HELP! I burned the roof of my mouth eating pizza! What should I do?

If you burned the roof of your mouth eating something hot, like pizza, first try cooling your mouth down with a cold drink or a popsicle. Ice cream or yogurt can also do the trick. It’s best to stop eating the pizza until it cools, to prevent damaging your mouth further. 

Once the pain has subsided, you can gargle salt water to clean and disinfect the area. Medical professionals recommend using a mixture of ½ teaspoon of salt and 8 ounces of water. 

If you’re in a lot of pain, you can take an ibuprofen or try a topical numbing spray. However, if you think the burn is serious, contact your doctor right away. Most burns are first-degree burns, but second- and third-degree burns can cause long-lasting nerve damage to your palate. Symptoms of these types of burns include severe pain, blistering, swelling, redness, or white patches. 

It can take up to a week for the skin in your mouth to heal. While your mouth is healing, avoid food with sharp edges like chips, which can aggravate the roof of your mouth. Spicy foods, citrus, mint, and alcohol can also irritate the burn. Additionally, if your mouth doesn’t heal within a few days to a week, follow up with your doctor.

Top 5 Reasons Why You Can’t Skip Your Dental Appointment

It’s important to visit your dentist every six months not only to keep your mouth healthy but for your overall health. Here are the top five reasons to visit your dentist:

1) Clean Teeth – We all want a beautiful white smile, but brushing and flossing at home isn’t enough. Visit your dentist every six months to get your teeth professionally cleaned. Your dentist will be able to see if you’re missing places when brushing and flossing, and they’ll give your teeth the deep clean they need.

2) Detecting Tooth Decay – Cavities?! Even if you brush and floss at home, you can still get cavities. Cavities and tooth decay are caused by plaque, which eats away at your tooth enamel. If you have a cavity, your dentist can treat it to prevent more serious issues like pain and infection, so you can avoid a root canal in the future.

3) Gum Disease Prevention – Avoid the “-itis” – A twice yearly visit to the dentist gives your doctor the opportunity to check your gums for inflammation and infection. Plaque affects your gums the same way it affects your teeth – it attacks and damages them. Visit your dentist every six months to prevent gingivitis (gum inflammation) and periodontitis (gum infection) with a professional cleaning.

4) Detecting Oral Cancer – Did you know that oral cancer doesn’t just affect smokers? When you visit your dentist, they’ll screen you for oral cancer which includes examining your gums, mouth, tongue, and lymph nodes for abnormalities. If your dentist detects anything unusual, they’ll refer you to a specialist. While the thought of oral cancer can be scary, it’s much better to visit your dentist and detect abnormalities early.

5) Recommendations for a Healthier Mouth – After your dental exam and cleaning, your dentist will have a better idea of how to make your smile as healthy as possible. This may include things as simple as flossing more often, applying sealant to protect your teeth, or recommending a cavity fill.

Visiting the dentist every six months is the key to maintaining a healthy smile. If it’s been more than six months than your last dental appointment, contact us today!

No Toothpaste? No Problem!

Have you ever gone to brush your teeth and suddenly realized you were out of toothpaste? It's certainly an annoyance, but before you rush out to the store, here are five alternatives you can use.

Baking Soda - Baking soda is an ingredient in many toothpastes, so it makes sense to use it by itself.

Hydrogen Peroxide - A lot of people use hydrogen peroxide to brush their teeth, and it can be used by itself or with baking soda.

Natural Soap - While it may not taste great, natural soap can work as an effective toothpaste.

Dry Brushing - You can actually clean your teeth well without anything, just a dry toothbrush.

Water - A wet toothbrush can also do a good job of getting your teeth clean.

How to Make Flossing Fun for Your Kids

The best way to become a consistent flosser is to start early. Here are three ways you can make flossing fun for your kids:

Make it a game - Turn flossing into a story or a song and your kids will be excited to do it.

Give them cool tools - Let your kids pick out their own tools, like brightly colored floss sticks, and they'll be more eager to use them.

Show their progress - You can put up a chart in the bathroom that tracks their success and give out prizes or rewards.

Any other ideas to get kids flossing? Let us know!

Great Holiday Foods for Your Teeth

When you hear jingles in the stores and see decorations on your neighbor’s house, you know that the holiday season has arrived. Among other traditions, you can also expect food to play a big part during the holiday, whether it’s snacks for a party or a family dinner. Unfortunately, a lot of traditional holiday foods can be harmful to your teeth, from sticky candy canes to alcoholic eggnog. Thankfully, there are also lots of seasonal dishes and treats that can keep your smile as healthy as ever.

You probably already have a sizable list of foods you know to be bad for your teeth: soda, coffee, and candy. However, what about the crackers you set out as hors d’oeuvres? Even without extra-sweet ingredients added in, bread and related snacks are full of carbohydrates – that is, sugar – and their crumbly, dissolvable nature means that these bacteria-feeding carbs get stuck to your teeth. Alcohol, not counting the sugar it is often made of or mixed with, will dry out your mouth; dry mouths are the perfect environment for bacteria. Even the cough drops you take for colds and the flu not only have sugar in them, but also expose you to that sugar over a long period of time. Cough syrup, despite having similar amounts of sugar in it, is quickly swallowed and doesn’t expose the teeth to that sugar too long. Simply put, too many holiday edibles encourage the decay of your teeth.

Not to worry! Lots of holiday foods diminish, if not reverse, the damage other foods can do. Two common party snacks, for example, are meat and cheese. The calcium and proteins provided by meat and cheese can actually strengthen your teeth and gums. Nuts, like meat, also provide your mouth with a burst of protein and saliva production that help defend your teeth from bacterial build-up. Instead of sweetened cranberry sauce in your dishes, try using fresh cranberries; they can interrupt the bonding process of the decadent bacteria. Though dried fruit is a bad idea, crunchy fruit and raw vegetables can help scrub plaque off of your teeth.

The holidays and their traditions are fast approaching. If you eat too much of the wrong kinds of traditional foods, or you find yourself chewing on that food for a long period of time, your teeth can suffer. However, holiday tradition have also given us a lot of food to protect and strengthen our teeth as well. So, when planning out the next holiday party or dinner, keep these foods in mind. They may just save your smile.

Healthy foods for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one day out of the year where Americans find it socially acceptable to eat their weight in turkey and gravy. While it can be tempting to take a sample plate of everything at the buffet, choosing the right foods can help prevent your waistline from increasing as well as improve your dental hygiene.

Cheese and Yogurt

While heavy amounts of cheese is not recommended, eating some cheese, maybe as an appetizer, lowers the acidity in an individual’s mouth, which directly lowers their risk for developing cavities. Cheese and yogurt also contain calcium, a mineral that increases bone density and strengthens enamel. Furthermore, yogurt contains probiotics that take up the space harmful bacteria would otherwise occupy.

Kale, Spinach, and Broccoli

Leafy green vegetables, such as kale and spinach, contain high amounts of protein and calcium, materials your body utilizes to build bones and teeth. Furthermore, leafy green vegetables carry lots of micronutrients, products the body uses to make sure everything in your body runs efficiently, boosting your natural immune system.

 

Apples, Carrots, and Celery

Hard, fibrous foods act as a toothbrush, gently loosening plaque which can be washed away with saliva. Eating foods like apples, carrots, and celery does not replace brushing and flossing, but rather encourage good dental hygiene by maintaining a cycle of cleanliness. Eating these foods increases the effectiveness of brushing and flossing since it’s consistently removing old plaque, lessening the chance of plaque turning into tartar.

Sesame Seed Oil, Coconut Oil, and Olive Oil

Oil pulling, or simply rinsing the mouth with about a tablespoon of oil, is a great technique to reduce the amount of bacteria in the mouth and promote good dental health. Many dentists advise patients to practice this easy detoxification process at home; however, ingesting foods already containing sesame seed oil, coconut oil, or olive oil kills two birds with one stone.

While Thanksgiving can be a time when people overindulge in foods high in sugar content, being aware of the benefits foods can have on teeth and the body can encourage to put down that extra pint of gravy in favor of a healthier choice.

Knocking out a permanent tooth is a true dental emergency. Don’t be afraid to contact us right away. If you knock out a permanent tooth, here is what to do. 

1. Hold the tooth by the crown and not the root so as not to spread bacteria unto the root
2. Rinse dirt or any debris off with room temperature water but be gentle with the root. 

3. Try to reinsert the tooth until you get to the dentist and hold it into place. 

4. If reinserting is not an option, keep it moist by covering it with milk or water. 

5. For optimal outcome, try to get to a dentist within 30 minutes.