Leominster Family Dentists Blog

Well, it’s that time of year again. Time to get out and see what’s new, innovative, and taking dentistry by storm…

So, if you’re wondering why we were a little short on doctors last week, you can get the answers here, and get a first hand view of some of the action behind the scenes.

Oh yeah, and if you keep watching, there’s a special announcement regarding an
important update. So don’t go away!

 Right Click Here and Choose “Save Link As” To Download Your Complimentary Copy of “Dental Injuries”

Nothing could be more upsetting or frustrating (and sometimes downright scary) than a dental injury when you’re away from home.

This complimentary report provides critical information that could make the difference between saving an injured tooth or losing it forever.

Inside, you’ll find answers to such questions as:

• What distinguishes a dental emergency from  a less urgent dental injury? 

• How much time do I have to treat a tooth that’s been knocked out of its socket? 
• What happens to a tooth if it’s been out of the mouth for more than 5 minutes? More than 15 minutes? A day? 
• Is there a difference between treating adult vs baby teeth?

Download the report right now, print it out, and keep it handy at all times so you can be ready for the unexpected.  

And by all means, feel free to share it with your friends!

Right Click Here and Choose “Save AS” To Download Your Complimentary Copy of “Dental Injuries”

We’re all familiar with the type of bad breath we call “morning breath”. How is it that you can brush your teeth before bedtime and drift off smelling minty fresh, then awaken hours later smelling like rotten eggs?

The answer is something called Volatile Sulfur Compounds, or “VSC’s”. These VSC’s are the by-products of bacteria that populate our mouths and multiply rapidly while we sleep. Because we don’t swallow nearly as much while sleeping, the bacteria build up more quickly and the VSC’s aren’t washed away by saliva.

A dry mouth can also cause bad breath while you’re awake. Dry mouth is a common side effect of many medications, and it also happens when we’re anxious or stressed. Bacterial plaque buildup and VSC;s can be controlled by brushing and rinsing, too, as long as it’s done properly, and sucking on a sugarless mint can help get saliva flowing.

Trouble is, we often miss important areas when we give our teeth the quick once-over with the toothbrush. (Most of us brush for 30 seconds, not the recommended two minutes). The area most commonly missed is the back of the tongue, where bacteria and VSC’s really like to party. And things can get even more disgusting: if you tend toward post-nasal drip: the back of your tongue is where mucus accumulates, bacteria feed on the proteins in the mucus and multiply even more, and, well, you get the picture.

A few unlucky people will get colonies of bacteria growing in the folds of their tonsils (they sometimes harden into little “tonsil stones”) where they’re nearly impossible to reach.

Cleaning the tongue can be tricky if you have a normal gag reflex, and your toothbrush is almost certain to set it off. But the average tongue scraper gets around this pretty well. Tongue scrapers come in many shapes and sizes and you should experiment until you find one you like. Learn to check yourself by sticking your tongue out and looking for a white or brownish coating at the back. You want this gone. Your entire tongue should be a nice rosy pink!

There’s a more serious cause for bad breath, a very common one in adults, called periodontal disease, but that’s a subject for another article. This disease is painless in its early stages, so always ask your dentist if you show the warning signs or have any know risk factors.

Now that you know the secrets to neutralizing bad breath, there should be nothing to get in the way of flashing that beautiful smile with confidence!

So, You’ve Got Dental Insurance?

Congratulations, it’s a great thing to have! It’s also a source of a lot of confusion and common misconceptions. Here are a few that come up a lot…

Fiction : Dental Insurance Is Similar To Medical Insurance.

Fact: Dental benefits can help pay for limited services (such as exams, x-rays and  cleanings) and some basic services (a handful of fillings). But the more teeth you have that need care, and the more complex the services you require, the less helpful your dental plan becomes. For example, two teeth needing crowns or a single tooth needing a root canal and a crown will typically eat up an entire year’s benefits.

The truth is, dental benefits are just that “benefits”. It is not “insurance”.

You see, “insurance” by its very nature limits your liability .

That is,no matter how sick you get, your medical insurance is designed to protect you from financial hardship. Your dental plan, on the other hand, will only pay so much per year, no matter how badly you need care. It’s designed to limit the insurance company’s liability. Whether you need $200 or $2000 worth of dental care, the insurance company will only pay up to an agreed-upon annual maximum. ** The amount agreed upon, and the specific details of your plan, are arranged by your employer and/or HR department.

Fiction: I Should Limit My Treatment To Only Those Items Covered By My Dental Benefits.

 Fact: Doctors have an ethical obligation to diagnose and share their findings with you. We base treatment recommendations on the needs of the patient, not the limitations of the benefits. Naturally, we respect your right to make decisions regarding your oral health, but we want you to be totally informed.

Fiction: If The Doctor Is Not On My Plan, I Will Not Receive Any Benefits.

 Fact: It all depends on the plan. Even if we don’t work directly with a particular plan, we will submit the claim for you.  We ask that you pay us at the time of service, and it is possible –although not guaranteed–that you will receive some reimbursement from the insurance company.

Fiction: Insurance Companies Are A Good Source Of Information Regarding Dental Fees.

 Fact: Insurance companies base their “usual and customary” fees on averages for a particular region or zip code. Most are sorely outdated. The companies have no incentive to keep these statistics up to date (because it would cost them more money,) and our practice is not average. The fees you pay here reflect the quality of the care you receive.

Fiction: If There Is A Big Difference Between Your Fees And The Amount The Insurance Company Will Pay, Then Your Fees Must Be Too High.

Fact: Insurance company  maximums have barely increased in the last fifty years! The very first dental insurance was offered in 1960, and it covered $1000 per year. Back then, that would pay for a lot of dentistry!

In the meantime, the price of everything has gone up AND, there have been many scientific advances in dentistry that we incorporate into our practice for your benefit. We provide 21st century dentistry, and we are certain that you would not like us to turn the clock back and only offer you what was available in the 1960s.

Fiction: I Have 100% Coverage.

Fact: There is no such thing as full coverage.  However, we will do everything possible to help you maximize your benefits. We will also work with you and offer you several options to help you stretch out payments over time.***

** The most common annual maximum is $1000, same as it was in 1960, when the first dental plans were launched.

***Ask us about our third party financing through Care Credit. Once you establish a line of credit, you can use it for other healthcare expenses as well, such as veterinary bills, eye care, and more.

Next, surrounding teeth start to shift. Mainly, the ones behind the space tip over into it. Teeth opposite (above or below) may start to erupt (“grow” out of the socket). If this happens, they often keep moving til they hit something, even if it’s the gums below or above. So, now you’ve got gaps, tipped teeth, and “over-erupted” teeth.

I ask my patients to picture a nice, strong picket fence. Then, imagine taking out a few of the supporting horizontal rails, and put some wear and tear on the fence. We’ve all seen them as they gradually collapse! (Not to mention, uneven teeth are harder to keep clean, so more prone to cavities and gum disease).

Here’s the grand finale: Your brain, nerves, and facial muscles all work in harmony with your bite, like a complicated little machine. Once the bite has shifted, and become uneven, if you weren’t already grinding your teeth at night (most of us do!) you’ll start. It’s a reaction to the disharmony that’s been created, as well as stress. It’s almost as if you’re trying to grind your way back to a place where the muscles, jaw joints, and teeth feel as if they’re “balanced” again. And the more stress you have in your life, the more aggressively you’re liable to grind!

What’s wrong with grinding your teeth, besides the fact that it keeps your roommate awake?

Well, grinding wears the teeth down. Some people do it faster than others. But as they wear down, they get shorter. Picture the extreme — really short, stubby little teeth. Not very attractive are they?

And when you bite down, you have to close down farther to get them to touch. There’s now less distance between the tip of your nose and the tip of your chin when you bite. Have you ever seen those posters of people with no teeth biting their gums together? Their chins go right up to their noses! Shorter teeth shorten the bottom half of your face when you bite down. That makes for an aged appearance and more wrinkly-looking skin.

OK, so maybe you’ve got only one missing tooth and nothing serious has come of it so far. Who knows, you may be one of those lucky people who gets away with it. Or maybe you won’t. How much of a gambler are you?

Bottom line? Take care of your teeth. Fight cavities. Avoid gum disease. Those are the biggest reasons for tooth loss. Get the little problems fixed while they’re still little.

What makes a smile beautiful? Is there some standard by which we can measure beauty?

You probably recognize that in life and love, and on the job, beauty is a powerful persuader. And you want to feel good about yourself when you stand in front of a mirror, right? Wouldn’t we all like to maximize our potential? Assuming you’ve answered “yes”, then it would be helpful to have some sort of global beauty “standard”, especially when it comes to achieving a beautiful smile.

Beauty and Proportion

We all have a natural understanding of good proportion. It’s been proposed that our ability to recognize what’s pleasing to the eye is given to us from birth — it’s in our DNA! In fact, studies have shown that babies respond more positively to pictures of symmetrical faces than to asymmetric ones.

So, even a baby can spot pleasing proportions!

The magical connecting thread of beauty is known as the Golden Proportion. It has been known since the time of the Ancient Greeks, and has been rediscovered, described, and studied by many famous people who applied it to their own fields of expertise. Artists, architects, mathematicians, musicians, and even dentists have all relied on the Golden Proportion to achieve a standard of global beauty.
Before defining how the Golden Proportion works, here’s something to keep in mind. There’s no such thing as the perfect face, no such thing as the perfect body, and very few “perfect” looking people who are perfectly happy.

My purpose is to offer a standard of beauty that can be defined, not to insist that everyone has to adhere to it. There are millions of beautiful people in this world who don’t “measure up” to these standards.

OK, so without boring you too much, let’s just say that the math wizards call the golden proportion “Phi” and it appears in countless places in nature. It also appears in the human face and in our teeth.

For you techies, Phi divides things into a proportion of 1.0 to 1.618

The ratio between the height and width of the two upper front teeth, and the widths of certain front teeth when viewed in a full frontal smile, are always the same when we look at a beautiful smile. In the pictures below, the elements all relate to each other in the same way. And humans find these proportions attractive.

Pictures courtesy of Phi Matrix

Based on these findings, Dr. Stephen Marquardt (a dentist, of course!) founded the Marquardt Beauty Analysis. Dr. Marquardt came up with something called “the mask” which maps out the ideal positioning and proportions of features on the human face. He demonstrates that there is indeed a global beauty standard that applies to all nationalities, and that it’s timeless. I think you’ll really enjoy visiting his site!

The RDA (relative dentin abrasiveness) of a toothpaste tells you how abrasive it is. The RDA assigns the following ranges for abrasiveness:

• 0-70 low abrasive
• 70-100 medium abrasive
• 100-150 highly abrasive
• 150-250 harmful

By Dr. Carolyn Schweitzer

These days it seems that everyone wants whiter teeth. With all of the bleaching products available from your dentist, drug store, and TV infomercials, it’s getting easier all the time to have teeth like the movie stars.

But one thing most people don’t realize is that it takes more than just a good whitening product to get those pearly whites to dazzle.

First, you need enough tooth enamel!

Huh? That’s right, tooth enamel. The enamel is the hard, protective outer layer of your teeth. If you’re genetically blessed, its natural color is a very light ivory which we perceive as “white”. Tooth whitening products do a great job of removing stain — pigments in the enamel that can be chemically “bleached”.

But here’s where whitening won’t help, or not nearly as much: if your tooth enamel is thin.

You see, the thinner the enamel on your teeth gets, the more the layer underneath it starts to show through it. That second layer, called dentin, is typically yellow in color — even brownish in some cases. And teeth whitening products do a very poor job of whitening dentin!

So how does tooth enamel wear so thin that you can “see through it”?

The most common reason is from brushing too hard, and/or with too abrasive  a tooth paste (and too hard a brush). If your goal is to have the whitest teeth possible, don’t rush out and buy yourself the hardest bristle brush you can find, and stock up on abrasive toothpastes.

Note: Teeth Whitening toothpastes rely heavily on abrasives, since the bleaching agents aren’t in contact with your teeth long enough to have much of an effect.

Too much of a good thing is never good!

Sure, if you brush hard and often with something abrasive your teeth WILL get whiter. But in the long run, you’re scrubbing away the surface of your teeth, one microscopic layer at time!

Eventually, you notice your teeth getting more yellow and assume you’re not doing a good job. So, you scrub even harder, longer, and more often. But the yellow color only gets more noticeable. It isn’t stubborn stains — it’s the yellower dentin layer starting to show through!!

Not So White!

Notice how the canine tooth above (see arrow) has become almost flat?

There’s one more important way you can lose precious enamel from your teeth.

It’s from consuming foods with a high acid content. Citrus fruits are big offenders. After that comes tomato sauce. And carbonated drinks (soft drinks are high in phosphoric acid) can be the worst, because of our tendency to sip or “nurse” them. That just prolongs contact between your teeth and the “acid bath” you’re treating them too.

Recently, it’s come to light that there’s a new offender on the market.
It’s sports drinks, energy drinks and fitness water!!

Why? Well, most colas contain one or more acids, usually phosphoric and citric acids. But sports beverages (and several popular soft drinks) also contain organic acids which are known to break down calcium. So they’re especially good at eroding your teeth. In fact, recent studies showed they were 3 to 11 times better at damaging enamel than cola-based drinks. And, right up there with the fitness drinks was good old fashioned lemonade!! Who knew?

Studies have also shown that unless you’re a professional athlete or marathoner, there’s very little advantage to drinking sports drinks over plain water.

Acid Erosion Of Tooth Enamal

What can you do to avoid wearing out your precious enamel before it’s time? Here are some pointers:

• If you use a medium or hard brush, throw it away and get a soft bristle brush. Hard and medium brushes are sold because people still buy them, not because dentists recommend them!
• Brush thoroughly but gently, it’s not elbow grease that gets the job done, and aggressive brushing can erode enamel and cause your gums to recede. If the bristles start to spread out and flatten within a couple of weeks of buying a new toothbrush, you need to lighten up!
• If you want whiter teeth, go for a toothpaste with whitening ingredients, but not with abrasives. Ask your dentist which ones are best or see our abrasiveness chart.
• When consuming acidic food or drink, don’t linger over it. Don’t “nurse” your lemonade or cola. Don’t swish carbonated drinks in your mouth to get rid of the bubbles before you swallow them down. Don’t savor that slice of grapefruit too long!
• Try to get back to basics with your beverages. Nothing is better for you than plain water.

Thirsty? Go for Water or Milk!

Hear the term “Cosmetic Dentistry” and what do you think of? Extreme Makeovers? Hollywood celebrities with perfect smiles?
The fact is, today nearly all of us have some form of cosmetic dentistry in our own mouths, especially if we’ve had dental treatment in the last few years. Those old silver fillings are making way for their more beautiful counterparts: tooth-colored fillings made of bonded composite resins, and resin-bonded porcelains.

These are not only more esthetic than “silver”, but are less apt to weaken your teeth — and so less likely to result in teeth that chip and crack. You may have some of these bonded fillings in your back teeth, or perhaps you had some cosmetic dentistry done to enhance your smile.

We all know that nothing is permanent. Even our own body parts eventually wear out.  So, too, will anything made by your dentist. But naturally, you’ll want to keep your new cosmetic dentistry looking “good as new” for as long as possible. Here’s what you need to know about preserving your cosmetic dentistry.

The Top Reasons Cosmetic Fillings Wear Out Prematurely:

1. 1) Aggressive brushing — In an effort to keep your teeth clean and white, you brush too hard. This can wear away your fillings and even you own tooth enamel.
2. 2) Abrasive toothpastes — Not all toothpastes are created equal, some are have a lot more abrasives than others. (You should be using one with a low abrasiveness.)
3. 3) Stains and dyes– The bonded resins used in cosmetic dentistry absorb stain faster than natural tooth structure, and they can’t be whitened by any teeth-whitening products. (Teeth whitening only works on natural tooth structure, it will NOT work on bonding, porcelain, or other man-made materials.) Stains are present in many foods, but can also be present as coloring agents in toothpastes and mouth rinses.
4. 4) Alcohol – A common ingredient in many mouth rinses, alcohol can actually cause bonded resin fillings to shrink over time, and can even break down or soften the bond that helps your cosmetic dentistry adhere to your teeth! (This is true whether you have white fillings or bonded porcelain).
5. 5) Stannous or Phosphate fluorides — these are not recommended for use with cosmetic dentistry. Check the label, and only use products with Sodium Fluoride.
6. 6) Mechanical wear or trauma — clenching and grinding or exposing your teeth to potential sports injuries.

How to Protect your Cosmetic Dentistry

1. 1) Brush gently! Back off on all of that scrubbing — it’s not how hard you brush, but how well! Throw out that medium or hard bristle toothbrush!
2. 2) Choose a toothpaste with a low abrasiveness index. Among commercially available products, Tom’s of Maine is best. But my personal favorite is made by a company called Oxyfresh  because you get low abrasiveness, no dyes, and no alcohol in any of their products, plus they have a powerful breath-freshening ingredient.
3. 3) Avoid foods and products that stain. Coffee, tea, colas, red wine, and nicotine are the worst offenders, but who needs extra dyes in their toothpaste? Most toothpastes contain a high percentage of dyes and colorings.
4. 4) Don’t use mouth rinses with alcohol in them. Many rinses have a very high alcohol content. Check the labels, as more and more companies are offering alcohol-free formulas. You don’t need alcohol in a rinse to eliminate bad breath. And you can certainly do without the damage it can cause to bonding and bonded fillings/porcelains.
5. 5) Sodium Fluoride or no fluoride are your best bets, so check to be sure you’re not using the types of fluoride mentioned above. All forms of fluoride fight cavities. And you can still get cavities at any age, so don’t drop the fluoride without checking with your dentist or hygienist to see if this would put you at risk.
6. 6) Wear a night guard if your dentist recommends one. You may swear you don’t grind, but nearly all of us do this at night as a way to release stress. (I’ve never caught myself grinding at night, but my teeth tell a different story!) And if you play sports, do yourself a favor and ask your dentist for a custom sports guard – they protect your teeth much better than the boil-and-bite variety.

With proper care, bonded fillings and resin-bonded porcelains will stay strong and beautiful for an average of 5 to 10 years. Have them checked every six months so potential problems can be caught early, and follow the tips in this article, and you can keep flashing that beautiful white smile with confidence!!