Are pacifiers bad?

Well, like most things, the answer is ............ it depends.

Sucking is a very natural and calming thing for a baby to do.

I have given each and every one of my 5 kids a pacifier.

None of them are delayed in their teeth coming in, have any speech problems, or had any thumb sucking problems due to using a pacifier.

There are some obvious thing you should be concerned with.

If you use a clip and a cord to keep the pacifier attached to your child's clothes make sure the cord is short enough that can't choke the baby.

Once your child gets to kindergarten make sure that they only use the pacifier at home. Being known as the only kid that had a pacifier in kindergarten could seriously damage your child's chances at getting asked to junior prom.

Seriously though, allowing your child to have a pacifier for the first few years of life is, in my opinion, not a problem.

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The Floss Replacement?

Houston, we have a problem.

No one likes to floss.

Some people to it but even those folks don't find it to be the highlight of their day.

Floss manufacturers know this and so they have been coming out with floss alternatives to try to entice people.

One of these alternatives that is really catching on is a little thing that looks like a piece of pipe cleaner. You take this little pipe cleaner job and push it back and forth at the base of you tooth.

These things are called inter proximal brushes, proxi brushes, etc. But they all do the same thing.

Here are some examples.

So what's the problem?

The problem is that although they do a great job of getting things out from the space right above the gum line, they absolutely do not get to the most important spot in between the teeth.

This most important spot is the spot where the floss snaps.

That spot that snaps is where the bugs that cause the cavities are hiding.

They wedge into the hardest spot to get to in order to cause cavities.

If you do not feel that snap then you are not getting that spot clean.

Don't get me wrong here.

I love it when people use the little pip cleaner jobs.

However, I am starting to see more and more folks that are getting cavities that say to me, "how is that possible?! I am using those pipe cleaners all the time."

Use these cool new gadgets just don't let them replace the floss.

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My Crown has a little black line near the gums. what's wrong?

Nothing is wrong.

What you are seeing is simply the metal that your crown is

made out of showing out from underneath.

I know I know, you thought that your crown was white and that

there wasn't any metal in it.

Well, there is. You have what is referred to as a porcelain

fused to metal crown of (PFM).

The crown is made of a metal substructure to give it it's strength and

then porcelainis layered over the top to make it look like a tooth.

The PFM has been used for years and has had remarkable success.

The only draw back to these types of crowns is the metal line showing through

and the fact that the porcelain layers can begin to separate from each other

and cause the pieces of porcelain to fall off the crowns.

Today there are new advances in crown technology that have

eliminated both of these problems.

There is a new material, to the world of dentistry that is, called zirconium.

Zirconium crowns are milled from a solid block and are very very strong.

This milling process means that they are not put together piece by piece.

Therefore there are no pieces to come apart. The crown is one solid unit.

Zirconium is also white so the color is that of most teeth and will never show a

metallic line because there is no metal.

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Does my child need to see a pediatric dentist?

Like many things in this world...... it depends.

Pediatric dentists are an amazing tool in the dental community.

I send children to them all the time.

However, there are many many more children

that I never send to them.

Almost everything that a pediatric dentist can do for your child can be done by a general dentist. Placing fillings, straightening teeth, placing space maintainers, extracting teeth,

doing pulpotomies (baby root canals), cleaning teeth, etc.

All of these services are offered by both a pediatric dentist and the general dentist.

So what does a pediatric dentist for?

The thing that, I feel, pediatric dentists are best for is to treat the nervous child.

Children just don't like dentists, doctors, nurses, etc.

We are always the ones giving shots and swabbing throats and so on.

The pediatric dentist is licensed to sedate children.

Whether through I.V. or orally your child can be put to sleep at a pediatric dentists office.

Now, this service will cost more money for the overall treatment but if it is the only way that your child can be treated due to them being scared to death then that is the best thing.

I suggest starting to bring your child to the dentist with you when they are about 3 years old.

Bring the child in for your cleaning. Let them sit in the corner and see that its not such a bad thing to be seen by the dentist. Do the same thing for you next cleaning. At that next appointment we typically will ask to see inside the child's mouth as they sit on the chair in the corner. We simply look around and get the child used to use being in their mouth. After that is done we congratulate the child for being so good and give them a prize. This exercise clears the way for them to be seen for their own cleaning and not be too scared about it because they have already been into the dentist on numerous occasions.

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Progression of tooth decay

Cavities don't just get big all of a sudden.

If you go to your dentist with a toothache, chances are that your

tooth has been decaying for some time.

This picture shows a chart of how a cavity grows.

The top row shows an example of cavities that you get when you

don't floss as much as you should.

The next row shows the cavities that you would get if

you do not brush as often as you should.

The last row shows cavities that can happen underneath

older fillings.

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Thumb Sucking

Is allowing your child to suck their thumb a bad thing?

Yesterday I talked about letting your child suck on a pacifier and basically said that I had no problem with that.

I feel, that letting your child suck on their thumb is something completely different.

The biggest reason for this is the pressure that can be applied by the child's finger to the teeth and roof of the mouth.

A pacifier is passive. No force is applied by it. On the other hand, a child can use their thumb to apply a tremendous amount of force.

This force can have multiple side effects.

One of those side effects is that the upper front teeth are actually forced upward and outward.

With the teeth in this position it would become impossible for those teeth to function as they were designed to. The front teeth are meant to cut pieces of food into smaller pieces before they are moved to the back teeth for grinding it down before swallowing. If the upper front teeth do not touch the lower front teeth then it would be very difficult to cut through anything.

the next problem with teeth that do not touch would be that a child's speech patterns would be changed. During the formation of certain sounds the tongue needs to rest against the upper front teeth. If the upper front teeth are not in the proper position then the sounds made by the child will not come out as they should.

So what can be done to stop a child from thumb sucking?

There are lots and lots of ideas out there.

Some people choose the simple idea of painting hot sauce on their child's finger. Hopefully they still love you after that.

The next idea is to place an appliance in the child's mouth like the one below. The balls the sit on the wire prevent the child from getting any suction thus the child gets less satisfaction and gives up.

You can also go the route of putting something on your child's hand. The device below also prevents the child from completely sucking on their thumb.

Point is that you need to get your child to stop sucking on their thumb.

Any of these ideas would work.

The only thing I do not recommend is yelling at your kids. That never really helps anything.

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People often ask about veneers. Their number one concern is what exactly happens to the teeth that the veneers will be placed on. This video will hopefully clear that up.

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Dental Implants

When we talk to people about implants there is a lot of hesitation because people really do not know what is involved in getting an implant. If your tooth is already gone then its really very simple. If you still have a tooth in the spot where the implant needs to go then things can be a bit more challenging but its still not too bad. Here is a little, 30 second, video that shows an implant procedure.

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When should may baby get his/her first tooth?

There is nothing much cuter then an infants big gummy smile. After a while however, parents start to ask the question, "When are my babies first teeth going to start coming in"?

Below is a chart showing not only when the first teeth will come in but when they will come out as well. The first tooth to come in, is typically, the lower central incisor. The last should be the back molars. A quick way to check and see that your youngster has all of their teeth in is to count them. A full set of baby teeth will equal out to be 10 teeth on the top and a matching 10 teeth on the bottom.

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Technology

It happens all the time.

Someone comes into my office that hasn't been for a long long time. I ask why it is that they have not come for so many years. They reply that they had a bad experience once and that they can't stand the noise of the drill or the feel of the novocaine or something similar to that.

I ask them how long its been and the response comes back that they haven't been in 20 or 30 years.

I then ask them what their cell phone looked like 25 years ago.

After a puzzled look they go on to describe a boxy bulky phone that weighed a ton. I then ask them to describe their personal computer. They go on to talk about floppy disks and commodore 64s.

I then explain that just like in every other area of their life, things move on. Technology advances and things improve. Dentistry of 30 years ago is NOT dentistry of today. I tell them of quieter drills and how we don't use metal fillings anymore and on and on. The real kicker comes in when I tell them that we haven't used novocaine in over 20 years! I don't even know if you can buy the stuff anymore. Even the stuff we use to numb people up with has evolved immensely.

Moral to the story is this. If you have had a bad dental experience in the past. But it was the past of the 80s or even 90s. Please give the dentist another try. Things are so much better now then they have ever been. Technology can be a wonderful thing.

Don't know why I included this one. Just love the 80s hair.

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Painless teeth replacement

"Painless tooth replacement"

"Teeth in a day"

We have all heard these claims and typically they are accompanied by promises that the doctor can, almost magically, take out all of your teeth, put implants in, and place crowns on the teeth

with little to no pain. They may even show the patient biting into an apple right after the procedure.

In very rare and unique circumstances this MAY be the case. But for the other 99.7% of us, its not. anytime you have surgery of ANY kind you need to heal. The picture below shows a site where a tooth was recently extracted. This site will be very tender for several days while the body heals. That's just the way it works. Blood will rush to the site of any injury thus creating inflammation (swelling) and moderate discomfort.

If implants are placed that too will cause some type of discomfort.

To say that teeth can be extracted and implants placed and that you can begin eating right away with no pain whatsoever is just not true. What is typically happening is that these people are trying to suck you in and then sell you on something else.

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Baby Bottle Tooth Decay

There has been a lot of educational material put out there about not putting your kids to bed with bottles, or sippy cups, full of juice, milk, soda, or whatever. But it still happens on a pretty regular basis. The last thing that should touch your child's tooth before they go to bed is a glass of water, a toothbrush, or a pacifier.

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