Are you ready to suit up for sports? Mouthguards have been called the most important part of an athlete's uniform. Designed to absorb and distribute the forces of impact received while you participate in athletic activities, your mouthguard is a protective appliance that covers and cushions your teeth and gums to prevent and reduce injury to your teeth, jaws, lips and gums. A properly fitted protective mouthguard is comfortable, resilient, tear resistant, odorless, tasteless, not bulky, fits well, and has sufficient thickness where needed. If you wear it when engaging in contact sports it can prevent injury, pain, suffering and years of expensive dental treatment.

Here's why athletes need mouthguards:

1. Sports related dental injuries account for more than 600,000 emergency room visits each year. Mouthguards are recommended particularly for contact sports such as boxing, football, hockey and lacrosse.
2. An athlete is 60 times more likely to suffer harm to the teeth when not wearing a mouthguard. It is estimated that mouthguards prevent more than 200,000 injuries each year.
3. Properly fitted mouthguards protect the soft tissues of the lips, cheeks, gums and tongue by covering the sharp surfaces of the teeth that can cause lacerations on impact. They also reduce the potential for tooth injury, jaw damage or jaw joint fracture and displacement by cushioning against impact — absorbing and distributing the forces that can cause injury.
4. Custom-fitted mouthguards are made from exact and precise models of your teeth. They are effective, comfortable, easy to clean, and do not restrict breathing. The best mouthguard is custom designed to fit your mouth and made in our office after your athletic needs have been assessed. For a growing child or adolescent, a custom made mouthguard can provide space for growing teeth and jaws.
5. A mouthguard properly fitted in our office costs little in comparison to the cost of treatment after injury. If your teeth are knocked out and are not properly preserved or replanted you may face lifetime dental costs of as much as $10,000 to $20,000 per tooth.

The American Dental Association recommends the use of custom mouthguards in 27 sports/exercise activities. Make an appointment to consult with us to find out more about mouthguards. You can also read the Dear Doctor magazine article “Athletic Mouthguards: One of the most important parts of any uniform!”

How good of a job are you doing with brushing and flossing your teeth? This is an important question, because a healthy mouth depends on regularly removing dental plaque (a whitish, sticky film of bacteria that grows near your gumline and on the surfaces of your teeth).

Daily Plaque Removal
Most people need to brush and floss at least once a day to remove plaque. Twice a day may be ideal, as plaque forms every 12 to 24 hours on your teeth, and it will also make your mouth feel fresher. Be thorough but gentle with your teeth — excessive brushing or flossing can cause damage.

The use of an antibacterial mouthrinse to help reduce the plaque you may have missed as well as to reduce bacteria that are clinging to soft tissues or membranes in your mouth, should be included in your daily hygiene routine.

Tongue Test
When you run your tongue around your mouth after a professional dental cleaning, you sense a smooth, slippery feeling. This is the way your teeth should feel after you brush your own teeth every day. The tooth surfaces should feel smooth and slick throughout your mouth and at the gum line.

Floss Test
After running floss up and down a tooth surface, notice whether there is blood on the floss or whether the floss has an odor. If the floss squeaks when you run it up and down a tooth surface, that indicates that the tooth is squeaky clean.

Check for Bleeding
Bleeding gums are a sign of inflammation, called gingivitis, in the gum tissue. Healthy gums do not bleed. If you have recently begun using more effective brushing and flossing methods, your gums may bleed at first but then stop as your gums become healthier.

Use Disclosing Solutions
Disclosing solutions are harmless dyes that can stain plaque and make it visible. Rinsing with these solutions may surprise you by revealing the plaque on your teeth you had no idea you missed.

Visit Our Office
We can check your mouth and tell you how well you are doing in your program of daily plaque removal. As a bonus, we will give you a toothbrush so that while you're here we can check your technique to make sure you are brushing correctly.

Contact us today to schedule an appointment to discuss your questions about oral hygiene. You can also learn more by reading the Dear Doctor magazine article “Oral Hygiene Behavior.”

If you see blood when you brush or floss your teeth, it generally indicates a problem with your oral health. You may think you are brushing too hard, but this is not usually why gums bleed. The usual culprit is dental plaque.

Plaque is the sticky, whitish film of bacteria that forms on your teeth every day. If you brush regularly, you probably remove most of it — but some may remain behind and accumulate where your teeth meet your gums, particularly between your teeth. As the bacteria build up, along with by-products of their metabolism (the chemical reactions that maintain their lives), they cause inflammation, called gingivitis, in the adjacent gums.

Bleeding gums are an early symptom of gingivitis. Continuing contact with plaque at the gum line can cause your gum tissue to separate from nearby teeth, creating pockets in which the inflammation becomes even worse. The process leads to periodontal disease (“peri” – meaning around, “odont” – tooth). The increasing infection can eat away the bone that anchors the teeth, leading to possible tooth loss. Periodontal disease is not an uncommon problem. About 90% of the population has bleeding gums at some time or another, and approximately 10% go on to develop periodontal disease.

When you lose bone around your teeth, the gums separate from the tooth and “pockets” form between your teeth and gums. The inflammation and infection may continue within the pockets even if your gums have stopped bleeding when you brush. That's why it is important to have regular dental exams — to check up on and stop periodontal disease before it has a chance to cause serious damage.

There may also be other reasons for bleeding gums that have to do with your general state of health. Women who have elevated levels of hormones caused by birth control pills or pregnancy may experience an increased response to plaque that makes their gums bleed more easily. Increased bleeding in your gums can also be caused by some diseases or as a side effect of some medications.

The most important way to prevent bleeding gums is to learn proper brushing and flossing techniques so that you effectively remove plaque from your teeth on a daily basis. If you are not sure you are using the right techniques, make an appointment and have us demonstrate at your next dental visit.

With all the best intentions, some plaque may remain. Plaque that is allowed to stay on your teeth hardens into a substance called tartar or calculus. This must be removed periodically with a professional cleaning by me or by our hygienist.

With not too much effort, you can ensure that your teeth are clean and plaque free, and your healthy gums no longer bleed.

Contact us today to schedule an appointment to discuss your questions about bleeding gums. You can also learn more by reading the Dear Doctor magazine article “Bleeding Gums.”

Hearing the news that you need a root canal often causes anxiety for most people given all the bad press this procedure has received (e.g., “I'd rather have a root canal than...”). However, the truth is that root canal treatment relieves pain; it doesn't cause it. And it is typically highly successful. The real pain occurs for most people when decay is left untreated or the nerve in a tooth under a very large filling becomes infected and dies.

For these reasons, we have put together the following list of questions you should consider asking prior to having a root canal or endodontic (“endo” – inside: “dontic” – tooth) treatment.

• Am I a good candidate for root canal treatment?
• Does it hurt to have a root canal?
• What can I expect if I do not have a root canal treatment?
• Are there any other treatment options for me given my situation? If so, what are they?
• Do you do root canal treatment or should I see a specialist?
• How long will the entire process take from my first appointment until my root canal treatment has healed?
• Will the pain I am in immediately subside after a root canal or will it take some time?
• Will I need or receive any type of sedation while having the treatment?
• Are there any risks associated with root canal treatment? If so, what are they?
• How long can I expect my natural tooth to last after root canal treatment?
• What could happen to cause a root canal to require a second treatment?
• How much will my root canal cost?
• Will my insurance cover all or a portion of the cost?
• Will the tooth be as strong after root canal treatment, or will it need a crown?
• Will there be any special maintenance required on an ongoing basis after I have a root canal?

To learn more about root canals, continue reading the Dear Doctor article, “I'd Rather Have A Root Canal.” Or if you feel you may need a root canal or other dental procedure, contact us today to schedule a consultation.

If you are experiencing cracking in the corners of your mouth, you have a common condition called perleche or angular cheilitis. Perleche comes from a French word meaning “to lick,” because people tend to lick the irritated areas of their mouths. Angular cheilitis comes from cheil meaning “lip,” and itis meaning “inflammation.”

Sufferers from perleche are usually young children who drool in their sleep, young adults with braces, and older adults who have developed skin wrinkling with deep lines at the corners of their mouths. Perleche may become worse in the winter, when cold weather and dry air dries out the skin of your lips. You may lick your lips often to keep them moistened. This constant licking of the cracked areas can lead to infection, most commonly from a type of yeast called candida albicans. Sources of infection can also include dentures that are not cleaned frequently enough, missing teeth that cause facial changes and added skin wrinkling, and health conditions such as iron-deficiency anemia, vitamin B deficiency, diabetes and cancer.

Conditions associated with perleche can be treated in a number of ways. Yeast is a type of fungus, so to combat a chronic yeast infection you need antifungal medication. This may be taken orally or applied to the cracking places as an ointment. You may be asked to dissolve a medicated lozenge in your mouth and then swallow it, so that its medicine treats both the mouth surface and the entire body. Antifungal medications may be combined with other medications to lessen inflammation and assist skin repair.

If the skin-cracking is related to serious underlying conditions such as missing teeth, improperly fitting dentures, or systemic health conditions, these must be treated in order to keep the perleche from recurring. We can perform a dental assessment to check the health of your teeth, gums, and lips, and you may also want to visit a dermatologist to see if treatments can improve and rejuvenate the quality and appearance of your facial skin.

Contact us today to schedule an appointment to discuss your questions about cracks at the corners of your mouth. You can also learn more by reading the Dear Doctor magazine article “Cracked Corners of the Mouth.”