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31Oct

Learn About Cavities

When our team asks you about your brushing and flossing habits, they are just looking out for you. When you fail to brush your teeth consistently, you are placing yourself at risk of getting cavities and other forms of tooth decay, which can result in greater harm to your body. Bad oral health can cause increased risk of heart disease, and make pregnant women more likely to give birth to premature babies with low weight.

To prevent cavities, you should first know exactly what a cavity is. When you don’t brush your teeth well enough, the food you ate may turn into plaque. This starts the process of tooth decay, which will eventually dig a hole in your tooth.

While steps should be taken to prevent cavities, it’s not the end of the world if you get one. Even the worst of cavities can be able to be fixed by Dr. Gibbs, and our team can check your mouth for any other signs of tooth decay. Oral health is a team effort, but it is much easier to prevent issues from arising than treat them once they’ve advanced. If you think you may be overdue for a cleaning, call and schedule an appointment today!

28Sep

Proper Nutrition in Glen Ellyn

Tooth decay is caused by consuming sugary foods and drinks. To prevent tooth decay, limit your intake of sugary foods and drinks, and brush your teeth after eating. Plaque is a bacteria found on the teeth that thrive on food sugars. Plaque uses sugar to produce acids that destroy the tooth’s enamel. Over time, the tooth will decay and ultimately result in cavities. To prevent tooth decay and cavities, the American Dental Association recommends to limit your intake of the following foods and drinks:

  • Carbs such as bread, pasta, and chips
  • Chewy and sticky foods like raisins, granola bars and honey
  • Sugary snacks such as cookies
  • Candy
  • Gum
  • Carbonated Soft drinks including diet drinks
  • Sports drinks
  • Fruit and vegetable juice

To maintain dental health, visit Dr. Gibbs regularly for checkups, cleaning, and treatment of cavities.

28Aug

Smoking is one of the leading causes of tooth loss. The risks of periodontal disease, leukoplakia, inflammation of the salivary gland and more increases when you smoke. Not only are these issues harmful to your health, a smoker also deals with bad breath, stained teeth, increased tartar and plaque and even loss of smell and taste over the years.

Health Tips for your Oral Needs

If you smoke, it is important to that you keep up the right dental hygiene program at home. You should have your teeth cleaned more often than a non-smoker, and it is wise to purchase a tongue cleaner along with your normal dental hygiene products. Always make sure to let your dentist office personnel know that you are a smoker. You can ask to be screened for issues such as periodontal disease and more to ensure you remain healthy.

Dr. Gibbs can also point you in the right direction of smoking cessation ideas. Visit www.smokefree.gov and www.cancer.org for more information.

20Jul

For common dental emergencies, following these tips may help you save the tooth in question:

If your tooth is cracked, rinse your mouth out immediately with warm water. Press a cold compress on the area to help keep any swelling down.

For toothaches, use warm water to rinse out your mouth. Using dental floss will get rid of any remaining food stuck between your teeth.

If a permanent or adult tooth gets knocked out, keep the area moist at all times. Try to put the tooth back in the empty sock without touching the actual root. If you can’t, put it in between your gums and cheek, in milk, or you can use a tooth preservation product. Call your dentist right away.

Visit your Glen Ellyn dentist or local emergency room as soon as you can if you have a dental emergency.

30Jun

Your first line of defense to keep your teeth free of decay is regular brushing and flossing. But there are methods of protecting your teeth than can do more. One of these methods is to have dental sealants put onto your molars, the back teeth with the largest chewing surface.

Molars can have deep grooves that make it difficult to remove all harmful substances with just brushing. A sealant, which is made of plastic or other safe material, acts as a barrier on those grooves to prevent the build up of food and harmful acids. They are ideal for children and adults and can even be used to prevent small amounts of decay from become a more harmful cavity.

Brushing and flossing is most important and kids should learn healthy habits early on. But you can also have sealants put on a child’s teeth as an extra layer of protection. They greatly reduce the amount of cavities seen in school-age children.

If you are looking for a dentist in Glen Ellyn, give us a call today at (630) 858-8800.

29May

What is a “Terminal Dentition” or Hopeless Teeth? Is There a Solution?

Currently in the United States fewer than 2% of dentists are trained in IV dental sedation. Dr. Gibbs as such sees many patients who are very phobic, medically compromised, or embarrassed by their current dental condition.

A common fear is that their teeth will only continue to “fall apart,” and that need for expensive and uncomfortable dental care will continue for the remainder of their life. They fear that condition is “hopeless” and that they will continue to waste their money on teeth that will just fail time-after-time.

Good News! Comfortable near “Painless” Dental Visits

The reality is dentistry can be comfortable. Using advanced technology like Wand dental numbing, nitrous oxide, stereo headphones, oral pill dental sedation, or advanced IV dental sedation visits can be made comfortable. Certainly caring, gentle, and understanding staff are also vital.

Hope for Hopeless Teeth!

Advances in dental restorations can make teeth nearly unbreakable. Also, advances in preventive care can make the likelihood of continued decay less likely. Additionally reducing excessive biting forces make teeth less likely to wear or break.

When Should a Patient Give Up? Hopeless Teeth & Long Term Choices

There are actually realities that cause patients, and rightly so, give up hope. People become frustrated when fillings break and need crowns, crowns and become root canals, root canals fail and need extraction, partial dentures and dental bridge fail and repeatedly implants or dentures are required. For many the constant prospects of increasing cost, continued discomfort and time spent fixing failing teeth is frustrating.

If too many teeth are lost remaining teeth have to “work harder” and may be more likely to wear, break (especially if they have larger fillings), to have the bone supporting them resorb and the teeth loosen. Dental implant options have increasingly become the better option if teeth become hopeless.

In some cases if the like hood of continued breakdown is probable, some patients now even choose to have all teeth extracted and to have the teeth replaced with dentures or dental implant bridges placed.

UNFORTUATELY PROCASTINATION IS THE WORSE CHOICE!!! For instance, failure to get a crown after root canals often results in tooth fracture, failure to get an implant after an extraction results in bone loss and more painful/costly subsequent repairs, and defaulting to dentures results in loss of facial muscle and bone loss.
Carefully consult with knowledgeable dental professionals. Patients deserve to know not only the short-term cost, but also the long term costs and consequences!

(see also our article on the “Hidden Dangers of Dentures” and our dental implants introduction page, and dental implant bridges—Teeth Tomorrow pages)

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