It's just a little spot. No big deal. Right?

Enamel is the white stuff that makes up the outer covering of your teeth.

Enamel is the strongest substance in your body.

It is very difficult for bacteria to penetrate this layer.

Once it does however, the next layer, dentin, is much softer and easier to get through.

Therefore, all it takes is one little spot of decay to get into your tooth

and you could be in serious trouble.

Once bacteria are on the inside of the tooth they begin to multiply.

Bacteria need food, water, and warmth to multiply.

And your mouth has an abundance of all three.

Here is a before and after picture of a case that we just did today.

The patient came in complaining of intense pain but did not know why

as her tooth only showed the most mild of decay.

First picture shows the tooth before we started.

Only a small amount of decay present.

This picture shows the insides of the tooth after the decay was taken out.

The holes in the bottom are the places where the nerve used to be.

This tooth ended up getting a root canal.

Be careful. Any discoloration may be too much.

Get it checked out.

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Stop sipping the Mtn Dew!!

We see it all the time.

People coming into the office with with their teeth hurting.

I tell them that they have a ton of cavities and they tell me that that is impossible.

Since nothing is impossible I ask them why they think that.

They tell me its because they only drink 1 can of soda pop a day.

I tell them that that's not so bad and that lots of people have a soda at some point during the day.

I then ask them how long it takes them to drink it.

They tell me that they sip on it throughout the day and that it takes them about 4 hours to finish off a can.

Here in lies our problem.

Cavities caused by soda happen due to the time that the teeth are exposed to the sugar and not the amount of sugar ingested.

If I drank an entire 2 liter of Mountain Dew for breakfast and my patient only had 1 can on Mountain Dew but it took him 4 hours to drink his can, who do you think would be worse off?

If you said the guy drinking the can then you are starting to catch on.

Although my sugar content is higher and I may experience more symptoms throughout my body my teeth are much better off. I get the sugar in my mouth and then get it out and I am done. The person who sips on that one can for hours at a time has sugar covering their teeth all the whole time they are sipping. So less sugar but more tooth exposure.

Moral of the story is DO NOT SIP!

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What is a root canal

For those of you needing a root canal, or those of you that have already had one, but have no idea what a root canal is, this video is for you. The posts and the crown are not always needed but other then that this video is pretty good.

Some of you may have heard horror stories associated with this procedure. The problem most people have while getting a root canal is that they do not get it done by a bald dentist.

That makes all the difference in the world ; )

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Baby Root Canal

Children's teeth are similar to adult teeth in many ways.

They can both decay.

And the decay can get large enough that it can effect the nerve of the tooth.

In the case of an adult a tooth with an infected nerve would need a root canal.

In a child's tooth it would called a pulpotomy.

In both cases the nerve in the tooth is removed in order to help the tooth stop hurting.

One of the main differences here is the rate of success between the 2 procedures.

Root canals are, typically, very predictable.

Pulpotomys are much less so.

One reason for this is that the roots of an adult tooth are stable.

They have formed and are not going anywhere.

The roots on a child's tooth are ever changing.

The adult teeth coming in behind them are applying more and more

pressure to the baby teeth in order to force them out of the way so

that they, the permanent teeth, may erupt through the gums.

With this ever changing root structure, and not wanting to possibly damage the

permanent tooth under the baby tooth it is much more difficult to get a

pulpotomy to work then it is a root canal.

The one huge advantage that children have over adults in this

situation is that the baby teeth will fall out and the adult teeth shouldn't.

If a pulpotomy does happen to fail then removing the tooth is always

an option. And we just need to wait for the adult tooth to grow into its place.

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I told you so!!

There is something that I hate to see and hear at my office.

It is to see a parent tell a child "I told you to brush your teeth"

while they are shaking their finger at them.

This phrase is said by parents whose children have cavities

and will need to get their teeth filled.

Now, I am a parent of 5 children myself.

And I am all for natural consequences.

If I tell you to bring a jacket and you don't and you get cold,

well then that is the child's fault and a little cold air won't do any harm.

But the whole scene in the dental office is different.

If we are putting fillings into permanent teeth, then your child

is bound to need fairly extensive work on these teeth later in life.

A tooth that has no filling is MUCH better of long term then

a tooth that has even a small filling that is placed very young.

I know dentistry does not seem like a serious health issue, but it can be.

Its like taking your kids to get immunized.

They cry and say they don't want to.

You then say, "Fine but you'll regret it."

Then 10 years down the road your kids gets some life threatening disease

and you just shake your finger and say "See. Told ya you should

have gotten those immunizations."

You would never do that.

Some things are just too important.

You force your kids to take vitamins.

You make them get their immunizations.

You SHOULD make them brush their teeth.

Either under your supervision or you do it for them when they are young.

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My tooth just tipped over!

Most people think that its no big deal to get a tooth taken out. they will say things like "its just one tooth" and "I've got a ton more". Well, you do have a lot more teeth then just that one but this does NOT mean that getting a tooth out will not create many other problems in the mouth.

Some of the problems that can occur are as follows.

#1 The tooth that chews against the tooth you just took out will move up, or down, into the spot just vacated by the extracted tooth. This top tooth is moving down into the mouth.

#2 The teeth right next to the extracted one will begin to tip into the spot just vacated by the extracted tooth. These next two pictures were taken 5 years apart. The patients tooth tipped completely over and needed to be extracted.

Both of these can cause your bite to be thrown completely off and make chewing uncomfortable.

#3 As you chew hard and crunchy foods, they will pinch up against the gums where the tooth used to be.

Moral to the story is

if you can fix your teeth, then do it.

If you can't, then get the hole filled where the tooth used to be ASAP.

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Does a root canal hurt?

If the conditions are right a root canal absolutely does NOT need to be

any more uncomfortable then any other dental procedure.

There are a ton of stories out there about root canals that were so terrible

that the people don't ever want to go back to the dentist.

Most of the stories about painful root canals comes from root canals that

were done many many years ago.

Technology has changed and root canal procedures

today are much better then they once were.

The second biggest reason why people have tough

times with root canals is they wait too long.

Please do not wait until your face is swollen to come into the dentist.

The swelling, and infection associated with it, make it very hard to get someone numb.

Being in some discomfort is okay. Just don't wait until it is agony before coming in.

A root canal is simply cleaning out the inside of the tooth.

Teeth are hollow. The inside is filled with nerves and blood vessels.

A root canal is a procedure where we clean out the inside of the tooth.

Since the tooth then no longer has any nerves it can no longer

feel pain and you are back to your old happy self.

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My Crown Just Fell off!!!

You are eating a meal and all of a sudden you feel something crunchy.

You search for the crunchy item with your tongue and pull the item out.

Its one of your crowns!

You don't know how it happened but it just came off.

First Rule: Do not panic.

Crowns can come off for several reasons.

Some of these reasons are very very easy to fix.

So just because your crown came off does not mean that its the end of the world.

First thing to do is to look into the crown.

If its empty then things are in good shape.

This means that the cement that holds the crown on simply broke loose and you just need to get it re-cemented.

If there is a bunch of stuff in the tooth then you may have a little more of a problem on your hands.

What is in the crown may be fragments of the tooth. If there are a lot of fragments then you may need to have a new crown made due to the fact that that one may not fit any longer.

So until you can get to the dentist to find out exactly which case is yours, what can you do?

Try to stick it back on.

If it fits snuggly then you may just be able to baby it until you get in to the dentist.

If it fits loosely then you can simply put a bit of toothpaste into it and then stick it back on.

The toothpaste will make up the difference in the fit of the crown and help keep it on.

Call your dentist ASAP and get his/her opinion.

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Ashley, Cosmetic bonding

This is Ashley.

Ashley's two front teeth have bothered her in the past.

They were flared slightly outward and a little longer then she wanted.

Ashley heard of cosmetic bonding and wanted to know if it was for her.

The answer was a resounding, YES!

No shots

Do drilling into her teeth

40 minutes of time in the chair

All for the cost of 2 fillings

Let us know if we can help you.

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Cougars and Utes

As a dentist here in the Utah area I have been asked many times (or never)

to settle the dispute over who is better, the Cougars or the Utes.

A Ute is a Native American Indian that lived in the Utah area.

A Cougar is a large member of the cat family also known as a mountain lion.

Since I am a dentist I must use teeth as the determining factor for this decision.

It is evident from research that I have done that the teeth of a cougar

are far superior in every way to that of a Ute.

Please note this opinion is not biased (although I do have BYU season tickets).

In color, ability to rip meat from the bone, size, and strength the

cougars have a decided edge over the Utes.

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Cosmetic Bonding

This patient had a deformed tooth since it came in.

Even braces was not an option because the tooth just isn't the right shape.

His only options were to get the tooth out and get a bridge or implant.

This case isn't perfect.

If I could have numbed up the the patient and shaped the gums

above the tooth I would have been a little happier.

However, this patient didn't get one shot and was done in 30 minutes and

will not have any post op sensitivity.

He is very pleased with the result.

Before (Tooth malformed)

After

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Diabetes and your gums.

If you, or someone you know, has been diagnosed with diabetes, it is a shock.

Diabetes carries with it many short term as well as long term side effects.

Most people know about the problems with loss of feeling in the extremities and

even troubles with vision later on in life.

But very few people realize that diabetes can have a devastating effect on the gums.

Now that may not seem like a big thing.

Gums aren't exactly something that people consider to be crucial for life.

And they aren't.

However, they are crucial to the life of your teeth.

Below you will see a diagram of what happens to your

gums as they begin to become unhealthy.

What you will see below here is an actual x-ray of diseased gums.

The straight line represents where the gum/bone level should be.

The wavy line represents where the gum/bone levels have fallen to.

It is possible for a completely healthy tooth to fall completely out of the mouth

due to a loss of gum/bone tissue.

Gums/bone keep the teeth in your mouth.

Lose the gums/bone, lose the teeth.

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It's called a apicoectomy.

Its called a what!?

Okay, its not something you hear everyday but its something that can

be very helpful if you find your self with a failing root canal.

Root canals do not always work.

If my tooth hurt I would get one tomorrow.

So you know they are still very predictable.

However sometimes an infection can begin at the end of the tooth

even though a root canal has already been performed.

You could re-do the root canal but that can be difficult.

You can try to re-medicate but that may not be the answer either.

More often then not the best treatment is called an apicoectomy.

A small access to the root of the tooth is made and the infected area is removed.

This will allow the root canal and tooth to remain intact while still removing the infection.

After the infection is removed the gum tissue is re-sealed and the healing can begin.

This procedure is very effective and does no further harm to the tooth.

This is especially important if the tooth was crowned after the root canal was finished.

It is not possible to preform this procedure on all teeth but for most of them its a great option.

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Why does my root canal still hurt!?

Dentistry is medicine.

Although nothing i will ever do, more then likely, will ever rank

up there with treating cancer or preforming heart surgery the

procedures done in dentistry are still medical in nature.

Sometimes I get people coming to my office from other dentists

and they are angry because their teeth still hurt even AFTER

getting a root canal procedure preformed on it.

This is what I tell them.

Although root canals are a very successful procedure there are

still a certain number of them that will not work.

Consider going in for knee surgery to clean out a defective joint.

Months later you still hurt and you go back to the doctor.

You tell him that your knee still hurts.

He does and exam and tells you that there are still some particles in the knee that

didn't get taken out the first time and that he will have to go in again and

get the knee cleaned out for a second time.

This bums you out but you think nothing of it.

In dentistry people sometimes feel like it should be a one and done.

In pain to out of pain in one visit.

In most cases this is true. However, just like the knee surgery, there are times when

the first surgery on the tooth just doesn't work.

There are a few options here.

You can get the root canal re-done by the dentist who did it in the first place.

You can get it re-done by a root canal specialist (endodontist).

The trouble with getting it re-done is that it may not work the second time either.

You are then out another chunk of change and still have the same problem.

You could have the tooth taken out and have a bridge or implant put in.

That would assure the tooth never hurt again but you would have to go

through getting the tooth taken out.

Just talk to your dentist before you get your root canal.

Ask questions.

Feel comfortable BEFORE any treatment is given.

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