Hey everyone! This is Dr. Thomas at Integrity Dental in Pueblo, Colorado. Thanks for joining us! Today we want to answer some common questions about how to maintain your teeth and general dentistry.
How often should I visit the dentist for check-ups?
We recommend every 6 months. We like to do cleanings on 6-month intervals and typically do x-rays once per year and we also will do exams or check-ups. If you are not healthy, orally speaking, or you have gum disease or periodontitis, you will have check-ups more often. We call those periodontal maintenance visits or gum maintenance visits. We typically recommend those every 3 months until we get on top of the gum disease.
What are the benefits of Fluoride treatments?
Fluoride is a bit of a controversial topic right now. But according to the research, fluoride is still a highly effective treatment for helping prevent tooth decay. Most of the controversy comes from the idea of ingesting fluoride on a regular basis in our water, and that is a different topic for a different time. Fluoride is very effective in toothpastes and in treatments we do here in our office. We do recommend fluoride treatments during certain appointments here. Fluoride works in a way that is unique. Our teeth are always in the process of being broken down and built back up. We have lots of calcium in our teeth, that is why we tell people to drink their milk. Kids need lots of calcium, moms need lots of calcium and that is because our body uses calcium a lot. It uses it to create the network of our teeth and that’s part of what makes them so hard. Calcium on a molecular level is very similar to fluoride, and fluoride will work very similarly to calcium in our saliva. If you drink orange juice in the morning, the surface level of calcium gradually will get worn away by the acid from the orange juice. Throughout the day that needs surface level of calcium needs to be repaired so the calcium in our saliva and from our diet helps us to resurface our teeth with a new layer of calcium before we eat with our teeth again. If you have fluoride in your saliva from a treatment or from brushing your teeth, the fluoride molecules can also get into the surface of the tooth. The advantage of fluoride is that it is much more resistant to bad bacteria and acid and cavities. So that is where the real advantage is. It makes the surface of our teeth more impenetrable to bacteria and the acid that they produce to make cavities.
How can I protect my teeth from decay?
Brush your teeth at least twice per day! If you brush your teeth two times per day for 2 minutes each time and you do a thorough job, the chances of you getting a cavity are very minimal. If you have a dry mouth or have other related health issues, you may want to brush them even more. You may want to help your mouth be more moisturized or lubricated with certain products because that is important. To take adequate care of our teeth, you need to;
- Brush twice per day
- Floss once per day
- I recommend a fluoride toothpaste
- A mouthrinse.
Does our diet affect protecting our teeth?
Absolutely, 100%. Sugar, while tasting good and is something that we all enjoy at times, feeds bacteria in our mouths and turns into acid very quickly. That acid eats away at the surface level of calcium and makes our teeth softer for more acid and when we get enough acid eventually the tooth will flake away and cause cavities. So yes, our diet affects that quite a bit. There are other things we can eat, foods rich in calcium, milk and cheese and things like that which are much less likely to cause decay. Even processed carbohydrates, like chips, granola bars and gummy snacks have sugar. The more processing that we have in our food, the more likely we are to have sugar which feeds the bacteria that causes issues. So, our diet is extremely important to how well we are able to maintain our teeth.
Why do people need dental x-rays and are x-rays safe?
Dental x-rays allow us to see in between the teeth where we cannot see with our eyes, and we cannot reach with our dental instruments to check for cavities. They also look underneath the gums and into the bone to see if there is infection. So, x-rays are an especially important and useful tool for dentists to figure out what problems are bothering our patients or to see a problem before it bothers the patient and deal with a problem before it becomes a big cavity or toothache. Dental x-rays are absolutely necessary. Are x-rays safe? The answer is yes, but it is always better to have less radiation than more radiation. In the dental community we have a saying that is “as low as is reasonable.” We always want to use as little radiation as we can. Digital x-rays have made a significant difference in how much radiation we expose patients to compared to even 15 years ago when film was much more prominent. Since I have owned Integrity Dental, we have never used film x-rays. That means that we expose at least half the radiation and, in many cases, one tenth the radiation of traditional film x-rays. But it is still always better to have less radiation, less x-rays, than more. We do take that very seriously. We are very careful with what we recommend, and I would say on average that is about once per year. Once a year we want to take a good look at the teeth for the checkup.
What causes gum disease and how can I prevent it?
Gum disease, just like tooth decay, is caused by bacteria in our mouths. The bacteria that cause gum disease are like vampires, they get little meals each time our gums bleed. So, if you have bleeding gums, often that can be an early warning sign that you have gum disease. Anybody can have gums bleed if you get in there and you scrub at it too hard with floss. That is not what I am talking about, I am talking about if you brush easily or floss gently and are noticing a lot of bleeding, you should get the checked out. That is a sign that you have too many bad bacteria. There are lots of things that we can do to help with that like high powered mouth rinses, but most importantly is your regular dental cleaning where we can clean off tarter that is stuck on your teeth that harbor or hold onto bacteria right along the gum line or underneath the gums that we can’t see. Gum disease happens when bacteria set up shop in our gums and they make the gums very tender or inflamed to the extent that they bleed easily. That makes it so that when you eat a meal or even brush your teeth, you are feeding that bacteria because they get a meal every time you bleed. Our goal is to get rid of as much of that bacteria as possible so that you have fewer causing your gums to bleed when you go through your normal everyday routine.
How can I get scheduled?
So, I hope this information has been useful and helpful for you to understand what is happening in our mouths, and how important cleaning your mouth is, both at home and at your regular dental cleanings at the office. Also, how important it is to get your exams and x-rays to check for gum disease and bone levels. I hope that you get some good tidbits on how to take better care of your teeth out of this talk and that if you notice any of the warning signs that we talked about you will give us a call at Integrity Dental so we can get you checked out and get you a cleaning. Our number is 719-545-2468. Gum disease will build up itself and could eventually lead to big problems. So, if we can help you get on top of that early, we want to! Early detection and prevention are so important in dentistry. Let us help you today!