August 31st, 2011
Tooth decay is something to be avoided as best you can because the consequences can be difficult to deal with. Taking the time to improve the way you look after your teeth is a much more pleasant prospect than having to have fillings put in your mouth or, even worse, to deal with the fact that one of your teeth needs to be removed because it is failing.
That is the potential consequence of tooth decay that has gone too far: an extraction because of the failure of a tooth. It is the last resort for dentists and they will try and advise about how this can be avoided. The thing to remember when it comes to tooth decay is that it is ultimately caused by the substance known as plaque. While plaque cannot be avoided as such, it can be minimised and then effectively removed from the mouth.
Brushing and flossing are the best places to start of course. The process of brushing your teeth with a tooth brush and fluoride tooth paste rids the teeth of most of the plaque that builds up after eating and drinking. The failure to do this or do it properly, can leave plaque on the teeth, free to erode the layer of enamel and cause teeth to decay.
Even if you think you are brushing and flossing as well as you can do, your dentist might be able to spot signs of tooth decay. This is another great reason to go and visit your Central London dentist every six months or as directed. Tooth decay can then be effectively stopped in its tracks.
August 29th, 2011
Several decades ago it would have been inconceivable that any dentist would advise their patients about the potential benefits of chewing gum. For a long while, chewing gum was one of the enemies of healthy teeth because of the way it exposed those who chewed it to sugar for long periods of time, leaving their teeth at great risk of erosion from plaque. But that has all changed now and dentists are telling patients that chewing gum can be good for their teeth after all.
The biggest change that precipitated this was when chewing gum manufacturers started to remove sugar from their product. At this point, the benefits of chewing gum began to become apparent to all. The first thing to understand about chewing gum benefits is that the process of chewing chewing gum causes the mouth to produce extra saliva. This vital substance is not only crucial in the early digestion of food, it is also a natural defence against plaque.
The fact is that you might not always be in a situation where you can brush your teeth after a meal but you can always pop a lozenge of chewing gum in your mouth and give it a chew. It should be remembered that chewing gum is not an adequate substitute for tooth brushing and flossing but it will help in the short term.
Chewing gums moistens the mouth too so bad bacteria cannot survive there as easily. This, combined with the flavouring of chewing gum, allows breath to become freshened too, making social meetings flow more easily. Have a chat with your dentist in West London if you want to know about the benefits of chewing gum.
August 27th, 2011
Ankylosis is a not that well known dental condition that most people will never come across. It is basically a problem with the development of your teeth. The way that your teeth should develop is that once your baby teeth have gone, the ligaments and roots which were necessary to hold them in place ought to safely dissolve, clearing the way for your adult teeth to come through properly. If this doesn’t happen as it should, they can remain in the mouth and fuse with the jaw bone
The condition of ankylosis can also come about if one of the ligaments holding your teeth in place is not present for some reason. This might then lead the tooth to fuse with the jaw bone, rather than it simply being held in place by the root and the ligaments. An infection in the vicinity of a tooth which attacks the ligaments is a potential cause of this. An accident or a period of poor oral health can cause this.
Conflicting studies have yielded different results when it comes to the prevalence of ankylosis. The percentage of children thought to suffer from ankylosis varies in these findings from just three per cent to a rather larger thirty eight per cent. The problem here might be with the different methods of diagnosis that are available to dental professionals. Sometimes mere observation has been relied upon whereas x-rays can also be employed. Another method diagnosing ankylosis is to tap a tooth because the resulting noise will be audibly different to the noise when one taps a healthy tooth because of the presence or otherwise of the correct ligaments.
Your London W1 dentist will be an expert in ankylosis and should be consulted on these matters.
August 23rd, 2011
It is a common habit of young children to suck their thumb. This does not always happen only at night, sometimes young children do so during the day as well. It truly does become a habit and it can be very difficult to stop doing it. But it is necessary, as a parent to try and get your child away from thumb sucking by a certain age so that it does not have an adverse effect on the way their teeth develop.
Sucking your thumb night after night (or day after day) affects the way that your teeth are positioned. Essentially the commonest form of this is when the front teeth are pushed outwards by the frequent presence of the thumb. Having teeth which are misaligned in this way can have consequences for the oral health of the patient.
Not only do misaligned teeth not look as good as teeth which are straight and in line with one another, there can be other complications. The act of grinding one’s teeth during sleep is called bruxism and dentists have found a link between misaligned teeth and the condition. Bruxism itself can cause the erosion of tooth enamel, leading to tooth decay and also complications with the temporomandibular joint (usually shortened to the TMJ). Teeth which are too bunched up in one place can also lead to cavities because it is harder to clean them properly, ye t plaque can still affect them.
The consequences of all this may be that a young person has to wear a brace because of the effects of sucking their thumb. If you are looking for tips as to gently wean your child away from thumb sucking, your City of London dentist might be able to help, or you can consult a child care specialist in your area.
August 19th, 2011
You can’t just rely on the help and advice of your City of London dentist, you need to take excellent care of your teeth at home too. It is a big responsibility because you only get one set of natural teeth and one can easily take them for granted. The cornerstones of this desirable routine of excellent care of your teeth are brushing and flossing and below you can find some handy hints and tips about how to improve the way you are carrying them out.
Give your teeth a bit of attention at least twice a day. The best times are thought to be first thing in the morning and last thing at night too. Many people like to do so after some of their meals too, especially if they have eaten a significant amount of sugar or starch (the biggest culprits when it comes to plaque production). The only danger here is over-brushing which can damage the gums and wear away the enamel from your teeth.
Make sure that your tooth brush is comfortable to hold and manoeuvre and with a head that is not overly large; remember, it needs to fit into all the corners of your mouth. Replace your brush (or the head if you use an electric tooth brush) whenever the bristles start to fray. At this point your brushing will be less effective so you will need to sort it out.
Using a tooth paste that contains fluoride will help to strengthen the enamel on your teeth and guard against the dangerous incursions of plaque that causes cavities. Flossing is the final piece in the jigsaw because it will rid your mouth of plaque that is in the gaps between teeth.
August 18th, 2011
Recent television and billboard adverts for a certain brand of mouthwash have started to draw attention to the danger of gum disease, especially when it comes to the links it has with tooth loss. It is about time that the public took notice of this warning because too often the health of gums is sidelined by a focus on teeth that is well-meaning but misses out a crucial aspect of good oral hygiene.
The fact is that taking care of your gums is just as important as looking after your teeth and it is just as simple. The key to having healthy gums is to make sure that plaque is removed from the gum line of teeth. This is mostly achieved by the brushing that is routine for a great many people. But something that is missed out all too often is flossing. Plaque easily gets into the gaps between teeth, as well as sticking to the surfaces of teeth. This has to be removed with as much urgency as the plaque that is on the surfaces of teeth and yet the bristles of tooth brushes are not equipped to get there. Pulling dental floss through the gaps should take care of it.
The gum disease that is to be avoided starts off as gingivitis: a relatively benign condition that manifests itself as slightly reddened gums that are a little more sensitive to extremes in temperature. This condition can be easily cleared up with better brushing and flossing and sometimes the use of certain mouth washes or antibiotics.
Where gum disease can cause tooth loss is cases when periodontitis occurs. Here the inflammation spreads to the jaw bones and the painful, swollen gums start to recede dangerously. Get help from your London W1 dentist is the best advice when it comes to your gums.
August 17th, 2011
While you are sleeping, a lot is happening with your body. The positive is that you are recovering and resting, which is vital for you to be able to function the next day. Unfortunately, for some people, sleep is not always as smooth and trouble-free process as might be desirable. Snoring is a well known example of how sleep can be disrupted. Less well known is the condition known as sleep apnea. This article will explain how dentists can help with diagnosing it so you can deal with it properly.
Sleep apnea is what happens when the muscles at the back of your mouth relax too much during sleep. The immediate effect of this is that sufficient oxygen cannot get into your lungs and make its way to your brain. Sensitive to this (it’s part of what keeps humans and other creatures alive), the brain will send a signal to wake the body up so that more air can be taken in.
As a result of this, sufferers of sleep apnea will find that their sleep is very disruptive. What complicates things even further is that many sufferers don’t even know that they are waking up during the night as a result of sleep apnea. This can make it very hard to diagnose because patients might think they have had a good night asleep, only to find that they are severely fatigued during the day.
This is where the difficult effects that sleep apnea have on the lives of sufferers come in. Without the proper processes of recovery that sleep induces, people with sleep apnea can feel severely fatigued during their waking hours. Traffic accidents can ensue and accidents at work, not to mention the greater likelihood of heart attacks. With such close access to your mouth, your West London dentist can help diagnose sleep apnea by examining the rear of your mouth.
August 16th, 2011
A whole branch of dentistry is not well known by many people in the general public and yet it is a vital part of maintaining oral hygiene. It is called endodontics and it is concerned with the interior of teeth rather than the exterior. It is so important because it is the interior of your teeth that is the part that is effectively ‘alive’ and it needs to be taken care of. A very important procedure that forms part of endodontics is the procedures known as root canal treatment.
The inside of your teeth is called the pulp chamber. This is contrary to what many people believe of teeth: that they are solid. On the contrary, your teeth are actually hollow and inside the hollow is a mass of important material that is collectively known as ‘pulp’. This name doesn’t do justice to the complexity of the material that is housed there. Inside a tooth you will find nerves and blood vessels and they are vulnerable to infection if a patient suffers from an accident affecting the mouth or an infection gains access to the inside of the tooth.
In these cases, dentists will need to get access to the pulp chamber to remove the infected material. The obvious way might seem to drill through the teeth, but this is not a desirable way of doing it as the hole that would be created in the tooth would have to be filled. Instead, dentists in Central London and beyond prefer to enter the tooth through the root canal which is the area that the nerves and blood vessels can get into the tooth through. This is what constitutes root canal treatment.
August 15th, 2011
It is unfortunate when it happens, but teeth can get broken down in unforeseen circumstances. It might be the results of an accident, perhaps while playing a physical sport, or in some other way. The tooth that gets broken might be still functional, in which case the City of London dentist will not want to remove it. But it could be rather unsightly in the mouth, or even more exposed to things like cavity formation if the interior is exposed through the loss of a significant amount of enamel.
One solution to this is to get your dentist to cover it up with a porcelain crown. These handy devices improve the look of broken down teeth and also act as protection for the part of the tooth that is left over. Working with porcelain allows dentists to be precise and the results look great. Because porcelain is so adaptable, your dentist in the City of London will be able to make sure that the shade and even texture of the porcelain dental crown matches the surrounding teeth. Discretion is always the watchword when it comes to work like this.
New technology is also revolutionising the way that the fitting of porcelain dental crowns can be carried out. This is good news for patients who no longer have to wait a long time for their porcelain crowns and undergo repeated visits to the surgery. Digital x-rays have a big part to play in this. In order to properly fit the porcelain dental crown, dentists need to accurately assess the shape of the remainder of the tooth that will be worked with. Using digital x-rays allows the dentist to get three dimensional data, without having to wait for an x-ray from a lab.
In the aftermath of having one of your teeth extracted, there will be a degree of pain. This is to be expected and is an unavoidable consequence of the process. For some people (as many as one in twenty cases of extraction) the pain won’t go away and is particularly severe. This might be the result of a condition called dry socket where the recovery of the site of a tooth extraction does not proceed as it ought to.
