Smile with Confidence: A Comprehensive Guide to Dental Health and Care

Tag: oral hygiene

How to Choose a Dentist

For those who are searching for a new dentist, choosing the right one is a very important decision when it comes to oral healthcare. A dentist can help a patient maintain the health of their teeth and gums, while also renewing their smile and confidence. Here are some helpful steps on how to choose a dentist today.

Perform Adequate Research

Research may be as simple as asking friends, family, neighbors, or a primary care physician for referrals or it could include in-depth, independent research online. When using the internet to search for the best dentist in the area, spend ample time scouring the internet. Here are a few places to start:

How Do Teeth Age?

Teeth are not quite as unique as snowflakes, however, they do vary in size, shape and location in the jaw.  These differences in the teeth are what give our face shape and form and how we chew, speak or smile.  Did you know that we are born with 20 baby teeth (a/k/a “primary teeth”) that will begin to “erupt” or break through at about 6 months, and, by age 12, all 32 of our permanent teeth have usually erupted?

A Child’s Smile

There are many gap-toothed photos of you in your parents’ family albums.  Face it, all of a sudden your “cuteness quotient” goes down substantially when you begin losing those baby teeth.  The first teeth to go are the lower center teeth (a/k/a the lower center incisors) at approximately 6 to 7 years old.  Next are the top center pair.   It’s scary looking when you resemble a Halloween pumpkin, but, at least the Tooth Fairy helps make this time bearable.  Happily, a baby tooth typically doesn’t loosen until the permanent tooth below pushes it up to take its place.

When Do Teeth Start to Age?

Types of Braces

The trend today is toward embracing good dental health through natural choices – shunning fast or fried foods in favor of those with nutritious value, forsaking the couch and big TV for a walking or biking regimen.  This is because Americans are living longer, and they want to enjoy those extra years in good health.

Good dental health and keeping your own teeth longer is fast becoming an objective as well.  We now realize that with a little TLC to our teeth, they might last us the rest of our days, and we’ll not need to resort to dentures or partial plates.

Dental Care for New Immigrants

Coming to the ‘Land of Opportunity’ has been your dream for years, and you finally made it here. At last, you’re a free person in a free land. Of course, you may also be a stranger in a strange land. No matter how many times you’ve been to the United States before you made it to stay, you likely have a lot of questions that you may not have had before. One of the biggest (and perhaps most neglected) questions of all facing new immigrants to the U.S. is regarding dental care. Naturally, you already know how to physically care for your teeth, as you’ve been doing it your whole life. But what about all those questions you have over and above your own brushing and flossing? For instance, how do you, as someone who has just newly immigrated to America, go about caring for your teeth financially? What do you do if you get a cavity? What if you lose a tooth or you need to have a tooth pulled? What if you need dentures or implants? And, perhaps most important of all, how do you care for your children’s teeth? Following is some important information that may help you wade through your dental care options, including your rights and the rights of your children, now that you’re a new immigrant to the United States of America.

Dental Hygiene While Traveling

We all know that proper oral hygiene is essential for maintaining a healthy mouth and teeth. But sometimes it’s easy for those daily habits to go out the window when we are traveling. Because we are out of our normal routine, it can be difficult to remember to perform our basic tasks like brushing and flossing. Here are a few tips for maintaining healthy habits while you and your family are on the road.

Dental Care for College Students

College can be one of the most fun and most rewarding times of your life. You are finally out of the house and on your own, there are plenty of social activities and you are probably going to make some life long memories and friendships. It’s also a very defining time of your life and you get to discover many things about yourself that you perhaps didn’t know before. With this hurried and busy campus lifestyle filled with social events and studies it can be far too easy to get out of some of your routines. Not only might you gain the infamous “Freshman 15” but you can also develop a variety of other health conditions. One thing you can do to ensure your health is to maintain your daily oral regimen. It will ensure your teeth remain healthy despite the craziness of college and it can protect your overall health as well. Here are some tips recommended by your dentist. Prior to heading off to college you should visit the dentist for your routine check up and you should continue to see your dentist regularly when you come home for breaks. Maintaining a good oral hygiene regime with the help of your top dentist can ensure that your teeth stay healthy when you are older.

Routine Dental Care

Walt Disney once said, “A kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” Needless to say, this was a metaphor. No one wants to experience an actual kick in the teeth … not just because it’s painful, but also because, well, everyone likes having nice teeth! Right about now you may be thinking, “Well, duh!” However, have you ever thought about how likely it is that someday you may lose teeth due to improper dental care? A healthy dental care routine often is all that’s necessary to ensure that your teeth remain with you for the rest of your life. But keeping your teeth may be only half the story. Recent studies have shown a potential link between poor oral hygiene and risk factors for developing certain medical conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. The fact is that poor dental hygiene is the main reason that people throughout the country can experience tooth decay, tooth loss, and even loss of the bone structures surrounding the teeth. Here are some tips on optimal dental care routines for everyone in your family.

Types of Oral Cancer

Some types of cancer are on the decline throughout the entire United States. However, the number of cases involving other types of cancers is increasing. Oral cancer is one of these, and more Americans are in the high-risk groups for developing this disease than ever. There are several types of cancers that are considered oral, and the type typically depends upon the location of the disease. As with many types of cancer, the exact causes of the different forms of oral cancer are unknown to modern medicine. However, medical researchers have identified risk factors and behaviors that can put some individuals in greater danger of developing oral cancer, especially if they exhibit more than one of these components. Following is information on the different types of oral cancer, risk factors, and how to cope with a cancer diagnosis.

What is TMJ?

TMJ is a very dangerous and also painful experience. Most people that know what TMJ is also know when they have it. But, if you have never heard of TMJ or temporomandibular joint disease you might have it and never know it. If you want more information about temporomandibular joint or you want to know how you can get rid of, it’s a good idea to keep reading below for more information. We will be going over what TMJ is, What Causes TMJ, How to Diagnose TMJ as well as what can happen if you have temporomandibular joint disease and you ignore it.