This time every year, people begin making resolutions to eat better, lose weight, or quit smoking. These resolutions that pop up every year typically mean well, but the truth is, not even half are kept longer than six months. At our Asheboro dental office, we want you to resolve to make small changes for a healthier smile, not just for the next six months, but for the rest of your life.

Resolve to… Brush and floss every day. We mean it. Every. Single. Day. Following an at-home oral health routine of brushing twice a day and flossing once is the best way to get, and keep, your smile healthy. Brush in the morning to rid your mouth of all the bacteria that piled up overnight. Brush before bed to remove the day’s lingering food particles and bacteria. And prior to one of those brushings, sling some floss around your fingers and get in between each and every tooth.

Resolve to… Drink water. And lots of it. Our bodies are about 60% water. We need it to function, yet many people don’t drink nearly enough. Make an effort to drink eight, 8-ounce glasses every day. Not only will it help your overall health, it will help remove bacteria from the mouth that, if left alone, could lead to disease, decay, and cavities.

Resolve to… Kick the habit. Whether it’s smokeless tobacco, cigars, or cigarettes, tobacco is tobacco, and all of it is bad for you. Along with a plethora of whole-health concerns, all forms of tobacco pose threats to your oral health, too. Those who use tobacco are at increased risk for oral cancer, tooth decay, yellowing of teeth, and gum disease.

Resolve to… Keep visits with your dentist in Asheboro.

Regular visits to the dentist are crucial for optimal oral health. Typically recommended every six months, sometimes more, dental check ups are used to monitor your oral health and catch any potential problems early. Most dental diseases can be treated successfully if caught early, so it’s important to never skip a visit.

Resolve to make 2016 the year you put yourself, and your smile, first. Give our dental office in Asheboro a call to schedule your appointment today. We’ll work together to determine the best way to get your smile healthy, bright, and beautiful. Go ahead, you deserve it.

Serving patients in Asheboro, Randolph County, and Randleman.

Everybody is thinking about their New Year’s resolutions – get in shape, read more, take more time with the family – but have you thought about adding your smile to that list? 2016 might be a great year to take better care of your smile: It could improve your health too!

Here are 4 great ways to improve your smile, your health, and your confidence!

• Keep your regularly scheduled dental appointments. Not only do those regular cleanings keep your teeth and gums clean and sparkly, it gives our dental office in Asheboro more opportunities to keep an eye on your oral health. That means we can catch problems earlier for much less expensive repairs and a longer-lasting smile.
• Be vigilant about your oral hygiene routine. Your smile doesn’t only allow you to talk and chew. It is connected to the rest of your body and is a direct link for bacteria from gum disease to enter your bloodstream. Because of this, periodontal (gum) disease has been linked to everything from heart attacks and cancers to low birth weight babies and tooth loss.
• Choose food and drink carefully. Avoid super sugary or acidic foods and drinks like sports drinks, sodas, or candy. Instead, choose foods and beverages that protect and support your enamel instead of eroding it. These include tea (especially green or white tea which won’t stain your teeth as much), coconut water, cheese, chicken or other lean meats, and nuts. Adding crunchy fruits and vegetables like celery, apples, or pears, is a great idea too. These foods stimulate the flow of saliva and lessen the effects of sugars . Plus they can clear away leftover food particles.  
• Consider treating your smile to some cosmetic or other elective dentistry. Many of our patients renew their smiles with porcelain veneers. Dental veneers are one of the best ways to perfect and balance your smile. They can repair chipped, broken, or worn teeth to their original size, beauty, and strength; whiten even the most stained teeth, straighten crooked, gapped, or overlapped teeth; enhance tooth size, shape, color, length, and width; even balance your bite. In other words, porcelain veneers can do almost anything you need to make your smile look absolutely perfect, young, and brilliant.

What could be a better way to begin a new year than with a bright, beautiful, healthy smile that you want to share with the world? Questions? Call our dental office in Asheboro. We’re always glad to help any of our neighbors in Asheboro, Randolph County, and Randleman start the new year with a smile!

You know you need a mouthguard when you play a sport like hockey or football, but when you are sleeping? Really? What in the world is there to protect your teeth from while you are snug in your bed, cushioned everywhere by pillows and blankets?

You need to protect your teeth from yourself!

Many patients at our dental office in Asheboro come to us because their teeth are cracked, chipped, or worn down and they have no idea why. And when we tell them, they have a difficult time understanding how they could have no memory of doing it. They are suffering from bruxism, an unconscious clenching or grinding of the teeth, and their smiles are showing the telltale signs.

Could You Have Bruxism?

The primary symptoms of bruxism are:

• Worn, chipped, broken teeth
• Flattened tooth surfaces
• Exposure of tooth layers and loss of enamel
• Tooth sensitivity
• Jaw pain
• Headache and facial pain
• Earache from jaw muscle tension and contraction
• A scalloped tongue or irregular tongue edges
• Damaged mouth tissue

If you have any of these symptoms, please call our Asheboro dental office right away.

What Causes Tooth Grinding and Clenching?

There are a number of causes of bruxism including:

• Sleep disorders
• Stress, tension, or anxiety
• Misaligned jaw or poor bite alignment
• Acid reflux
• As a result of some diseases such as Parkinson’s disease
• As a side effect of some medications

If bruxism isn’t treated, it can lead to breaking teeth, TMJ disease, and migraines. It can also ruin much of the restorative or cosmetic dentistry you have invested in.

Let Us Help

At our dental office in Asheboro, we can fit you with a custom-made night guard appliance that will reduce the damage to your teeth from grinding or clenching during sleep, reduce any grinding-related symptoms, and protect your dental investments!

We help patients in Asheboro, Randolph County, and Randleman smile more!

Dentures can be an amazing replacement to all or several missing teeth. They can help regain confidence, enhance your lifestyle, and can even restore a more youthful look. But just because they aren’t natural teeth doesn’t mean they don’t need the same level of care. At our dental office in Asheboro, we want our denture patients to get the most out of their dentures, which is where proper care comes into play.

Why Proper Denture Care is Important

Just like caring for your natural teeth, caring for your dentures is important for overall oral health. When not cleaned or cared for properly, your dentures can become ill-fitting and result in serious oral health concerns. Most often, improper denture care leads to a buildup of plaque bacteria along the gum line. Too much of this dangerous bacteria may cause bad breath, cavities, more tooth loss, and even gum disease.

Follow These Tips

Proper denture care is important to fight off dangerous oral diseases and to ensure a proper fit for as long as possible. Follow these tips to extend the life of your dentures.

• Rinse. Rinsing your dentures with warm water after every meal is ideal. Rinsing helps remove any food particles that may be lingering around on your denture causing buildup. If foodstuffs are left there too long, they can start to decompose and lead to smelly breath or other oral health concerns.

• Brush. Just like natural teeth, dentures should be brushed daily. Use a soft-bristled brush or a denture brush with a denture-safe paste to gently clean the dentures, ridding them of extra food particles and bacteria. Just like rinsing, brushing goes a long way in keeping dentures, and breath, fresh.

• Soak. Dentures should be soaked every night in a closed container of denture solution or water. Soaking helps loosen anything that may be hanging around and can even help keep them stain-free.

• Visit. Make sure to keep up with recommended visits to your dentist in Asheboro to ensure your dentures are fitting properly and there are no concerns.

If you have questions about proper care for your dentures, or think they may be a solution for you, give our dental office in Asheboro a call. We’ll be more than happy to answer any questions you may have and ensure you’re on the right track towards optimal oral health.
Welcoming patients from Asheboro, Randolph County, and Randleman.

At our Asheboro dental office, we talk a lot about how important regular visits to us are for a healthy mouth, and even about how we can help boost the appearance of your smile with cosmetic dentistry. But there’s another, more important reason you should visit us at least twice a year.

A Healthy Mouth is Key for a Healthy Body

Oral health can actually mirror overall health. In fact, many whole-body concerns have oral manifestations, and the signs of certain diseases can first show in the mouth, sometimes before there are any other clues that something is wrong. Many of the overall health issues that commonly have oral symptoms are incredibly serious and can include:

• Diabetes
• Leukemia
• Oral Cancer
• Pancreatic Cancer
• Heart Disease

What to Look For

In between appointments, it’s important to keep an eye on your mouth and monitor it for any changes. Some symptoms that should trigger a call to your dentist include:

• Red, swollen, bleeding, or receding gums
• Chronic bad breath
• Ulcers
• Loose teeth
• Pus in the pockets between your teeth and gums

What You Can Do For a Healthier Life

You can help keep your body healthy by keeping your mouth in tip-top shape with a proper at-home hygiene routine of brushing twice a day and flossing at least once, maintaining regular visits to your dentist in Asheboro, and following these tips:

• Eat well-balanced meals
• Limit snacking throughout the day
• Drink plenty of water
• Avoid tobacco and excessive amounts of alcohol

If you’re experiencing any symptoms of a potential problem, contact our Asheboro dental office. We’ll work with you to determine the cause, discuss any potential whole-body concerns, and get you on the path towards a customized treatment plan. We’re here not only to keep your mouth healthy, but your body too.

Serving patients from Asheboro, Randolph County, and Randleman.

Your teeth are at risk all the time–even while you sleep! Here at our Asheboro dental office, we help our patients protect their teeth day and night with treatment and care tips. We believe a little education can go a long way toward keeping your teeth strong and healthy day or night.

Here are two night-time habits, or issues, and the solutions that may save your teeth:

Snoring and Sleep Apnea

Not only is snoring a possible sign of sleep apnea, a potentially deadly disorder that disrupts your sleep, it’s also a common cause of dry mouth.  Everyone needs saliva to keep their mouths healthy. Saliva works to:

• Lubricate the tissues of your mouth
• Cleanse and rinse the oral cavity and teeth, minimizing plaque build-up, washing away trapped food particles, and removing dead cells that can lead to bad breath, infections, and sores.
• Neutralize the acids plaque produces to stop enamel erosion.

If you snore or wonder if you have sleep apnea, please call us or talk to your physician or dentist right away. Sleep apnea won’t just dry your mouth out, it can lead to all kinds of health problems from extreme fatigue to an increased risk for strokes and heart attacks.

Grinding or Bruxism

Stress, certain medications, and dental problems can all cause people to grind and clench their teeth during sleep, a disorder called bruxism. Bruxism seems pretty self explanatory in the fact that it can cause your teeth to break, chip, crack, and even decay because of enamel erosion, but did you know it can also lead to a variety of other problems?

Problems caused by bruxism may include:

• Headaches, especially in the morning
• Toothaches
• Facial pain
• Jaw pain and dysfunction sometimes known as TMJ disorder
• Gum disease
• Facial aging due to shortening of teeth
• Tooth damage

If you or someone you know grinds or clenches their teeth at night, please call our dental office in Asheboro. We’ll work with you to diagnose what’s going on in your mouth and recommend the best solution for you so you can get back to oral health and back to a good night’s sleep.

Welcoming patients from Asheboro, Randolph County, and Randleman.

At our dental office in Asheboro, we’re always sure to stay up to date on technology and advancements in dental care. And our patients are pretty lucky to be living in a time when dentists have access to this kind of training. Did you know that there were no dental schools in the United states until 1840? And that in the middle ages, your “dentist” was just as likely to cut your hair as pull your teeth?

Here’s a quick look back:

Dentistry in the Middle Ages

People in the middle ages might have had healthier teeth than ours. But not because of quality professional care! The reason people actually had good teeth came from a combination of a diet very low in sugar and refined foods and high in calcium, and pretty decent personal oral hygiene. There were all kinds of tooth powders and pastes and even whitening rinses! When it came to routine dental care, things were quite different.

A dental practitioner was most likely a barber surgeon who performed all sorts of procedures including cutting hair, bloodletting, pulling teeth, and performing various surgeries. They may have also dispensed dental advice such as kissing a donkey to relieve a toothache or cleaning your ears to prevent one. Tooth decay was sometime thought to be caused by a toothworm and remedies included this doozie: “Take a candle of sheep’ suet, some eringo seed being mixed therewith, and burn it as near the tooth as possible, some cold water being held under the candle. The worms (destroying the tooth) will drop into the water, in order to escape from the heat of the candle.”

Dentistry in the 19th Century

The dental profession didn’t change much until the early 18th century. Barber surgeons were the norm and they performed the majority of personal and medical care. By the 19th century, though, dentistry began to seem quite modern. European surgeons were experimenting with dental implants; porcelain dentures were becoming more popular; and nitrous oxide, the same laughing gas we sometimes use today, was introduced by Humphry Davy. Dental training even began to become what we know today with education moving from apprenticeships to formal training in colleges and universities. In fact, the first dental college, the Baltimore College of Dentistry, was founded by Chapin Harris and Horace Hayden in 1840.

If you’d like to learn more about dentistry throughout history, or would like to learn more about the history of our Asheboro dental practice, please give us a call. We promise we won’t ask you to kiss any donkeys.

Accepting patients from Asheboro, Randolph County, and Randleman.

Flossing. It’s one of America’s least favorite necessities. In fact, a study from the American Academy of Periodontology found that more than a third of people would rather do a sink load full of dishes, scrub the toilet, wait in a super long checkout line, or sit in standstill traffic than floss. What’s the deal? Why is flossing so despised?

With more than half Americans not flossing regularly, and 20% who don’t floss at all, our Asheboro dental office wanted to look at some common reasons people forgo the floss.

1. Flossing hurts.

If flossing hurts or makes your gums bleed, it’s actually a sign that you should floss more, not less. When gums are healthy, flossing is painless and no bleeding occurs. Bleeding gums is one of the key signs of gum disease and shouldn’t be taken lightly. Gum disease can lead to whole-body concerns like increased risk for stroke and heart attack. If you experience pain or bleeding while flossing, make sure you get into the habit of flossing daily. If the pain or bleeding doesn’t go away, see your dentist in Asheboro as soon as possible.

2. It’s difficult to do.

Flossing requires dexterity to reach in between each and every tooth – especially the ones way in the back. Some people have trouble maneuvering their hands to accommodate a proper flossing, especially those who have had a stroke, injury, or arthritis. However, there are other ways to floss successfully besides traditional floss. Y-shaped plastic, disposable, flossers; water flossers; electric flossers; and even old-fashioned toothpicks are all easier to use and provide many of the benefits of regular floss.

3.  Am I doing it right?

Flossing seems like it should be easy, but the truth is, there is a proper technique. If you aren’t sure if you’re flossing correctly, it may be uncomfortable and you may stop doing it. Stick with it, follow these directions, and flossing will become much easier.

o      Start with 18 inches or so of floss and wrap the ends around each middle finger.

o      Pull it tight and gently wiggle back and forth between teeth until it reaches the gum line.

o      Form the floss into a “U” shape and curve it around the tooth.

o      Apply gentle pressure and slide the floss up and down.

o      Slide it out and repeat between each tooth using a clean section of floss

At our dental office in Asheboro, we encourage all of our patients to pair proper brushing with a thorough flossing for optimal oral health. If you’re having trouble finding a flossing technique that’s comfortable, are experiencing pain or bleeding when you do floss, or want to know if you’re doing it correctly, give us a call. We’ll be more than happy to help.

Welcoming patients from Asheboro, Randolph County, and Randleman.

Bad breath affects everyone at least once in a lifetime and it’s completely normal. But it doesn’t make it any less embarrassing or worrisome. At our Asheboro dental office, we hear a lot of questions about bad breath – what causes it? How do you cure it? Is it serious? – so we’d like to talk about some common causes of bad breath and ways to cure it.

Cause #1: Dry Mouth.

Some medications, mouth breathing, or lack of proper water intake can cause dry mouth, and a dry mouth is a great place for bacteria to hide. Dry mouth creates the perfect situation for bacteria to create bad odors..

Cure: One of the easiest ways to avoid bad breath caused by a dry mouth is to drink plenty of water every day. A well-hydrated mouth keeps saliva flowing and removes lingering bacteria. The water itself can also neutralize acid the mouth and flush out even more bacteria.

Cause #2: Delicious, Yet Oh So Stinky, Food.

Garlic, spicy dishes, onions, oh my! Plenty of our favorite foods taste so good, but leave an unpleasant odor in their wake. Most of the time, this isn’t a medical concern, but may cause insecurity. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want to squash the stench and replace it with a little freshness. Here’s how.

Cure: Following such a meal, a quick and easy way to relieve bad breath is by chewing a piece of sugarless gum. Not only does the sticky texture pull lingering food particles off your teeth, it typically has a nice, minty, fresh smell. No gum handy? Fruits and veggies high in fiber and that require a lot of chewing, like apples, can help clean teeth and the vitamin C kills bacteria.

Cause #3: Gum Disease.

Bad breath that doesn’t go away is one of the earliest and most common signs of gum disease, which is a serious problem that has been shown to cause oral health, and whole-body health, concerns. If untreated, gum disease may lead to tooth loss, sensitivity, and receding gums. It may also increase the risk of stroke or heart attack. That’s the bad news.

Cure: The good news is, it’s treatable. There isn’t  a one-size-fits-all cure for gum disease, but we strongly encourage you to visit your dentist in Asheboro as soon as you can. Gum disease is serious and the earlier we catch it, the better. Each gum disease treatment is different, so work with your dentist to determine which is best for you.

If your bad breath lingers day after day, or if you notice it more often than just after a meal or post-coffee, call our dental office in Asheboro. We will help find the cause of your bad breath and work with you to cure it. We don’t judge our patients and are here to help get their mouths, and bodies, healthy. Call for your appointment today.

Welcoming patients from Asheboro, Randolph County, and Randleman.

As we get older, our bodies go through a lot of changes. Some of them don’t directly affect our health, but one in particular may. We’re talking about osteoporosis. At our dental office in Asheboro, many of our patients are over the age of 50 and, therefore, at increased risk for osteoporosis. Believe it or not, seeing us regularly is a great way to first spot signs of osteoporosis.

What is Osteoporosis?

Osteoporosis is a disorder that affects and weakens the bones, making them more likely to break. With an estimated 10 million Americans already suffering with the disease, an additional 34 million are at risk. This bone disorder doesn’t plague all genders and ages equally. Although it can happen at any age or gender, typically, women over 50 are at the greatest risk.

How Dental Care Can Help

Many times osteoporosis isn’t diagnosed until the bone density is already diminished considerably. Usually, an injury that results in a broken bone is what leads to a proper osteoporosis diagnosis. However, there are a few ways to catch osteoporosis before this happens. And it all starts with your dentist.

Individuals with low bone density may have a higher incidence of oral health problems, and many times, these issues allow your dentist to catch osteoporosis early. Following an in-depth exam and set of x-rays, we may be able to link what we’re seeing in your mouth and on your x-rays to osteoporosis. Some of the things we’re looking for include:

• Bone loss in the jaw
• Tooth loss
• Gum disease
• Poor fitting dentures that weren’t always so uncomfortable

If we find any symptoms of osteoporosis, we’ll discuss your options with you and work on getting your mouth, and your body, strong and healthy.

Prevention

Besides keeping up with recommended dental appointments, there are several other ways you can prevent osteoporosis.

• Get enough calcium and vitamin D
• Stop smoking
• Limit caffeine intake
• Minimize alcohol consumption
• Exercise

If you’re concerned about osteoporosis, or if it’s been awhile since you’ve seen the dentist, give our Asheboro dental office a call. We’ll be sure to screen you for any potential problems and are happy to work with you to treat anything we happen to find.

Welcoming patients from Asheboro, Randolph County, and Randleman.