Invisalign

OUR TEETH ARE meant to fit together in a specific way. That’s how we chew our food effectively and pronounce our words clearly. When someone’s upper and lower teeth don’t fit together well, that’s a malocclusion or “bad bite.” Malocclusions can cause jaw problems, contribute to speech impediments, make teeth more likely to break, and even make digestion less efficient.

Bad Bite Causes and Types

Malocclusions can happen due to genetics, but they are often the result of bad oral habits in childhood, like thumbsucking, lip sucking, tongue thrusting, nail biting, teeth clenching, and mouth breathing. Orthodontic treatment can correct malocclusions, such as:

1. Excessive overbite: the upper teeth overlap or overjet the lower teeth by too much for a healthy bite.
2. Deep bite: such a severe overbite that the upper front teeth completely overlap the lower front teeth, which may even drive into the gums behind the upper teeth, risking injury to the gum tissue.
3. Open bite: sometimes the result of a tongue thrust habit or aggressive thumbsucking in the preschool years and beyond. The upper front teeth flare out, leaving a gap between them and their lower counterparts when biting down.
4. Crossbite: when the jaw is closed, some upper teeth are on the outside and some lower teeth are on the outside.
5. Underbite: when the jaw is closed, the lower teeth jut out in front of the upper teeth.

Top image used under CC0 Public Domain license. Image cropped and modified from original.

The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.

CAN YOU BELIEVE HALLOWEEN is coming up so soon? It’s always a fun time of year, with the spooky movies, the decorations, the costumes, and the tasty treats. We’re not here to drop toothbrushes in anyone’s candy buckets, but we do want to offer some tips on making Halloween as healthy for our patients’ teeth — and as safe for their braces — as possible.

The Worst Halloween Candy for Teeth and Braces

Hard, sour, and sticky candies are definitely in the bad category, even for those without braces. It takes time for hard candy to dissolve, which means an extended sugar bath for the teeth, and they can easily pop a bracket loose. Sticky candy adheres to our teeth and gums, which brings all that sugar directly to the harmful bacteria. Sour candy is acidic as well as sugary, making it doubly harmful.

Better Treats for Dental and Orthodontic Health

So what’s the good news after all that? Chocolate! It contains compounds like flavonoids and polyphenols, which limit oral bacteria, slow tooth decay, and fight bad breath. However, the more sugar there is in it, the more it cancels out the good effects, which is why dentists prefer dark chocolate. No nuts, though! Those can snag a bracket.

The best candy for teeth is anything sweetened with xylitol instead of sugar. This sugar-free sweetener is not only inedible to harmful bacteria, it even hurts them! The only problem is that there aren’t many xylitol candy options besides sugar-free gum in most candy bowls, and gum is on the banned foods list too. Hopefully we’ll see xylitol in more braces-friendly types of candy before long!

Other candies that are safe to eat with braces and not terrible for your teeth include mint patties, peanut butter cups, and nut-free chocolate bars. These are soft and not too sticky, so you can safely bite into them without risking a bracket.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-Bj__lu2GU

Minimizing Sugar’s Effects on Your Teeth

If you have a sweet tooth that won’t be denied, there are other ways to fight back against the effect sugar has on teeth, such as:

• Keep the candy consumption to mealtimes. Snacking on it between meals gives oral bacteria an all-day sugar buffet, but only eating it at mealtimes gives your saliva a chance to wash away traces of sugar and neutralize your oral pH.
• Follow the candy with a drink of water. That will rinse off some of the sugar.
• Don’t slack on brushing and flossing! These daily habits are essential to keep sugar from doing lasting harm to tooth enamel.

Make Use of Your Dental Health Professionals

Another resource you have for keeping your teeth healthy even with all the candy Halloween brings is the dentist. Make sure you’re sticking to your usual twice-yearly appointments so the dentist can make sure you don’t have any post-Halloween cavities! And if a bracket does come loose, don’t hesitate to give us a call so we can keep your treatment on schedule.

Wishing all our patients a healthy, happy Halloween!

The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.

MENTAL WELL-BEING or lack thereof can often have an impact on physical health. Among those impacts are the ways that oral health can be affected by stress, and we want to make sure our patients are aware of the connection so they have more tools to fight back.

Grinding Your Teeth? Stress May Be Behind It.

The technical term for habitual teeth-grinding and jaw-clenching is bruxism, and clenching and grinding are natural responses to stress and frustration for some people. Common signs of bruxism include flattened chewing surfaces of the teeth and a sore jaw, and the risks to oral health from this habit are significant. People with bruxism may not even realize they’re doing it, especially if they do it in their sleep rather than during the day.

Stress Can Compound TMD Symptoms

Temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD) is a disorder of the jaw joint, muscles, and nerves associated with chronic facial pain. Like with bruxism, stress is believed to be a contributing factor, resulting in soreness and pain in the temporomandibular joint, frequent headaches, and popping and clicking in the jaw.

Our Immune Systems Are Weakened by Stress

When stress goes on for lengthy periods of time, it can put a lot of strain on the immune system, making it harder to fight back as effectively against things like oral infections, canker sores, cavities, dry mouth, and gum disease.

Always Prioritize Oral Health and Hygiene

The many negative effects of stress only make it more important to keep up with good oral hygiene habits like daily flossing and brushing for two minutes twice a day. Spending just a few minutes looking after our teeth each day can make a huge difference in our oral health. Having healthy teeth and gums might not address whatever’s stressing you out, but it can definitely help you feel a little better and more in control.

Check out this video for a few quick ideas on de-stressing:

You Have Allies in This Fight

As dental health experts, we want to make sure that oral health is one thing our patients don’t have to stress about. We realize that the idea of going to the dentist can be stressful on its own for many people, but we’re here to help. We encourage everyone to keep up with their regular dental appointments, and especially to schedule one if you experience symptoms of oral health problems like TMD or bruxism.

We’re here to help our patients smile easier, not just healthier!

The content on this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.