Brushing your teeth is good enough as far as dental hygiene goes, isn’t it? You brush for a good couple minutes every session, after all, and you use a toothpaste with all the latest and greatest extras to make sure your teeth are nice and healthy. You even make sure to replace your toothbrush four times a year no matter what shape it’s in and you gargle with mouthwash every morning without fail. Sadly, though, there’s just no substitute for flossing. Read more
You know that plaque is bad because everyone says it’s bad. You need to brush your teeth and floss every day or else there will be plaque and tartar and cavities and your teeth will ache forever. But how do these things add up, exactly? Read more
The human mouth is, at least in most cases, designed for 28 teeth. However, almost everyone will grow a total of 32 adult teeth. So what happens when too many teeth grow into too little space? All too often, the answer is “nothing good.” Read more
A white smile is a healthy smile, or so everyone seems to assume. It’s true enough that if your teeth are significantly yellow, brown, or green, then it’s likely you’re doing something wrong in regards to your dental hygiene. However, while a certain amount of yellow discoloration is natural, it’s fairly common to run into people with even higher standards than that, especially among the upper class and those in show business. Read more
Cosmetic dentistry is, to put it simply, a series of techniques and procedures which are less useful in keeping your teeth healthy than in keeping your smile attractive and even. Here are a few examples: Read more
Sometimes getting a full night’s sleep isn’t enough to feel rested the next morning. You climb into bed exactly eight hours before your alarm goes off, but despite spending a third of your day asleep, when you wake up you find yourself wondering what you were doing in all that time, because it certainly doesn’t feel like rest. Read more
It seems to be a common misconception that braces are all about vanity. Specifically, you sacrifice some of your dignity in middle and high school (what with the metal studs glued to your teeth) and then you gain it all back thanks to a perfect smile which will (hopefully) last the rest of your lifetime. However, neither of these facts is completely true. Read more
In the early 20th century, the dentist Frederick McKay began looking into a phenomenon which was known at the time as the Colorado brown stain. The stain was characterized by brown discolorations and noticeable pits which appeared on the teeth of people who lived in certain parts of Colorado. While it wasn’t a pretty sight, McKay also happened to notice that those who suffered from the brown stain also suffered from fewer cavities than the national average. Read more
Human teeth are designed to bite into some fairly hard and tough materials. Beef jerky, taffy, hard candy, and of course the classic standbys of denture commercials: apples and corn. It’s generally not a good idea to chew on solid objects like rocks and wood, but then that’s a fairly obvious conclusion we can make without having to feel our mistakes in our teeth. So then why can they hurt? What good does that do us? Read more
Perhaps you’ve lost a tooth because of an accident, or perhaps it got too infected and it needed to come out. Perhaps it’s simply worn down with age and infection is too likely for it to be worth keeping around. However it happens, there’s now a hole where your tooth used to be, and so you’re facing a decision on how to fill it. Read more