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That’s a good question! But first, we’re going to do that roundabout thing where we consider other questions before circling back to our original topic. Trust us, we’ll get there!

• Why Get Your Teeth Cleaned Professionally?

Before you consider how often to have your teeth cleaned, you might be wondering why you need to have them cleaned professionally at all. After all, you’re doing all the right things. You brush twice a day for two minutes each time. You floss at least once a day. You even use a soft-bristled brush to protect your enamel. Shouldn’t this be good enough?

Conscientious dental hygiene at home is a very good thing, but, when it comes to plaque and tartar, it might not be good enough. Plaque, especially between the teeth and along the gum line, is easy to miss. In a matter of days, that overlooked plaque hardens and becomes tartar. While you can do a lot to remove food particles and plaque at home, once plaque hardens into tartar, a professional cleaning is necessary to remove it safely.

• Why Worry About Plaque and Tartar You May Have Missed?

Because you want to avoid cavities and gum disease. You know that the bacteria in plaque cause tooth decay, but did you know that plaque and tartar can be a real problem for your gum health as well? Plaque and tartar irritate delicate gum tissue, causing inflammation and gingivitis (mild gum disease). If you have chronic bad breath, if your gums are swollen, red, or painful, if your gums bleed easily when you’re brushing and flossing, you might have gingivitis.

Left untreated, mild gum disease can become periodontitis, a more serious condition. Irritation and inflammation cause gum tissue to pull away from the teeth, forming deep periodontal pockets where bacteria and infection spread. Infection and inflammation response damage the bone and tissue supporting the teeth, and teeth become loose or lost altogether. In fact, periodontal disease is the leading cause of tooth loss in adults.

A professional cleaning at our Green Bay is one of the preventive steps you can take to reduce your risk of gum disease.

• What Happens During a Cleaning?

First, your teeth and gums will be checked carefully to see if there are any problems that we need to address before the procedure begins.

The first step in cleaning usually involves removing plaque and tartar. This may be done with an ultrasonic scaler, a hand scaler, or a combination of both. Plaque and tartar need to be scraped from tooth enamel above and below the gum line to prevent cavities and gum disease, so this is definitely a job for a dental professional. Gum attachment around the teeth will be checked, and shallow pockets will be cleaned. Your dentist will have suggestions if you have deeper periodontal pockets caused by gum disease.

After all the plaque and tartar have been removed, your teeth will be polished with a gentle abrasive to remove surface stains. There are two common methods of polishing: applying a special gritty toothpaste with a small rotating cup, or air polishing, which uses a stream of fine abrasive powder, water, and pressurized air. (If you have your teeth cleaned more than twice a year, your dentist will let you know if polishing is advisable during every visit.)

Next, flossing. A professional flossing will remove any remaining plaque from between the teeth. This is a good time to double check your own flossing technique and ask for any tips which will make your personal flossing more effective.

Finally, after rinsing, a fluoride treatment might be applied to strengthen your enamel, and you’re good to go. The entire process usually takes between 30-60 minutes.

• So, How Often Should You Have Your Teeth Cleaned?

That is a good question, and we did get there! But we don’t have just one answer for you. As with every aspect of your dental care, our doctors will recommend cleaning treatments and procedures with your specific dental needs in mind.

• If your teeth and gums are healthy, and you don’t have periodontal disease or risk factors for periodontal disease (such as smoking, a family history of gum disease, or medical conditions such as diabetes), you might be able to get by with two cleanings each year.
• If you have a history of periodontal disease, or are at higher risk for periodontal disease because of one or more risk factors, our doctors might recommend more than two cleanings each year.

Professional cleanings play an important role in your preventive dental care. Whether it’s done once a year, twice annually, or more often as needed, a cleaning performed by a dental professional takes only a short amount of your time and provides you with long-term benefits—not only a brighter smile, but healthier teeth and gums!

August 22 is National Tooth Fairy Day! If the Tooth Fairy is a treasured part of your child’s life, you’re just in time to celebrate! But what to do when the Tooth Fairy doesn’t arrive on schedule—when baby teeth stay longer than expected or are lost too soon? 

A baby’s 20 baby teeth tend to come in within a fairly predictable time frame. The bottom central incisors in the very front of your baby’s mouth typically make their appearance first, when your baby is around six to ten months old. Over the next few years, the remaining incisors, canines, and first molars arrive. Last on the scene are the second molars, which usually show up between the ages of 23-33 months. 

Just as baby teeth follow a pattern coming in, they tend to follow the same pattern falling out. The front teeth begin to wiggle and loosen around age six or seven, while the last of the baby teeth, the canines and second molars, are often lost between the ages of ten and 12. 

Baby teeth fall out as the adult teeth below them push up as they erupt. The top of the new tooth puts pressure on the root of the baby tooth, gradually dissolving it. As the root grows smaller and can’t anchor the tooth, the tooth begins to wiggle and eventually becomes loose enough to fall out. This leaves the adult tooth perfectly placed to grow into its proper position.

Sometimes, though, teeth linger far past their fall-out date. Sometimes, because of decay or trauma, they are lost much too early. In either case, our doctors can provide treatment to protect little smiles now and to ensure that there’s space for the permanent teeth to erupt and align correctly.

Teeth Which Overstay Their Welcome

If that baby tooth never gets wiggly, the team at Oak Grove Dentistry can help! When baby teeth stubbornly hang on, adult teeth can erupt behind them, creating a double row of teeth commonly known as “shark teeth.” These permanent teeth can become crowded or misaligned as they try to fit in any space available. Or a baby tooth can block an adult tooth from erupting at all. When that baby tooth just isn’t budging, an extraction will create space for the permanent tooth to erupt.

Extracting a baby tooth is generally a straightforward procedure because primary teeth have very small roots. Your child’s dental team at Oak Grove Dentistry are experts in helping you prepare your child for the procedure in a gentle, reassuring, and age-appropriate way. 

Often, a local anesthetic is all that’s necessary for a simple extraction, but if you feel sedation would better fit your child’s needs, discuss sedation options with your dentist. After the extraction, you’ll be given clear information on how to deal with pain and swelling, which foods and drinks are best while the extraction site heals, and how to protect the area.

Teeth Which Exit Too Early

In the case of decay or trauma, our doctors will do everything possible to save the tooth. When decay is so extensive that there’s not enough structure left to hold a filling or crown, or when there’s an infection in or around the tooth, or when an accident or injury has caused serious damage, extraction might be the healthiest option. Depending on your child’s age, further treatment might be needed afterward to protect future smiles. 

Besides their roles in eating and speaking, baby teeth save space for permanent teeth. Whenever a child loses a primary tooth too soon, the family dentist will be on the lookout for potential future orthodontic problems. If remaining baby teeth shift, taking up part of the empty space left behind by the lost tooth, the adult teeth below won’t have the space they need to erupt properly. Permanent teeth might come in at an awkward angle or in the wrong place. 

In this case, our doctors might recommend a space maintainer. Space maintainers are small, custom-designed appliances which prevent the remaining baby teeth from shifting position while holding space open for the permanent tooth to arrive right on schedule and right where it belongs. 

It’s comforting to have charts which let us know when little teeth will typically come in and when they will typically fall out. But unexpected events might mean teeth overstay their welcome or depart too soon. When the Tooth Fairy can’t keep to her schedule, schedule an appointment at Oak Grove Dentistry in Green Bay as soon as possible to make sure your child is on track for a future of healthy smiles.

What do you think of when you hear the term dental or oral hygiene? Brushing and flossing tend to come to mind, since that is what the terms imply.

What you might not know, however, is that good dental hygiene involves much more than just your mouth. That’s the tip of the iceberg … just a piece of the complex puzzle that is the human body.

Simply put, you cannot be fully healthy if you don’t have good oral health. Studies have shown that oral health and body health are closely linked and in fact almost impossible to define as separate phenomena.

Take gum disease, for example. It’s one of the most common dental infections, but it doesn’t just affect your gums. According to the Academy of General Dentistry, gum disease can be directly linked to more serious complications such as strokes and heart disease. Doesn’t that make you want to floss a little more often?

This goes the other way, too. Many oral events like sores, swollen gums, and dry mouth syndrome, which might seem fairly trivial and even harmless, may be signals of a much bigger problem: possibly leukemia, kidney disease, diabetes, or pancreatic cancer.

Now that you’ve been made aware of just how vital dental health is for your overall health (and vice versa), the best thing to do is what you’re probably already doing: making sure you brush and floss, as well as maintain a well-balanced diet. It’s also smart to keep away from cigarettes and tobacco, because both are known to contribute to periodontal disease.

In addition, be sure to keep getting your teeth cleaned every six months! If you’re due for a cleaning, give our Green Bay office a call to schedule an appointment at Oak Grove Dentistry.

There are lots of ads out there for toothpastes that claim to repair damaged tooth enamel.

Can you treat cavities and tooth decay at home? Well, mostly, no, you can’t.

Can you strengthen your enamel at home? Very possibly—in some circumstances. Let us explain!

Cavities and tooth decay start forming when the enamel on the tooth’s surface breaks down. To discover what causes this breakdown, we need to see how chemistry works with our biology.

Tooth enamel is mainly made from calcium and phosphate ions. These minerals combine to form hydroxyapatite, crystals which make up around 95% of our enamel. Hydroxyapatite crystals are so strong that tooth enamel is the hardest part of our bodies. What can weaken a substance this strong?

Acids. Acidic foods and drinks, as well as acids created by the bacteria in plaque, strip away calcium and phosphate ions in enamel, weakening the surface of the tooth. This is a process called demineralization, and it’s the first stage of tooth decay. Left alone, weak spots will become bigger and deeper until they form cavities.

And tooth enamel, unlike the rest of your body, isn’t living tissue. It can’t regenerate. Once bacteria and acids have created a deep enough cavity, only our doctors can repair it by removing decay and filling the tooth.

Wait, this sounds a lot more like “No, you can’t repair your enamel” and much less like “It’s possible to strengthen your enamel.” But we’re not through!

Demineralization doesn’t equal cavities—yet. Careful attention to your habits and your diet can make a difference in whether your enamel continues to weaken or becomes stronger.

Our body’s first defense against demineralization is saliva. Calcium and phosphate ions in saliva bathe the teeth throughout the day, restoring the minerals which have been lost. This is called remineralization. Saliva also helps neutralize acids from the foods we eat. But with a diet heavy in acids, or a lot of plaque buildup, saliva just can’t keep up with the damage.

That’s where “enamel-repair” toothpastes come in. Toothpastes are available that contain hydroxyapatite to restore calcium and phosphates to weakened enamel. But for many of the most common enamel-repair toothpastes, the not-so-secret secret to their effectiveness is fluoride.

Dentists recommend fluoride toothpastes for several very good reasons. Fluoride is attracted to the minerals in tooth enamel and bonds with them. Once bonded, fluoride attracts the calcium and phosphate ions in saliva, helping restore lost minerals to the enamel. Even better, when fluoride bonds with the calcium and phosphate in our enamel, fluorapatite is created. This is a crystal even stronger and more acid-resistant than hydroxyapatite.

If you’re concerned about the strength of your enamel, and especially if you notice any signs of acidic erosion, talk to our Green Bay dental team right away. our doctors can:

• Recommend over-the-counter toothpastes or professional fluoride applications to help reverse early demineralization
• Provide dental bonding, a crown, or a veneer to protect a tooth with serious erosion
• Treat a cavity caused by more advanced tooth decay.

Keeping your enamel healthy at home can take many forms. By careful brushing and flossing to remove plaque, by watching the acids in your diet, by making sure you’re properly hydrated, and by using fluoride toothpaste, you can both reduce the risk of demineralization and help restore weak spots in your tooth enamel.

So, can enamel-repair toothpastes effectively repair your teeth? Yes, they can be effective—if demineralization is in its early stages and if you make them a regular part of your daily dental routine.