A lot of people like to chew ice. For some of us, it takes us back to childhood, when we used to crunch ice from our slushies. While crunching ice may bring us memories of a happy childhood, in reality, crunching ice is not good for you. Crunching ice is really not good for our dental health.

In fact, crunching ice can cause significant damage to your entire mouth, not just your teeth. Not sure how that works? Keep reading. We can give you some information on why ice chewing is bad for your oral health.

Why Chewing Ice Cubes is Bad for Your Mouth

First, chewing ice puts a lot of pressure on your teeth. This is bad for your teeth, because while the spongy inside of your teeth is flexible, the enamel that covers your teeth is not. Chewing ice may not hurt your teeth the first time you do it, but over time, it can wear out the enamel just as if you’ve been grinding your teeth for months. Also, one wrong chomp on a piece of ice could result in a chip or a fracture in your tooth enamel.

Second, if you chew ice on a regular basis, you can cause wearing of your teeth as well, no matter how small the pieces are. This is because chewing ice causes a repetition of hot and cold cycles in your mouth. These hot and cold cycles mean that your tooth enamel is expanding and contracting between cycles. If your mouth has fillings, they expand and contract at a different rate than the enamel. These can lead to microcracks. Chewing ice can also reduce the life of your fillings.

Reasons You May Chew Ice

It has been found that low iron levels can create a desire to chew ice. Emotional stress and other nutritional issues may also play a role. If you can’t break the habit a trip to your physician may be in order.

Ice Can Harm Other Dental Components As Well

If you are one of the many adults who wear braces, or have partials, you need to know that chewing ice can damage these as well. Brackets can break, and wires can move when you chew ice. Pieces of metal or partial plates can break off and damage your teeth cheeks and tongue.

Also, because pieces of ice can be sharp, the shards can cut your gums, tongue, soft palate or cheek. If you have questions about chewing ice, why not give us a call? We would love to talk to you about your ice chewing habit.

More research than ever has connected a healthy mouth to a healthy heart. This supports the need for good oral health in order to prevent a host of other medical issues.

By better understanding the connection between oral and overall health, you-ll know why dental hygiene needs to be a priority in your life.

Gum Disease and Heart Disease

Several research studies have found a connection between gum disease and heart disease. The exact cause-and-effect hasn’t been proven, but the studies have shown that gum disease increases the risk of heart disease. Scientists believe this may be due to inflammation caused by gum disease.

In addition to increasing heart disease risk, gum disease could exacerbate existing heart conditions. This is because bacteria in the mouth could make their way into the blood stream and travel to the heart and other organs. For example, patients at a heightened risk for infective endocarditis might require antibiotics before they undergo dental procedures.

Gum Disease and Stroke

Other studies have pointed to a connection between gum disease and stroke. One particular study looked at the relationship between oral infections and stroke risk factors. Researchers found that people diagnosed with stroke were more likely to have oral infections compared to people in the control group.

Protecting Your Gums and Heart

Good dental hygiene and regular dental exams are the best way to protect your mouth against gum disease. Be sure to brush your teeth at least twice per day and floss daily. A plaque or tartar controlled mouthwash with fluoride can also help to keep your teeth and gums healthy.

In addition to caring for your teeth, regular dental appointments are crucial in order to maintain healthy gums. If it has been a while since your last appointment, give us a call today to set up your next dental cleaning.

The American Dental Association recommends flossing at least once a day, but we know that for many people, this is a challenge. That’s why some of our patients come in for their cleanings and are not completely honest about their flossing habits.

We want you to be truthful about how much you floss so that we know how to best help you.

Flossing is Critical for Good Oral Health

Flossing plays an important role in the prevention of gum disease and tooth decay. Plaque builds up around the gum line and between the teeth where your toothbrush won’t reach. Failure to floss will allow bacterial buildup that can wreak havoc on your mouth.

We Can Tell if You Don’t Floss

For the most part, lying about your flossing habits is unnecessary, because we can tell whether or not you floss by the condition of your teeth. When plaque isn’t removed immediately, it turns into a substance called tartar, and this hard material cannot be removed by any type of at-home oral hygiene. We’ll need to use specialized tools to remove it.

We Can Help

Flossing is relatively easy, and we can show you how to do it so that it is painless and comfortable. If you have dexterity issues, we can recommend a pre-threaded flosser or other tools to make the process easier. Otherwise, you- simply need to wrap about 18 inches of floss around your middle fingers. Work the floss gently between the teeth in a back and forth motion and be sure to move on to a new section of floss for each space.

The next time you come in to see us for a dental cleaning, please know that you can be honest with us about your oral hygiene. We want to help you maintain a healthy mouth and beautiful smile, and to do that, we need an accurate picture of how you care for your teeth.

Absolutely! You can use dental veneers to mask the imperfections in your teeth and achieve a much-improved smile. A smile is a big part of your life. As much as you might want to wear that smile as often as possible, dental imperfections may come in the way. Your smile should be an element of pride, but tooth imperfections may be making you embarrassed to show your teeth out. It is in this light that cosmetic dentistry came up with veneers.

Veneers allow you to get a dental transformation, enabling you to have beautiful and well-aligned teeth that match your natural features.

Veneers are made out of thin shell-like porcelain. These are crafted and customized to your perfect fit. A cosmetic dentist determines the size, shape, and color of your teeth to make the veneers appear more natural. Once prepared, the dentist carefully sticks them to the surface of your teeth, and you achieve an instant makeover.

Advantages of Veneers

Before dental veneers

Dr. Shapiro created a new smile with 10 porcelain veneers

They are long lasting. If you properly maintain and care for them, your veneers can last up to 20 years or more. These dental enhancements have a non-porous surface that is resistant to chipping and scratches to ensure extended durability.

They give a natural appearance. Veneers blend so well with your natural appearance that other people cannot tell that you are wearing them. Also they are stain-resistant because of the nature of their structure. This feature allows them to retain their original color over time.

A wide range of dental imperfections can be masked using veneers. Veneers can be crafted for one tooth, multiple teeth or the entire smile. They can be used to cover up discoloration, a crack, a gap or a chip of the tooth.

As incredible as they sound, dental enhancements should only be applied to healthy teeth that are free of infections and gum disease. Your dental health should always come first. Book an appointment with us and find out if a dental enhancement is the right fit for you.

Vitamin D is one of the most important vitamins, and your body needs a good amount of it in order to function. One of the things that Vitamin D does is promote strong teeth and protect your gums and mouth against bacteria. If you have a deficiency in Vitamin D, it’s likely that you will develop cavities, gum disease, and other issues.

Unfortunately, many people don’t realize exactly how vital this vitamin is to the body or what it does for your teeth.

Vitamin D and Calcium

In order to absorb enough calcium for the body to create strong bones and teeth, you have to have a good amount of Vitamin D in the body. This vitamin makes it easier for the body to absorb calcium from food and drink. If you’re deficient in Vitamin D, you’re going to only get around 10 to 15% of the calcium from your food. This can lead to increasing your risk of infection, developing osteoporosis, and other health issues in addition to having weaker teeth and having a higher risk of gum disease.

What Vitamin D Does

Unlike many different vitamins, the body doesn’t absorb Vitamin D from food. Instead, it creates Vitamin D itself. This process is activated when your skin is exposed to sunlight. Of course, you can also get Vitamin D from supplements, but the Vitamin D created by your body is more potent and easier to use.

Once created, your body transforms Vitamin D into calcitriol, its active form. Calcitriol is then circulated throughout the body and functions similar to hormones, promoting cell growth, helping to battle infection, and reducing inflammation. It helps the teeth by fighting off infection that can lead to gum disease.

Short on Vitamin D?

If you know you have a Vitamin D deficiency, your doctor likely has you on supplements. It’s also important that you make sure you make your six-month checkups and call us when you believe you have the beginnings of gum disease so we can keep your mouth as healthy as possible.