When it comes to getting your teeth straightened, you need to know the difference between dentists and orthodontists. It’s important to know that all orthodontists are dentists, but not all dentists are orthodontists. This is because the dentistry profession, like medicine, is divided into primary care dentists and specialists. All dentists attend college, usually for four years, then attend another four years of dental school. In dental school, they are taught the basics of several procedures, and learn to clean teeth, diagnose cavities and oral diseases, and do crowns, bridges, root canals, and silver and tooth-colored fillings. They also learn to perform a number of surgical procedures, make complete and partial removable dentures, and much more. Once they graduate from dental school and pass their clinical exams, they earn their licenses to practice as dentists. At this time, these dentists are called general dentists, general practitioners, GPs, or primary care…
children
Importance of Early Treatment
See the case for this 9-year-old who had amazing results from getting started early!
Helping your child avoid big dental problems
Here are 5 conditions that warrant early treatment during mixed dentition (ages 6-9). 1. Mouth breathing /snoring This can cause narrow arches which delays and causes poor tooth emergence. Our patented Press-On expanders painlessly correct this condition. 2. Lack of Space for Permanent Teeth Permanent incisors normally emerge at age 6. Delayed emergence usually indicates a lack of space. This is easily corrected with painless expanders and or with short term braces (less than one year). 3. Thumb or Finger Sucking This causes flared incisors and can stunt lower jaw growth. Early correction (ages 5-9) helps the child’s growth to normalize and helps with speech and chewing. 4. Underbite Top teeth behind the lower teeth can cause the need for jaw surgery if left unchecked as well as tooth wear and periodontal problems often result as well and short-term braces between the ages of 6-9 yields dramatic correction. 5. Overbite…
The importance of Panoramic X-Rays
In addition to our March 2015 blog, which explains the diagnostic merits of the panoramic x-ray, we have added another great benefit to having your child receive a panoramic x-ray by the age of 8. It is important for the orthodontist to have the panoramic x-ray in order to ensure normal development of the roots of a child’s permanent back teeth – all of which are forming by age 8. Abnormal patterns of root development can cause teeth to become impacted. An impacted tooth remains stuck in gum tissue or bone and does not emerge normally. We believe that most impactions can be prevented if we have the panoramic x-ray by age 8 and are able to identify these abnormal patterns of root development. Canines (AKA “eye” or “fang” teeth) in particular are prone to impaction, but tend to respond very well when their emergence space is enhanced at an…
Spring Sports Season
With spring’s warm weather it’s time for that trip to the sporting goods store. Baseball, soccer, lacrosse, and softball are all sports that can involve hard contact to the face. So if you have braces, please ask us for an orthodontic mouth guard (no charge). If you do not have braces, invest in a sports mouth guard from Nike or Shock Doctor. It may help to avoid dental injuries such as a fracture or tooth avulsion. I also recommend that your league purchase a few Save-A-Tooth kits incase a tooth is accidentally knocked out. Want more information about the Save-A-Tooth kits, refer to my past blog. Now if there is no Save-A-Tooth kit available, the best thing to do with a knocked out tooth is to put it right back in. Do not rinse the tooth before placing it back into the socket. The body will accept the tooth better…