Healthy Foods That Make Teeth Rot

Candy is bad for your teeth. Well, that’s a no-brainer! Even 3-year-olds know that. But my patients are always caught off guard when I tell them that certain healthy foods are just as unkind to your chompers and can cause your teeth to rot. So grab a toothbrush and hear me out.

Fruit Juice

The Trouble: OJ, grapefruit, pineapple and other fruit juices are packed with sugar. Even though it’s the natural kind that’s better for the rest of your body, the decay-causing bacteria in your mouth like it just as much as any other type of sugar. They gobble it up and multiply in droves. Plus, fruit juices contain a lot of acid, and acid from any kind of food or drink — even nutritious ones — erodes tooth enamel.

The Fix: Chances are you drink these juices mostly in the morning. Brush and floss after breakfast, rather than before, and problem solved. If you happen to have a glass later in the day and don’t have your toothbrush handy, swish water around in your mouth to neutralize the acid.

Dried Fruit

The Trouble: Sure, raisins, currants, and other dried fruit supply your body with cancer-fighting antioxidants. But the bacteria in your mouth see a sugar feast. One small 1 1/2-ounce box of raisins contains 25 grams of sugar — as much as a slice of pie topped with ice cream! Making matters worse, dried fruit is super-sticky, just like gummy bears and jelly beans, so it often gets caught in between your teeth.

The Fix: You don’t need to give up dried fruit since it’s healthy for the rest of you. But after you eat it, brush and floss your teeth.

Chips and Pretzels

The Trouble: The bacteria in your mouth that love sugar also adore starches like potatoes, pretzels, white bread and white rice. These foods turn into a gluey paste that clings to your teeth. Bacteria prefer these kinds of starches, because they’re broken down much faster than whole grains, like whole-wheat bread and brown rice.

The Fix: Switch to whole grains — they’re better for your body as well as your mouth. Try whole-grain crackers with cheese, or whole-grain pretzels with peanut butter. You can even start by pairing one slice of white bread and one slice of whole wheat on a sandwich to get used to the taste. In the meantime, brush your teeth after a starchy meal or snack.

Flossing Your Kid’s Teeth – Just 3 Simple Steps

I have talked a lot about the importance of good oral hygiene and starting healthy habits with your kids at a young age. Hopefully you now know the importance of kids starting their daily routines at a young age. This includes not only tooth brushing but also flossing.

Flossing is a step that a lot of parents neglect because they don’t understand the importance or it feel like too much work. However, you should start flossing your kids teeth between 2 and 3 years of age. They will need your help for a few years but don’t even be surprised if they are 8 years old when they can finally floss without any assistance.

Why floss you ask? Flossing is very important for several reasons. First of all it removes plaque that builds up between your child’s teeth and secondly it removes plaque from the gum line. Neither of which a tooth brush will typically be able to reach.

Flossing should be done at least one time per day and shouldn’t take much longer than a couple of minutes. If you have detailed questions about what to do, consult your child’s dentist.

A few little tips that may make flossing more exciting for young children is to find flavored or colored floss and let them pick out their favorite. This will help them be anxious to use their floss.

3 Simple Steps:

1. Use approximately an 18 inch strand of floss
2. Let them wrap their floss around their middle fingers on both hands
3. Gently guide the floss in between each tooth moving it around the tooth and on under the gum line on each side

This is also a great time to make sure Mom and Dad get their daily flossing in! As always, we teach best by setting an example. Make a few minutes at the end of your day to floss with your children for happier, healthier smiles!

Good Dental Habits Today Create a Lifetime of Healthy Teeth

Habits are behavioral patterns that we repeat over and over again. Unfortunately, we’re often not aware of the specific behavior we are repeating. This goes for our kids as well. Four of the most common habits children develop are the following:

1. nail biting
2. thumb sucking
3. hair twirling
4. nose picking

As a parent, it is your responsibility to help teach your children good habits that are healthy when they are young. This helps them turn good choices into a way of life. We all remember the old adage “do what I say, not what I do”. Well, we all know that doesn’t work with kids. They need to see that you are doing what you are asking them to do. Be sure you are demonstrating good dental habits to your kids first and foremost.

Let’s talk about good dental hygiene habits for kids. Now that school is back in session and summer has come to an end, children are getting back into more structured daily routines. This is a great time to get your child started on a daily schedule of brushing and flossing their teeth. If their routine has been relaxed over the summer, it’s time for more consistency. Brushing at least twice a day and flossing once a day is very important for healthy teeth. Encourage your kids to be responsible when it comes to brushing and flossing the older they get.

Another important habit to form is to get them on a routine cleaning schedule at your dentist every six months as recommended. This will help them understand the importance of caring for their teeth at a young age.

There are so many things to do at the end of the day but don’t let brushing and flossing your kid’s teeth fall through the cracks!

Is it Too Young to Remove Wisdom Teeth at Age 13?

Not really, says T. Bob Davis, a dental surgeon and the spokesman for the Academy of General Dentistry. Wisdom teeth normally don’t break through the gums until about the ages of 17 to 25, but your dentist will likely start assessing your child when she’s 13. And if it seems likely that the wisdom teeth – or third molars, as they are clinically called – will crowd other teeth or cause problems (dentists can predict this using dental X-rays), the sooner they are extracted, the better for your child’s oral health, says Davis.

“It’s easier on both dentists and patients to remove the teeth when the roots are still soft and not fully formed, and younger people heal better,” adds Davis. (He likes to remove the lower set of wisdom teeth in one procedure, at age 14 or 15, followed by the upper set in a separate procedure the following year.) “There’s no point in making a child wait — it just gets harder as the roots calcify.”

But as common as the procedure is, Davis warns that two things are likely to be different for your child than they were when you were a teen:

• Don’t expect general anesthesia. Patients who have general anesthesia – as opposed to sedation and local anesthesia – heal more slowly. What’s more, a recent study found that patients who are given general anesthesia are more likely to develop infections – and that their infections are more severe – than those who are given local anesthesia.
• Don’t expect a “knockout” pain medication. These days, dentists are less likely to prescribe heavy-duty pain pills. Painkillers such as Vicodin are among the most abused drugs, “and it’s better not to introduce it to kids who are in their teens,” he says, “especially since we now know we can manage pain so much more effectively, alternating ibuprofen (even before the procedure) with less addictive types of painkillers.” But each case is different. If you’re concerned your child is not getting enough pain relief (or worried that it’s too much), talk to your dentist.

Is Endodontics Right for Your Child…Do Root Canals & Kids Mix?

When a child feels pain in a tooth at random for no reason, has hot or cold sensitivity or breaks their tooth and exposes what we call the pulp, he or she may need endodontic treatment. Endontic treatment consists of several types of procedures. They are classified in two groups: vital pulp therapy (where the tooth can be saved) and non vital pulp therapy ie. a root canal (where the tooth is essentially considered “dead”).

Endodontics are necessary when the pulp and nerve of the tooth are affected by decay or some sort of damage. The pulp of your tooth not only houses the nerve, it also contains blood vessels that supply your tooth with nutrients and oxygen it needs to stay healthy.  Endodontic treatment is performed essentially to save the tooth.

Endodontic treatment can be done on both baby and permanent teeth. It can be performed by any trained dentist general or specialist but be discriminating. Parents often think that because baby teeth fall out eventually that it’s not important to perform these types of procedures on them. Contrary to that belief, baby teeth have several crucial functions. They hold spaces for permanent teeth and are also very important for chewing and speaking.

Because there are several types of pulp therapies (described above), you should consult your dentist to ensure this type of treatment is right for your child. The other option you have is to get your child’s tooth extracted. There are several things to consider when you are weighing these two options: which tooth is affect, approximately how long until it falls out on its own, how damaged it is and whether or not gum or bone have been affected.

Another factor to consider is whether or not your child has any serious medical conditions. In these cases, infection can be more serious. If the tooth is infected there is the possibility that the surrounding bone and gum tissue could also develop an infection after endodontic therapy.

Finally, we want to assure you that some soreness is normal after endodontic therapy and should be manageable with over the counter pain relievers that are safe for children.

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