What is a Fissured Tongue?

Also known as either plicated tongue or scrotal tongue, fissured tongue is a condition estimated to affect between 2% and 5% of Americans. This condition comes in the form of rose of grooves that run across the top and sides of your tongue, possibly as deep as six millimeters. People with fissured tongue generally develop the condition in adulthood, though the grooves will occasionally appear in childhood and grow deeper with age.

If you experience fissured tongue, don’t worry; it’s a generally harmless genetic trait that does not require treatment. However, it may be wise for you to take particular care in scraping your tongue every day. The deep grooves in your tongue are slightly more likely to trap bits of food and allow harmful oral bacteria to thrive, causing irritation or encouraging tooth decay and gingivitis.

When you think that you may have fissured tongue, it’s best not to diagnose yourself. Whenever you notice any changes or anomalies on your tongue or in your mouth, be sure to consult your dentist to confirm that it’s nothing harmful.

Familial Discord Linked to Poor Dental Health

There are many forces in your life that determine how likely you are to suffer tooth decay or gum disease. Some of the better understood ones are your oral hygiene habits and your genetics. However, it would appear that even something like the quality of your family life can play a significant role in your oral health. Domestic violence, including both verbal and physical, encourages bad oral hygiene.

This is according to a study conducted by a team at New York University, who found that people with a lot of familial conflict are more likely to develop cavities or lose teeth. For every above-average statistical increase in a married person’s aggression toward his or her partner, researchers observed a large increase in occurrence of cavities. Abused women would have an average of 3.5 more cavities, while men exhibited an average of 5.3 more. Children of fighting couples, meanwhile, had an average of 1.9 more cavities for every above-average increase of emotional aggression exhibited by their mothers towards the other parent.

The problem is that a noxious household environment is not conducive of organized routines, including brushing and flossing. Additionally, people in such environments are prone to eating sugary foods as a stress response.

Is Your Whitening Toothpaste Doing Any Good?

Some people are attracted to the prospect of whitening toothpaste. After all, if you can maintain a pearly-white look in your teeth by doing what you do every day, you can avoid having to undergo a special whitening treatment. But are such toothpastes all they’re cracked up to be? The truth is that they’re probably doing more harm than good.

Consider the fine print on your whitening toothpaste. If you look closely, you’ll probably find that the paste only claims to whiten your teeth “by removing surface stains”. What this means is that it serves to scrub away staining agents before they set, but are not likely to do anything to stains that have already penetrated your enamel. Indeed, anything that has the power to bleach away stains would require more exposure to your teeth than a couple minutes of brushing allows. The bleaching agents of your paste are probably only providing for a more abrasive brushing experience, serving to break down your gums all the more. When you need to whiten your teeth, consider a professional treatment from our Issaquah dentist.

Dental Implants to be Replaced by Stem Cell

Stem cell research has been a buzz worthy topic for many years and the suggested findings have been even more bold. New research prompts insight to dental implants or dentures being replaced with stem cells which may regrow missing teeth. Due to its extraordinary ability to repair, stem cells carry a specialized purpose which may aid in replacement of missing or diseased teeth via cells from existing teeth.

Commonly practiced, dental implants have been sturdy options where metals compatible with the human body are fixated in the upper or lower jaw to optimize its functions. Although seemingly safe and effective, dental implants are still artificial teeth that combine with the bone which can restrict candidates according to medical history and medical evaluation. The forward procedure in its test phase claim, “epithelial cells derived from adult human gum tissue are capable of responding to tooth inducing signals from embryonic tooth mesenchyme in an appropriate way to contribute to tooth crown and root formation and give rise to relevant differentiated cell types, following in-vitro culture.”

Having been successful in test mice, the Professor at King’s College London’s Dental Institute states, “thus a realistic source for consideration in human biotooth formation.” The new movements in science may lead to inventive procedures where dental implants become outdated and defunct.

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What is Fluorosis?

If you have a child, be sure to instruct him or her on proper tooth brushing practice. Many children enjoy the minty taste of their paste too much, and are inclined to swallow it like a piece of candy. This can lead to them getting too much fluoride in their systems, which can cause fluorosis.

Roughly a quarter of Americans are affected by fluorosis . The condition generally occurs in children under the age of nine, and manifests as a discoloration of the permanent teeth as they come in. Their teeth may have stains that range in color from faint to dark brown. In the more severe cases, there may also be irregularities on the surface of the tooth, or highly noticeable pitting.

Fluorosis is largely a cosmetic condition, but can affect the self-esteem of a young child. Fortunately, there are options available to deal with affected teeth. Consult our Issaquah dentist clinic to learn more about how much fluoride is appropriate for a child, or how to deal with fluoride problems.

Is Your Toothbrush Contaminated?

You should generally expect your toothbrush to gather bacteria as you brush with it, which is why it is recommended that you rinse it out and sanitize it periodically. However, if you share a bathroom with other people, there are worse things than bacteria to worry about.

According to a study recently presented at the meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, many toothbrushes become tainted with human fecal particles. Most of these come from shared bathrooms. Of the toothbrushes stored in such bathrooms, a full sixty percent are contaminated, while eighty percent of these had feces coming from someone other than the brush’s owner.

This contamination is largely the result of the toilet, which sends up a faint spray of water when you flush it. There isn’t much to this spray, but over time it can build up on anything that is left out in the open too close to the bowl. With this in mind, try to keep your brush in a closable container, and contact our Issaquah dentist for more information on healthy brush maintenance.

Coping With Canker Sores

Everybody gets a canker sore every now and then, and few people know what to do about it. What are these painful little sores? How do they happen, and how do you get rid of them?

In truth, nobody is entirely sure what causes most canker sores. However, they can often be attributed to trauma in the delicate tissues in the mouth. You will therefore want to shield your sore from additional aggravation by protecting it from anything that might poke, burn, or irritate the damaged tissue. This can mean avoiding certain foods, particularly citrus fruit and other acidic substances. It also means cutting back on chewing gum or other items, which increase your risk of biting down on your injury.

The good news is that the pain from a canker sore should generally last no longer than a few days, and the sore should vanish completely in no more than two weeks. If it persists longer than this, or if it is a particularly large or painful sore, then you may need to seek out professional help. Contact our Issaquah dentist for further help.

The Dental Risks of Oral Piercings

Jewelry in the cheek, lip, or tongue area poses a number of considerable risks for your oral health, and you would be well advised to take these risks into consideration before committing to punching a hole in your face. Oral piercings, particularly the common “barbell” tongue piercing, can be highly aggravating to your mouth. Firstly, the hard metal of the ring or stud is sure to come into contact with your teeth and soft gum tissues. This can wear away at your enamel and gums. One study demonstrated that, after only four years of wearing a tongue stud, a full 47% of people have at least one chipped tooth.

At the same time, a piercing in your mouth is yet another place for your oral bacteria to hide. Both the jewelry and the hole that it is set into give microbes a lot of elusive areas to grow and thrive out of the reach of your brush. Since the hole, or wound, is created by the piercing, bacteria can enter the bloodstream and cause further health complications. Unless you’re ready to commit to a more intensive oral hygiene routine, you may want to consider a different location for your piercing.

If you or a family member is considering an oral piercing, come and see our Issaquah dentist for questions and concerns that you or anyone else might have.

The Aspirin Myth

There is a myth floating around that you can ease a toothache by placing an aspirin next to it. However, our Issaquah dentist advises that this is not a wise practice. Not only will this not alleviate your pain, but you are in fact only making your problem worse.

The cause of most toothaches is an inflammation of the pulp tissues at the center of the tooth, which swell up and push against the immovable wall that is your dentin. This can therefore benefit from an anti-inflammatory drug, but only if you actually swallow it and let it work its way into the pulp via the bloodstream. Meanwhile, an aspirin pill is acidic; placing it next to your tooth is doing the same damage that your oral bacteria is doing every day.

When your tooth is aching, swallow the aspirin, ice the area, and call Meadow Creek Family Dental as soon as possible.

Making your White Teeth Last Longer

When you need to get rid of the stains on your teeth, you can call our Issaquah dental clinic for a whitening. But how can you keep your teeth from staining more in the future? Unfortunately, tooth-staining substances are all around us, so much so that you can’t reasonably expect to avoid them all. Common staining agents include the following:

  • Tea. This is particularly true of common dark teas, but even herbal white tea has the potential to erode your enamel and leave its stain upon your teeth.
  • Coffee.
  • Any kind of smoking.
  • Darkly-colored sauces, including tomato sauce, soy sauce, and curry.
  • Sodas and sports drinks.
  • Berries. The strong pigmentation present in colorful berries are also present in jellies, jams, juices, and the dark wines that they go into.
  • Colorful candies and other sweets.

Obviously, this list represents not only a lot of common indulgences for many people, but also many of the very healthiest substances you can eat. Therefore, instead of cutting these all out of your diet, consider some easy stain-fighting practices that can allow you to enjoy your favorites without tarnishing your smile. You can drink your more colorful drinks through a straw, not letting them linger among your teeth. Keep a glass of water handy as you enjoy staining foods to help you rinse away pigments before they can settle. And remember, when all else fails you can always count on Meadow Creek Family Dental!