, DDS, MSD, PhD) adds that “the ideal time between tooth loss and re-plantation is a period no longer than 30 minutes.”
