Your Fad Diet May Be Ruining Your Teeth

Every week, there’s seems to always be a new diet to try out, especially since we find it hard to stay on one for long. That’s why we call them diets! Today I want to talk about how different diets we all may or may not have gone through affect our oral health. There are 3 different diets I want to take note of and show you that even though they may seem healthy at first glance, they are still unhealthy diets for your teeth.

Raw Food Diet

Let’s start with the raw foods – fruits, nuts and seeds. They all seem very healthy, in fact you’re supposed to have 2 cups of fruit per day. However, your oral health can really take a hit if this is all that you are eating.

Despite being all natural, most fruits have the same amount of sugar that is found in a chocolate bar or any other sweet candies. Fruits also have a tendency to get stuck in between our teeth, such as a skin of an apple. Not only is the skin stuck and a pain to take out without picking your teeth in front of everyone, leaving it stuck for long only allows bacteria inside of your mouth to find another breeding ground and multiply.

Nuts and seeds are a different story. Each time you crack open a sunflower seed or take a bite into an almond, you’re applying unnecessary pressure onto your teeth, causing them to sometimes loosen or weaken. Eating nuts and seeds alone can degenerate your teeth to the point where anytime you bite into something the wrong way, you may end up losing a tooth. That’s not good. While this diet seems like a healthy one, it sure can lead to lots of tooth pain.

No Carb Diet

If you’ve looked to gain muscle fast while losing weight, you’ve probably have been on a 5:2 diet, a ratio of protein to carbs you consume. Now while the results vary and I can’t tell whether you’ve got the body you wanted or not, I can tell you that this diet is very bad for your breath. See, when the body is on this diet, its breaking down fat, which is what you want. However, the aftermath is a state of ketosis which is the cause of smelly breath. One of the downsides of this diet is that there is no fighting bad breath with any amount of brushing or flossing. Think twice before you cut carbs out of your diet.

Scheduled Meals and Food Plans

If you’re on a food diet plan such as Weight Watchers, you may be eating some very tasty food with low calories, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t bad for your teeth. In fact, because it has little calories, most meals like these make up for that with high volumes of artificial sugar in order to make your food taste delicious. The extra sugar that they put in their meals is what can be very damaging to your teeth. Since there’s such a high sugar content, you may experience levels of tooth decay while on this diet, especially if you signed up for snacks between your square meals.

What I Suggest

It isn’t much, but the best thing that you can do for the sake of your teeth’s health when preparing a food diet is to make your food from scratch. Fresh food daily from the market and a balanced meal is definitely the best thing you can do. This way you can control how much sugar is in your food, how much of it is actually good for your body, and eat things you know are good for your teeth. Do you have a diet plan you’d like to share that is good for your teeth’s health? Share it below, I want to know!

The Greatest and Most Interesting Facts About Our Teeth

We’ve grown up learning how to take care of our teeth from a very early age. It starts with brushing and flossing, and learning that our teeth will hurt if we use them for anything besides chewing up our food. This seems real simple doesn’t it?

Yet there is more things to learn about our teeth than these very basic truths. Teeth may seem to be very mundane, but they have a lot of cool secrets as well! In fact, many of us
have a lot to learn about teeth, and it starts right here! Check out these very cool and interesting facts you did not know about your teeth!

Our Teeth’s Best Friend is not Our Toothbrushes

Sorry toothbrushes, while you may be a favorite of our teeth, they don’t need you as much they need the power of saliva! Yes, saliva helps rinse the mouth and neutralizes any growing bacteria and plaque that is eating at the enamel of your teeth. Without saliva, the hundreds of millions of bacteria in your mouth would no longer be dormant and could lead to health risks that extend further than your teeth.

People who have dry mouth or feel dehydrated most times have insufficient saliva levels. If you have dry mouth issues, it’s recommended to keep a bottle of water with you handy, or have sugar-free mints that may act as a catalyst for saliva production. Our teeth need saliva to stay healthy, so we need to make sure our good friend saliva is always around.

Teeth can Indicate Changes in the Environment

Your teeth aren’t weather channels, so how exactly do they record what happens in the environment? Simple.

A study by Norwegian scientists has led them to pursue and collect deciduous, or milk teeth from growing toddlers and kids to study
the changes in the environment. These temporary teeth allow the scientists to learn how the environment’s makeup affects the child’s health and pollutants are affecting the future generations.

As of 2013, there’s a bank in the University of Bergen that houses over 17,000 teeth, all out of reach of the tooth fairy.

Caffeine is Terrible for Your Teeth

We’ve been told as kids that drinking soda excessively can lead to rotten teeth, and a shorter lifespan. While both are true, the idea that caffeine is only in soda is misleading. There is as much caffeine in a tall Starbucks coffee as there is in a carbonated soda can.

People who drink 3 or more cups of coffee or soda on a daily basis have a 62% higher chance of tooth decay and eventual tooth loss. If your goal is to keep your teeth throughout your lifetime, ditch the sodas and coffees and pick up a nice pure bottle of water.

Flossing is Just as Important as Ever

In recent studies, the ADA gave a report about flossing and how daily flossing is not vital to having a nice healthy set of chompers. However, you decide what you do with flossing by the following fact.

Brushing your teeth alone only cleans 60% of your teeth, the back and the front. If you want to get a thorough cleaning in between your teeth, you must resort to flossing. You don’t have to use traditional dental floss, there are other easier and just as effective methods such as waterpiks, But if you want to have 100% clean teeth, floss.


We Don’t Brush Our Teeth Much at All

Here’s the thing, most of probably don’t brush our teeth for the full two minutes that is recommended by all the medical personnel we’ve ever come across. It’s a problem because the average time people take to brush their teeth every time is between 45 and 70 seconds.

The average life expectancy of a person in the United States is said to be 75. Say a person who lived that long brushed their teeth 2 times every day 2 minutes each time. They’d spend close to 76 days brushing their teeth, which doesn’t seem like a lot. However, if we took the actual time we spend brushing our teeth, we’re only spending about 38.5 days in our lives doing so. That’s over a month difference in time between what we spend brushing our teeth and what we should be spending. A month’s worth of time not taking care of our teeth can surely mean the difference between healthy teeth later in life and not having teeth at all.

More Interesting Facts About Our Teeth

I broke down above some of the most interesting facts about our teeth you most likely did not think about until now. However I am not done yet! Here are some more facts that don’t have much to go into detail about, but are just as intriguing.

According to a survey taken by Time Magazine, 59% of participants would rather be at a dentist appointment than sit next to someone talking on their cell phone. What would you do?

73% of all Americans would rather pick up groceries from the market than spend even less time flossing their teeth. I’d personally take the time to floss the nasty gunk out of my teeth so I could enjoy the food I’m buying a little more.

Our teeth are just as unique as our fingerprints, which makes each and every person more unique than ever!

The enamel that coats our teeth is the hardest substance produced by our body. However, it’s unlike any other bone in our body, and will not grow or rebuild itself. Take care of your enamel and keep your teeth protected!

The average woman in the United States smiles an average of 62 times a day. Men? They only smile an average of 8 times a day. Poor dental hygiene is a direct cause of not smiling.

Sports are the primary reason 5 million teeth go missing every year. While mouth guards are an effective solution to prevent this from happening, there is an also a way to restore missing teeth by getting dental implants.

It's Your Turn!

Do you have any interesting facts about teeth not listed here that you would like to share? Leave a comment below! 

$399 implants... Real or Bait?

Recently we were asked a very unique question that we would personally like to share with you guys. Why do dentist charge so much money for implants if someone else is offering them for $399? Well you guys the question is are they really $399?

Everywhere we go we see advertisements on the freeway that say “Get your $399 implants here!” next to the other countless false advertisements such as “lose ten pounds today!” But are any of these advertisements on true terms? Many question, “are these implants really $399?” One must wonder how they can be so generous to offer a complex procedure for more than a fraction of the price, when compared to other dental offices that offer them as well. So how do they get to offer such low prices? I want to believe that the bigger question is why? What else would we be paying for? The billboard states that it is a free consultation and a free x-ray, but how can company afford to provide so much for such little cost?

I went ahead and researched the type of implant the dental office states they use, and it's no wonder why they can charge so little for the implants themselves, but what they don't post on that giant red billboard is the actual pricing for the rest of the procedure. Too many patients and those who don't restore teeth for a living you'd think you’d be paying for the whole porcelain tooth itself. The implants that are used are low quality which would explain the very low price right? The bigger question is what are they made of? Many implants are made up of a titanium alloy ‘which they should be’ as titanium is the only medal that can properly be molded with your bone. What you don't know is that you are only paying for the implant. So when you get to get to actually think about it you start to question yourself such as “Does this place really expect me to walk around with just a titanium screw sticking out? What about the rest of the procedure?”So why post a giant billboard and waste thousands of dollars if you're just going to lie about the price of the procedure?

I have the most simple solution for you ladies and gents, most “high-end” dental offices tend to use this method as bait, and I'm not going to lie, this method is usually very effective. There have been many who have used this technique such as the majority of big successful businesses and or private practices. This doesn't mean that cheap isn't good. It just means that sometimes the full price isn't being shown or the material being used is an imitation of the real thing. I'm not going to be that person and pretend that i have all the money in the world because i don’t, but my teeth like anything else in my body, deserve the most proper care i can give it, would you let someone put a semi real implant in your head or foot? If not then why would you let anyone attempt to put anything less the genuine solution you were looking for in your mouth?

What about the quality of the implant? I have searched up many reviews of this MIS seven implant that is used in this major dental office, but not that many dentist were very eager to post a good review. Many of the dentist that use these implants say that they work great on just one implant and the problems begin to stir when adding multiple implants at the same time. Now shouldn't doing a simple procedure be done at ease? A Lot of people have stated that they had to learn different and more complicated ways of adding on implants just so they all fit and heal properly. Many others such as Kaz have stated that “yes they are great, but if you are impressing multiple implants at the same time it does not work well.” this implant has been said to be better than other inexpensive competitors but not as great as Paltop or Straumann implants. The Paltop and Straumann or the most universal type of implant there is. And yes their is about a $200 difference but wouldn't you rather have the best of the best when it comes to dental implants? Many years ago the MIS seven had a huge problem with the surface treatment and they do lack quite a lot when it comes to the prosthetic area. Again do these $399 implants still sound very convincing?

To be very fair everyone should know a traditional implant consists of three parts: the implant, the abutment, and the crown. That being said the procedure does usually last about 3 - 6 months on average. When you pay for your $399 implant that's all you will be receiving, compared to many dental offices that have all three parts already included within the price. Think about it you are going to pay $399 for the implant and about $1,100 for the abutment and crown. Rounding that out that comes to about $1,500 for just those three pieces. Many on yelp have also stated that if you don't have the correct insurance as well you will be charged about $900 for just x-rays, How funny huh? They tried to convince you that you were making the right choice. As i said earlier this bait method is very effective. So why bait you in? What these offices tend to do is make you feel as if you need them more than they need you. But if they didn't need you why would they have baited you in?

So why? Many of these consumers tend catch the eye of the public with all these false advertisements as if we were all fish in the sea. As they stand there with their fishing rods waiting for the next bite, while they try to reel us in, we tend to have very little resistance. So why do we allow ourselves to charged a little too much? The real answer is we don’t, We don't agree in walking into a dental office and assume that we will pay only $399 and then leave the office with a bill of $1,500 plus a couple hundred for x-rays. Does this mean that mean that we should look away from any low prices out there? No it doesn’t, what this means is that we should ask more questions such as: “why is the price $399?”, “is it for the full procedure?”, “What additional costs are there?”, “are the x-rays really free?” “what insurances do you accept?” ect. It’s time to look a little further and research honest dentist, whom have had the experience with the proper schooling and with a humble practice.

To conclude $399 dental implants aren’t actually $399. We have been hoaxed by money hungry consumers who will convince you into thinking that there is such a thing as the very inexpensive price and great service. Remember to ask plenty of questions, and let them tell you the type of implant you will be getting. There are many amazing doctors out there willing to do implants for a very reasonable price and remember ladies and gents just a couple of

Spookiest Diseases You Did Not Know About The Dental World

If you read in our last post we decided to write about some of the causes of tooth loss and if untreated they can cause diseases in your mouth, but did you know that some if some diseases are left untreated they can become fatal? For today's Halloween edition article we're going to let you in a little side of the dental world that millions of people are suffering from worldwide!

One of the very serious diseases in the dental world is nothing more than Dental Abscess. Doesn't sound so scary huh? Well first let me tell you what dental abscess is. Dental Abscess an infection inside your tooth or gums. Dental abscess doesn't seem like anything but a mild toothache at first, but as the infection begins to grow the pain becomes more and more severe. The pain can be a throbbing or shooting sensation in the gums and the area with the infection can swell up and turn red, and in more drastic cases the infection can spread into the bones and tissues which can cause swelling in the face and lymph glands of the neck. Pain will then start to spread onto the side of the face near the toothache. If this extreme abscess continues to go untreated it can spread internally into your tissues and muscles. As the infection continues to spread the infection continues grow more vastly. A condition called Ludwig's Angina begins to grow on the floor of your mouth. Ludwig's Angina often obstructs the necessary airways. Other symptoms of Ludwig's Angina are: Difficulty in swallowing, drooling, unusual speech swelling of the tongue fever, neck pain swelling in the neck, and also redness in the neck. A little fun fact you guys may not know is that Angina is originally from the Greek origin ankhone which stood for strangling! sound pretty scary now?  After the infection hits the floor of your mouth your face neck and head become infected as well. Depending on how extreme the infection my be it can become fatal. In 1948 Hugo Boss died from a tooth abscess left untreated. Since then 2 People have died of a tooth abscess, One was a male age 12 and the other was also a male age 24. Both had many extensive treatments but by then it was too late...

Another Very serious disease that can be potentially fatal is Periodontal Gum Disease. Periodontal gum disease or 'Periodontitis' is serious gum infection that damages the soft tissues and destroys the bone that supports your teeth. This type of infection can increase your risk of a heart attack and or stroke. The main cause of periodontitis is a result of gingivitis left untreated. This begins to look like an inflammation and infection around the tooth. As infection begins to grow it can lead to tooth loss and potentially damage the bone structure in your mouth. Once your gums have become infected your gums begin pulling away from the tooth and as the space between your teeth and gum gets bigger the more bacteria begins to grow underneath your gums. This means that your bone structure in your mouth is a high risk of receding. Some symptoms of periodontitis are : sensitive teeth, bleeding in the gums, swelling in the gums, loose teeth, and very painful chewing. Many times the result of these symptoms may be because of smoking, hormonal changes, or a byproduct of other severe diseases such as diabetes or even HIV!

Have you brushed your teeth yet? No? Well then lets keep reading shall we? One of the more advanced diseases that can infect your mouth is called Edentulism. Edentulism is a condition of being toothless or at least at some degree. This disease affects approximately 158,000,000 People worldwide! Remember when one loses a tooth it is very problematic and should be replaced right away! As i said in my previous articles dentures are the least expensive solution to tooth loss but is also one of the most expensive procedures in the long run. Teeth have a lot to do with your daily functions such as chewing food, maintaining your speech, and supporting your facial structure. Your teeth also allow you to break your food down into a manner to where it is digestible as well. One possible side effect can be malnutrition, which can lead to a more severe domino effect! Weight loss, constipation, arthritis have been known to occur in more extreme cases. This condition when most severe has been linked to Parkinson's disease, heart problems, and even cancer!

What are the major causes of tooth loss?

There are many reasons to why many people get dental implants, but no one ever wants to talk about the main causes of tooth decay and loss. Today's subject is to bring awareness to you guys about the severity of oral hygiene. So why oral hygiene? Why is it so important to keep our pearly whites well taken care of? You see folks when your teeth aren't well taken care of neither is your body or health. In today's article I'm going to explain the importance of oral hygiene and the major causes of tooth decay and loss.

As we all know the biggest cause of tooth decay and loss is bad oral hygiene, and yes we've all heard this a billion times, we need to brush twice a day and floss daily as well. But we all have very good reasons to nag our patients . When we choose to only brush once a day bacteria tends to build up and creep into the small crevices of our gums and teeth. This is especially important when oral hygiene is the major cause of tooth decay and loss. For those who only brush once a day, 'and i hope that that's at least in the morning', plaque will begin to accumulate and cause cavities in your teeth by demineralising the tooth enamel. As the plaque begins to build diseases begin to commence such as periodontal disease. As the disease begins to grow it starts destroying the supporting tissues such as ligaments and bones, which can lead to mass tooth loss.

Another cause of tooth loss is irregular check ups. I know what you're probably thinking "But i hate the dentist!", and yes aren't we all afraid from all the scary noises? But in reality do we really feel them? The biggest reason why i was afraid of the dentist as a child was because of the grinding noises of the equipment. But as i grew older i was able to sit in the dental chair with my CD player and my bulky headphones listening to Guns n Roses, it was the best decision i ever made. My dentist then noticed what he was able to do for kids to keep their minds off the noise. Like i said revolutionary! But back to reality regular check ups help prevent many types of diseases. There are many  preventive measures we take when you come in such as getting your teeth cleaned and having an extensive examination on your teeth in order for us to make sure that we do everything we can to keep your teeth happy and healthy.

 Referencing back to the causes of tooth decay and loss another cause of it is poor nutrition intake. Yes, that does mean that eating chicken fingers and scarfing down hot fudge sundaes daily can cause major havoc on your beautiful teeth. No my dental friends, that doesn't mean you cant have a treat now and then but eating this stuff daily can create cavities, weaken the bone structure around your teeth and then poof! you have one less tooth to smile with. I promise that I'm not only saying this because i want to scare you. I'm saying this because i need you to know, that maintaining a beautiful smile takes effort and and a lot of care. A healthy nutritional intake is probably one of the easiest ways to take care of your teeth and especially internally. When good nutrients is in your body it makes your bones healthy and strong. Strong bones mean stronger teeth and a longer lasting smile with your natural teeth.

What a lot of people don't know is that one of the highest ranking reasons why people lose their teeth is due to trauma. That can go in many different ways such as an accident and having a tooth broken and not fixing it in time , or having oral surgery and not taking the preventative care in  maintaining a good oral hygiene post op. Even if the tooth does not fall off it can cause root fracture and can cause an infection that can develop over months or even years. Once the infection reaches the root it can cause severe pain and can also cause the tooth to fall off. I  don't know about you guys but that just seems like something that is completely preventable.

Perks of Google Calendar!

Yes dental friends, I understand that this doesn't pertain to 'dental implants' but, Google calendar is one of the most efficient ways to keep track of all the appointments you set for your clients throughout the day, week, month, and or even year!
 
Google Calendar helps you sort out your personal schedule and your work schedule at the same time. This calendar even helps set appointments from different locations and can even be connected through an application on your phone. All you need to do is simply make a google account and vuala! you can now have a successful calendar for a small business, or a very busy lifestyle! This cool calendar can even be color coded from person to person so you know who is who.

To add a certain person all you need is their google email and just simply add it in other calendars and the calendar will simply send a request to that person. So if i wanted to set an appointment for Stacy my calendar will automatically add it to her calendar and say that i have set it for her 'i.e a meeting'. This type of appointment stetting can easily be edited from person to person (just in case if someone needs to reschedule). You can also set holidays to show on your calendar and even set a different color so you can differentiate which days are special events versus the regular week day. That also goes to other calendars for other people. So lets say Stacy loves the color blue, she will make her name show up as blue in our adjoined calendars so we know when she has a meeting or is free.

Another advantage to google calendar is you can always remove and or add the schedules just by clicking on their name. For instance if my colleague Rob and i have set our personal calendars to link all i have to do is click his name and that's it! I have my personal calendar all to myself  again.  I hope you guys enjoy the video i have posted for you guys! Any questions or comments please leave them below!!!!!!

Types Of Implants

We all have read about dental implants and how amazing they are but did you know that an implant has two different sizes? Yes, you read that right! there is two sizes when it comes to getting an implant. Today we will compare and contrast these types of very similar implants. There is what dentist call a traditional sized implant and there is a mini sized implant. A traditional sized implant is about 4 - 5 mm. A mini implant is usually 3mm. there are multiple reasons to why receiving mini implants have great advantages compared a traditional.

Although we know that a traditional implants may have a lot of advantages we also know that the average healing time for the traditional implant is about 3 - 6 months depending on the patient. The reason for the long healing time in traditional implants is due to the fact that it is a bigger incision compared to the mini implant. For the traditional implant we need to drill deeper into the jaw bone in order for it to sit correctly. Also most of the time patients who prefer to have traditional implant placed need to get bone graphing placed beforehand.And yes, that may sound scary, but remember the titanium becomes one with the bone and therefore the jawbone is as strong as it ever was! But what functions differently between a mini implant compared to a traditional implant?

Many people resort to Mini dental implants because many elderly patients do not have enough bone density needed to place a traditional implant. And yes, there is always bone grafting but with someone who is older, there are many health issues that can get in the way with an even more extensive surgery. Another advantage with a mini implant is the healing process. The healing process takes about 3 - 8 weeks, and when compared to a traditional implant process that is a huge difference. This type of healing process helps many patients who want a temporary and or faster solution since the healing process is a lot more quickly. We have yet seen the longevity of the mini implants since they are fairly new in the dental world.

As we all know dental implants began in 600 AD by the Mayan civilization and were brought back known as modern implants in 1965. Mini implants were not approved by the FDA until after 1999. What that means is that we have less time seeing the success rate of mini implants when compared to modern implants, 34 years to be exact!!

 Another advantage to mini implants is that they are a fraction of the cost compared to traditional implants.Since the mini implants are just as durable as traditional implants they have an even better cautionary tale vs traditional implants. Both types of implants look extremely similar when the process is over and healed. The crowns look exactly the same and feel the same. The only difference between these processes is that the mini implant doesn't have the same amount of steps as the traditional does. The mini implant does not need an abutment so therefore they don't need to take an extra step in doing so. The mini has a small ball at the end of it, resulting the new tooth can be secured in place without the third piece.

That concludes today's article. Question, What would you prefer a traditional implant or a mini implant?