My daughter and I love going to see Dr Aparna Sadineni and her professional staff. We never have to wait and the staff knows us like a second family. I highly recommend this office!
Going to Dublin Metro Dental was completely fun and amazing experience. I couldn’t believe how fast and fun my appointment went through. I will definitely recommend it to everyone that I know.
I was very hesitant in going to the dentist as I have very bad anxiety. I made the decision to come to Dublin Metro Dental and I have been very happy. Everyone is very nice and they make you feel very relaxed. I have been happy with every visit and Dr Sadineni is the best!
RUDIMENTARY DENTAL EXTRACTIONS were performed in China as early as 6,000 BC, and there is also evidence that they used wires to stabilize teeth. They didn’t seem to be very interested in straightening teeth, but they were quite advanced when it came to treating endodontic problems.
Treating Toothaches in the Tang Dynasty
In 618 AD, Emperor Gaozu of the Tang Dynasty fell victim to a toothache. He consulted with his tooth doctor for relief, and his recommendation was a dental filling made of melted silver and tin. European dentists wouldn’t catch up until over a thousand years later!
Daily Dental Hygiene in Ancient China
The typical oral hygiene routine for a person in ancient China was to gargle salt water or tea. It became common in the Tang dynasty to soak a willow twig in water before bed and chew on it in the morning. The willow fibers would protrude like a comb and scrub the teeth clean. That’s where the Chinese idiom “chew wood at dawn” comes from.
Wait…They Had Toothbrushes Too?
Some people from that period had access to toothbrushes made of animal bone and hair. They also had an early form of toothpaste made from boiling honey locust fruit, ginger, foxglove, lotus leaves, and other herbs to reduce gum inflammation, ease toothaches, and whiten the teeth.
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.
Medicine’s Relationship With Oral Health
POTENTIAL SIDE EFFECTS are a concern with pretty much every medication that exists. We can all hear the drug commercial voice rattling off a list of them in our heads. Unfortunately, side effects from medications often overlap with oral health concerns, even when the medications aren’t treating conditions related to teeth and gums.
How Medicine Interacts With Oral Chemistry
In some cases, medications (or even vitamins) can be directly harmful to our teeth. This is a problem particularly with children’s medication, which tend to come in the form of sugary syrups and candy-like multivitamins.
Adult medicine is usually in pill form so it doesn’t have a chance to directly interact with teeth or gums, but not always. Inhalers may lead to oral side effects like oral thrush (painful or irritating patches of white fungus that grow on the tongue, the roof of the mouth, and the inside of the cheeks). A good preventative measure adults and children alike can take to avoid these direct oral side effects is to rinse with water after taking any of these kinds of medications or vitamins.
The More Indirect Effects of Medicine on Oral Health
Medications that make it past the mouth without causing direct harm can still have mouth-related side effects. One example is blood thinners, which can make the gums more vulnerable to bleeding while brushing and flossing. Gum tissue inflammation is a common side effect that can increase the risk of gum disease.
The most common oral side effect of medications, both prescribed and over-the-counter, is dry mouth. Not only can dry mouth make chewing and swallowing more difficult and uncomfortable, it can also leave the teeth and gums vulnerable to harmful oral bacteria. Saliva is the first line of defense we have against that bacteria. Without it, it’s much harder to protect against tooth decay and gum disease.
Other Weird Oral Effects Medicine Can Cause
In rare cases, osteoporosis drugs have been associated with compromised bone tissue in the jaw, which increases the risk of gum recession and tooth loss. Some medications can do strange things to our sense of taste, even if they don’t cause any real harm to our oral health. There might be a weird bitter or metallic aftertaste that lingers.
Discuss Your Side Effects With the Dentist and Your Doctor
It’s important to keep your health care professionals in the loop where side effects are concerned. If those side effects are happening inside your mouth, then make sure to tell the dentist as well as your doctor! It may be possible to change your prescription or dosage to minimize or completely eliminate the negative effects while maintaining the benefits of the medication, but only if the doctor knows what’s going on!
Always remember that the dentist is a great resource!
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.
The Typical Timeline for Baby Teeth
TWO OF THE BIGGEST milestones of child development are when their baby teeth start coming in and when they start being replaced by adult teeth. First-time parents probably have a lot of questions about what’s normal and whether it’s time to worry, so we want to give you a quick guide to when you can start looking for the signs of incoming teeth and when they might start to get loose.
Our Teeth Start Growing Before We’re Born
By week six of pregnancy, tooth buds begin forming. They grow through the rest of the pregnancy and after birth in a process called odontogenesis. Even after the teeth begin to push through the gums, the roots still have some growing left to do.
Baby Teeth Tend to Erupt in Pairs
We don’t get full sets of teeth all at once; instead, we tend to get them two by two, alternating between top and bottom. The lower central incisors are the first to appear, which usually happens between month six and month ten. Next up are the upper central incisors (the two front teeth) between months eight and twelve. The lateral incisors appear next: first bottom, then top.
You might think the canines would come next because they’re the next teeth in the arch, but instead, it’s the first pair of lower molars, then the upper molars. Only then do the canine teeth catch up, and the second set of molars are the last to appear. By age three, most toddlers will have the full set of twenty baby teeth.
When to Bring Concerns to the Dentist
If you’re worried that your toddler’s teeth might not be arriving on schedule, feel free to get in touch with us. In most cases, there’s no cause for concern until month eighteen comes and goes and no teeth have appeared. But whether those teeth come in early or late, as soon as you see the first one, it’s a great time for baby’s first dental appointment!
Alert the Tooth Fairy!
On average, kids start losing baby teeth around age five or six. If it’s taking a little longer, they might start to feel left behind by their peers. Losing a tooth is a big rite of passage for kids. It’s a tangible symbol of maturity.
If no teeth are becoming loose by their seventh birthday, it could be time for the dentist to take a look to find out why. Most of the time, there’s nothing to worry about, and late-blooming teeth actually tend to be stronger and more cavity-resistant than the early ones!
What Are Natal Teeth?
In rare cases, a baby might be born already having one or two teeth. This doesn’t mean they’re way ahead of their developmental schedule, though; these teeth are natal teeth, and they aren’t part of the normal set of baby teeth. Most of the time, when they appear, they’re shaped oddly and have weak roots, making them very loose. Doctors might even remove them before the parents bring the baby home from the hospital.
Over the centuries, different cultures have had a wide range of reactions to these weird (but harmless) extra teeth, both positive and negative. They were considered bad luck in China but a sign of a wonderful future ahead in Europe. Some Ural-Altaic tribes considered natal teeth a sign that the child was a sorcerer.
Keep Brushing Teeth of All Ages!
Whether a child is six months old and just cut their very first tooth or they’re a teenager with nearly a full set of adult teeth, every tooth needs to be cleaned daily. Establishing healthy brushing habits in childhood while kids still have their baby teeth makes it much easier for them to continue those habits into adulthood.
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.
Dental Health of Early Native Americans
WHEN WE PICTURE people of earlier eras, particularly pre-industrial ones, we tend to assume that they must have had really bad teeth. While it definitely is easier to get high-quality dental care these days, not to mention modern orthodontics and modern root canal therapy, the people of the past didn’t always have terrible dental health. Especially in cultures with no access to refined sugar.
Food Played a Big Role for Native American Dental Health
The ancient Native Americans ate a diet mostly of corn (maize), beans, squash, fish, and game, as well as fresh fruit and nuts. Their high-fiber diet helped keep their teeth and gums healthy. The harmful bacteria in our mouths need plenty of sugar and starch to multiply. Foods high in fiber have the benefit of scrubbing our teeth as we eat them.
How Did Early Native Americans Clean Their Teeth?
Just because tooth decay was uncommon doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. One museum in Manitou Springs, Colorado, for example, has an exhibit of replica skulls with holes in the jaw bones from advanced gum disease. To fight against tooth decay, ancient Native Americans used chewsticks — twigs that have been frayed by a rock on one end and sharpened into a toothpick on the other. Chewing on the frayed ends cleans the teeth. They also kept their breath fresh by chewing herbs like sage, cucacua, and mint.
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.
Water Activities and Your Teeth
TO THE AVID swimmers out there, you may have noticed that your teeth are at their most sensitive after you get out of the pool. It’s not something that’s obvious after just one afternoon at the lap pool, but endless swimming time can take a toll on our teeth.
Swimmer’s Calculus: Enamel Erosion from Pool Chlorine
The term “swimmer’s calculus” might sound like something out of an advanced math class, but it actually refers to a dental health condition. After prolonged exposure to the acidic chlorine ions in pool water, a swimmer’s teeth can develop yellow or brown stains.
While chlorine is great for keeping the pool sanitary for all the people who enjoy swimming in it, it can cause the water’s pH levels to become more acidic if it isn’t monitored carefully. Because our teeth are so vulnerable to erosion from acid, even the mild acidity of pool water like this can increase the risk of developing these stains.
Scuba Divers Have Their Own Dental Health Concerns
Maybe you prefer scuba diving over swimming at the local pool. In your case, the risk to keep in mind isn’t swimmer’s calculus. Instead, you could be at risk of something called “tooth squeeze” or barodontalgia.
Have you ever felt the pressure building up in your ears when you dive to the bottom of the deep end? A similar pressure can build inside teeth — particularly teeth with untreated cavities or that have undergone faulty dental work. The pressure can grow to such a degree that it fractures the tooth, which is why we recommend starting your diving season off with a dental visit. That way you’ll know which teeth are more vulnerable.
Ear and sinus squeeze are other problems you may encounter while diving:
How Well Does Your Scuba Mouthpiece Fit?
A common struggle for divers is that those “one size fits all” mouthpieces are more like “one size fits none.” However, it’s rare for anyone who doesn’t dive a few times a week to own a custom-fitted mouthpiece. At our practice, we think they’re worth the investment, because a mouthpiece that doesn’t fit can lead to trouble for your teeth.
You might have to clench down on the mouthpiece to keep it from falling out during the dive, and that can put a lot of strain on the jaws, even causing temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD). If you don’t have your own mouthpiece, and especially if you dive at least a few times per year, consider getting a custom-fitted diving mouthpiece.
Any Other Teeth and Water Activities?
Whatever questions you have about dental health and how to protect it while diving and swimming, don’t hesitate to bring them to us! One final danger to watch out for is that the surfaces around pools are often slippery due to all the water, which is a major trip hazard. We minimize our risk of getting a dental injury at the pool by not running, coming out of the water carefully, and not diving into shallow water.
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.
Don’t Use Your Teeth as Tools!
OUR TEETH CAN do a lot of things. They chew our food, they form a lot of the structure of our faces to make us look the way we do, they make it possible to speak clearly, and they’re the highlight of our smiles. These are good and healthy uses for teeth, but when we use them as tools for other jobs, we risk causing serious damage.
Teeth Are Not Substitute Nail Clippers or Scissors
The damage a nail-biting habit can do is a topic worthy of its own blog post, but we’ll summarize it here. Our fingernails are the least sanitary parts of our hands because the area underneath them is essentially impossible to keep clean. Germs love to grow there, and those same germs transfer to our mouths when we bite our nails. Nail-biting also puts a lot of unnecessary wear and tear on the front teeth and may even shift them out of place.
Nails aren’t the only things we might be tempted to bite through; sometimes it might seem very convenient to use our teeth to cut a piece of tape. Unlike chewing food, the sawing motion we do to cut tape involves a lot of grinding, which is bad for our teeth’s surfaces. Some people do this with much worse materials than tape, such as wire. Take the time to find the scissors or wire cutters instead of trying this!
Please Use an Actual Nutcracker
If you love eating walnuts, pecans, pistachios, or even half-popped popcorn kernels, don’t break them open with your teeth. Doing so is a great way to crack or chip a tooth, especially if that tooth has already undergone a dental procedure or if it has an untreated cavity. It’s much better to use a nutcracker.
Teeth Do Not Make Good Bottle Openers
Even though tooth enamel is the hardest substance in the human body, it’s far too brittle to be right for the job of popping a metal lid off a soda bottle. We could easily chip a tooth on that edge, and if we slip, that could mean a nasty gash to the lips or gums. No matter how cool you might think it will make you look to do it with your teeth, please use a real bottle opener.
Teeth Are Not a Third Hand
Sometimes when we’re in the middle of a busy task, we run out of hands to hold things, and it’s very easy to briefly stick a pencil, a few nails, or some sewing pins in our mouths for safekeeping.
Once again, the convenience isn’t worth the risks. Tripping or being hit with a sudden yawn, sneeze, cough, or hiccup could result in disaster. Even if nothing so dramatic happens, these objects can cause a lot of wear on teeth. For example, seamstresses have given themselves dents in their chewing surfaces from holding sewing pins in the same spot over and over.
Only Use Your Teeth for Their Intended Purposes!
Cracking and fracturing are the third-highest cause of tooth loss, and you can significantly reduce your risk of needing an emergency dental visit and a series of expensive procedures by only using your teeth for what they’re for. Don’t forget to keep up with twice-daily brushing, daily flossing, and regular dental visits!
We love seeing our patients use their teeth for smiles!
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.
Teaching Good Dental Health Habits
IT’S NOT ALWAYS easy to teach a young child how to brush and floss. Little kids are balls of energy with no attention span, and a brushing session is likely to go awry. We have a few tips to help out frazzled parents.
Prioritize brushing. We shouldn’t treat it like an irritating chore, because our kids will pick up on that. Set an example of brushing and flossing being an unskippable and important part of the morning and evening routine.
Brush wherever works! Don’t feel like brushing can only happen in the bathroom. If it’s easier to do somewhere else, that’s great!
The routine is more important than having toothpaste. If the toothpaste tube is empty or missing or its contents were turned into an art project, brush anyway! Don’t miss a day just for the toothpaste.
Children are more likely to like and use a toothbrush that they picked out themselves, so let them pick theirs!
When possible, brush in front of the mirror. That’s where the kids will be brushing once they’re doing it on their own. In the meantime, it helps them feel more involved in the process.
Make brushing fun! The more the grown-ups act like brushing is fun, the happier the kids will be to cooperate. Keep up a good attitude about it and help them enjoy it by playing fun music to time their two minutes of brushing.
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.
Before Your Child’s First Dental Appointment
THERE AREN’T MANY things we love more than the smile of a child. It’s important to keep that smile healthy, and regular visits to the dentist are a crucial part of that. If your child hasn’t been to the dentist before, we want to give you and them a good idea of what their first checkup will be like. First impressions are important, and a good first experience with the dentist is the beginning of a lifetime of good dental health decisions and habits!
Dental Anxiety: Not Just For Adults
One in three American adults struggles with dental anxiety severe enough that they avoid going to the dentist, but it doesn’t only affect adults. New things can be scary for young children, and an older family member might have already poisoned the well for them by describing their own unpleasant dentist experiences. They could even pick up on negative feelings Mom or Dad has about the dentist without being told explicitly.
Helping Your Child Have a Positive Perspective on Dentists
There’s a lot a parent can do to help their child meet the dentist feeling positive and relaxed, and we can take things from there!
Get started early. A child can benefit from a dental visit as soon as their first tooth appears. The early start also helps build a trusting relationship with the dentist.
For very young children, play pretend to explain what will happen. You can play the part of the dentist and show them that it can be fun and interesting, not scary.
If the children are old enough, you can simply explain. Don’t make the dentist a mystery; children are happier when they understand what’s going on. A quick explanation of dental visits and why they matter will go a long way.
Teach the importance of dental hygiene. Kids who know how important brushing and flossing are to the health of their smiles are better able to appreciate the dentist.
Meet the dentist beforehand! A great way to make the first appointment less stressful is for the dentist not to be a stranger during that appointment. We’re happy to schedule an advance meet-and-greet.
Be there to reassure your child. Information is no substitute for the presence of a loved and trusted adult. Stay close by to offer plenty of support and encouragement in early visits.
We Look Forward to Meeting Your Child!
It’s so important for a child’s first experience with a dentist to be a good one. If you’d like more ideas for how to help your child avoid dental anxiety and the problems that come with it, or if you simply have questions about their dental care, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Together, we can make the first checkup wonderful!
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.
Bad Breath: A Big Deal in Medieval England
IN THE MIDDLE AGES, the English didn’t understand much about cavities or gum disease, but they did put a huge emphasis on having fresh breath. Why? Because, not knowing how germs work, they believed it was the actual bad smell that carried disease.
The Fresh Breath of Middle English Literary Characters
Almost all dental care in Medieval England was about smells. This practice even made it into the Canterbury Tales, where Chaucer’s characters chew cardamom and licorice to keep their breath smelling clean. A mixture of aniseed, cumin, and fennel was sometimes recommended to women.
Dental Woes of Medieval England
What dental problems were they living with while focusing mainly on breath? Fortunately, there wasn’t much sugar to cause cavities in the diet of Medieval England. Unfortunately, small particles of stone would get into their bread from the millstones they used to grind flour, and that caused severe erosion. Most adults would lose four to six teeth in their lifetimes.
Treatment for Alleged “Tooth Worms”
Things got really weird if you ever had a toothache. Physicians believed they were caused by tiny worms, and remedies included myrrh and opium. Those were expensive, though, so a cheaper option was to burn a candle very close to the tooth so the alleged worms would fall out into a basin of water.
For the sake of our teeth, we’re glad we don’t live back then!
Top image is in the public domain, accessed via Wikimedia commons.
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.
The Anatomy of Human Teeth
DO YOU KNOW what the parts of the human tooth are? We’d like to give you a quick tooth anatomy lesson, because the more patients know about their teeth, the better they will understand the importance of good dental health habits like brushing, flossing, and avoiding sugary treats. We’ll start in the crown and work our way down to the roots.
The Three Layers of the Dental Crown
Everything visible of a tooth above the gums is the crown, and it consists of three layers. Let’s take a closer look at each one.
Enamel
The outermost layer of the tooth is the enamel layer. Tooth enamel is mostly composed of inorganic hydroxyapatite crystals, which make it the hardest substance in the entire body. We need it to be that way so that we can chew a lifetime’s worth of food!
However, because it’s inorganic, enamel can’t repair or replace itself if it is eroded or damaged too much. It’s also extremely vulnerable to acid. That’s why brushing, flossing, cutting back on acidic and sugary foods and drinks, and regular professional cleanings are so important!
Dentin
The next layer of the crown is the dentin, which is very similar to bone. It’s more yellowish than enamel and there’s more of it in adult teeth than baby teeth (if you’ve noticed that brand new adult teeth seem more yellow than baby teeth, that’s why). Microscopic tubules run through the dentin so that the nerves in the center of the tooth can detect temperature changes. When the enamel erodes, these become exposed and cause tooth sensitivity.
The Pulp Chamber
The core of the tooth is the pulp chamber, where the blood vessels and nerves are. The pulp is what makes a tooth alive and how we feel the temperature of our food. It’s also how we feel pain when something’s wrong with the tooth. Don’t ignore tooth pain; it’s the body’s natural warning sign that it’s time to see the dentist!
The Roots of the Teeth
Underneath the gumline are the roots of our teeth, which are longer than the crowns and anchored in the jawbone. They are cushioned and held in place by the periodontal membrane between them and the bone. Roots don’t have enamel to protect them; the gum tissue does that (as long as it’s healthy) and they are coated in a calcified layer called cementum. At the tip of each root is a tiny hole through which blood vessels and nerves can reach the pulp chamber.
Keep Those Teeth Healthy From the Roots to the Crowns!
Every part of the tooth, from the enamel to the pulp, from the crown to the supporting periodontal structures, needs to stay healthy. Keep brushing and flossing to protect the enamel and gums, and don’t forget your regular dental appointments!
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.
My daughter and I love going to see Dr Aparna Sadineni and her professional staff. We never have to wait and the staff knows us like a second family. I highly recommend this office!