Bone Grafts Can Change Your Smile

Dr. Denine Rice and her team are able to provide multiple options if your smile is impacted by gum loss due to trauma, periodontal disease or oral cancer.  Your smile is as important as your body and bone grafting can provide an excellent way to restore your smile.  

There are multiple types of bone grafts. Some use bone that is from an animal, but it can also be removed from other parts of your body and placed in the jawbone. Placing new bone in the jaw can strengthen bone that has been lost in order to place implants to restore missing teeth.  Depending on your needs, Dr. Rice may recommend the bone used for your procedure to be synthetically created in a lab. No matter which type of bone is utilized, the impact will allow you to have a restored and healthy smile.

If your jawbone has been impacted due to trauma and there are ridges in the jawbone, bone graft surgery can allow your jaw to have a more uniform look. Once the bone is placed in the right places, it will fuse to your jawbone.

Your smile is the universal way to communicate with the world. If your smile is communicating something other than health and happiness call Periodontist Dr. Denine Rice and her team today for more options.

4 Reasons Why You Don’t Want To Neglect Your Smile

It can be easy to blow off your smile. You may think cosmetic dentistry and taking care of your smile means dealing with a dentist who’s just trying to get your money. But did you know the body and mouth are connected? As the plaque begins to attack the enamel in your teeth, your body begins to fight. 
 
Dr. Rice states, "if you have gingivitis or periodontal disease, your body will begin to think it is sick." In order to kill the infection raging in your mouth, you will feel exhausted even if you get a good night’s sleep.  

While your immune system is kicking into overdrive, unless you take care of the root of the problem, you will continue to feel tired. 
The longer you wait, the bigger the problem you may have. While not brushing and flossing can start off with a little bleeding when you brush, it can quickly turn to a bone loss, inflammation of the gums and decay. 

The loss of a tooth costs more to fix then periodontal laser surgery. "Once a tooth is gone there is no going back, and once you lose one tooth you are more likely to lose more teeth in the upcoming months," states Dr. Denine Rice. As teeth fall out, other teeth will begin to shift into those positions causing you to look older than you are. 
Your smile is the first way to communicate happiness to someone across a room. Less smiling can lead to depression, lack of friends or intimate relationships. Job opportunities can be lost if you have an unhealthy smile. 
 Take time for your smile, call Dr. Rice & her team today for options on how to get your mouth in tip-top shape.  

Recommit To Change Your Smile Today!

Your smile is your finest asset or your greatest liability. With a positive, white smile you can share with the world, opportunities may pop up that you didn’t believe you had a chance at. Promotions may be possible when you are able to smile and enjoy life. While it may seem impossible to get your smile back to a healthy state, you can achieve it by implementing these three easy steps. 
 
Visit the periodontist if you have bleeding, swollen gums or have missing teeth due to periodontal disease. This will be the best decision you make. When you have periodontal disease, while brushing and flossing is critical, you’ll need to first get the periodontal disease under control. Once you have visited the periodontist the two of you can come up with a game plan for not only treating the disease, but also how you may be able to cosmetically enhance your smile. 
 Brush 2x a day. This is not a negotiable. Brushing is the critical step to removing food from your teeth. Periodontist, Dr. Rice states, “The longer food is on the surface of your teeth the more opportunity there is for the food to turn into bacteria that begins to damage the enamel of your teeth.”  
As the enamel is worn down, this can lead to cavities, decay and a need for more expensive dental procedures to fix. The bacteria then have the opportunity to go below the gum tissue creating havoc on the bone supporting your teeth.
Floss at least one time a day. Flossing removes the food from between the teeth and below the gum-line. Periodontal disease occurs when you do not floss. Bleeding, swollen and red gums are signs of gum disease. “If you have gingivitis,” Dr. Denine Rice says, “it can be taken care of by regular flossing.”   

I changed it to three as I only found three steps.  

3 Reason why using a Water Flossing is better than not flossing at all

When the word “floss,” comes out of a dental professionals mouth, they may get a variety of responses. Some patients lie, "Of course, course I floss once a day.” Other’s laugh uncomfortably and look away. While others smile, nod like they are die-hard flossers because they flossed that morning before their appointment. Despite a deep desire to have great oral hygiene, The American Periodontal Association has found 27% of Americans lie about flossing. But there is an alternative to lying. There is an alternative to string. 
 Dr. Rice says, “A water flosser can provide a better alternative than not flossing at all.” The flow of water is designed to rinse food away from the gum line and in between teeth. Utilizing the water flosser before brushing can remove plaque and food that causes periodontal disease. 
Water flossers provide an option for patients who have teeth that are close together. When patients have teeth that are tight together or rotated out of alignment, it can be difficult to get the floss between teeth. You may find you push too hard to get the floss between and this in turn damages the gums. Periodontist, Dr. Denine Rice, suggests, “Use a water flosser for those hard to reach areas to avoid breaking floss.” 
Water flossers do not damage the gums. Not flossing can cause the plaque to buildup below the gum line that can lead to loose or missing teeth. You may find that your gums may be swollen, bleed or recede from the teeth. Water flossers are gentle on the gums while removing food left over from lunch. 
Flossing is critical to the health of your gums & ensures you get to keep all of your teeth for a lifetime. And a water flosser can be a healthy and positive alternative to not flossing at all.  

For more questions or concerns contact Dr. Denine Rice & her team today.

Periodontal Disease & How It Can Impact You

It is unfortunate but women, during a variety of times in their lives, can be at a higher risk for periodontal disease. As your body and hormones change, your teeth can be at greater risk.  While cosmetic surgery can help improve your smile, it’s important to take care of the foundation, which are your gums to reduce the risks to your teeth. Dr. Denine Rice, states, “There are four critical hormonal times that may decrease the health of your smile if you do not brush, floss and visit the dentist regularly.“

Puberty is the first burst of hormones that can impact your gums. There tends to be a rush of blood to the gums, which can cause an increase in irritation.

During menstruation some women can experience menstruation gingivitis. Right before your period begins you may notice your gums are bleeding, swollen and puffy. Usually this clears up after your period has stopped.

During pregnancy the hormones in your system can increase, leaving you at risk for periodontal disease. If this is not taken care of it can impact the health of your baby. “Visit the periodontist if you find your gums are swollen, bleeding and you are not able to reduce the symptoms with regular flossing and brushing,” says Dr. Rice.

Menopause and Post Menopause. Along with a variety of other symptoms, some women can have dry mouth or experience burning of the gums along with bleeding, swollen and sensitive tissue.

These factors, while they increase your chances of having periodontal disease, don’t mean you need to let it get that far. Visit the dentist if you are experiencing any of these symptoms and they do not go away with a regular dental routine. 

3 Ways To Stop The Excuses & Floss

Periodontists hear all kinds of reasons why individuals do not floss. While cosmetic surgery can fix some of the problems you may have encountered from periodontal disease, you’ll still want to floss in order to protect your new smile. Here are some tips that can help.

1.     Find floss you like. You can enjoy a water pic, electric flosser, and waxed or unwaxed floss. The type of floss you use does not matter to your gums, it is just important that you are engaging in a routine flossing protocol on a daily basis. If your teeth are tight and you tend to break floss while flossing, try to use waxed floss. This can help slide it between the teeth better.

2.     Dr. Rice also recommends you floss every day at the same time. This helps to produce a routine. It takes twenty-one days to establish a habit. The more routine you can make it, the easier it is to have it become a part of your regular day.

3.     Floss even though your gums bleed. It can take awhile before you are able to heal your gums. Continue flossing for seven to ten days. "If they are still bleeding after that you may need to go to the periodontist or your regular dentist in order for them to clean up any bacteria below the gum line," suggests Dr. Denine Rice.

Flossing is as critical as brushing and visiting the dentist. Without regular flossing you can cause permanent tooth loss.

Tips To Healing After Laser Surgery

Laser surgery can help restore balance to your smile and to your mouth.  Not only does healing take less time then traditional periodontal surgery, it is not as painful. Traditional periodontal surgery requires the periodontist to cut back the gums and scrape out the bacteria from between the gum tissue and the teeth. Each quadrant (divide the mouth into four equal parts) is done a section at a time and then the healing begins. But when you use a laser for the surgery, the healing process begins almost immediately.

Fine hairs on the laser allow the laser to penetrate between the gum and the teeth.

There are no sutures and no cutting is necessary. All of the cleaning and healing can be done without the required down time. While you want to be careful about brushing right after surgery, after it heals you’ll want to go back to a regular brushing and flossing routine. “For a few weeks after surgery,” Dr. Rice recommends, “use a very soft-bristled toothbrush.” You should brush in gentle strokes around the gums until they are clean.

Establish healthy routines after LANAP laser surgery. It is easy to go back to our old ways. But if you want to keep that winning and healthy smile, your brushing and flossing routine needs to be completed on a regular basis. The only way to keep decay from coming back and attacking your body again is utilizing a soft-bristled brush to remove the food from the surface of your teeth and floss to remove food from between the teeth.

If you struggle with periodontal disease contact Dr. Rice & her team today.

Never To Late To Love You’re Gums

Your gums are a precious commodity to your mouth. Dr. Denine Rice suggests, "you have only one natural set of tissue and it is critical to keeping your smile in the best shape of its life." Don’t take advantage of your gums because you believe they will always be there for you. If you continue to not brush, floss or visit the dentist, you’ll soon find that your mouth is riddled with problems that create twice the challenges and cost many more dollars to fix.

Recommit to loving your gums by picking up the floss and using it. Hundreds of adults lie to their dentist about whether they floss and how often.  But there is no reason to lie, because one look at your gums tells the whole story.  As you continue, day after day, to not floss, the pocket in between your gums and teeth will begin to expand. “Once this process begins,” Dr. Rice says, “it is more difficult to heal and many times requires periodontal treatment.

Flossing is the perfect thing to your dental routine, but brushing and visiting the dentist are just as important. Brushing can help remove any food that remains on your teeth. The longer food stays on and in between your teeth the sooner decay begins to set in.

If your gums bleed or are swollen and red, visit a periodontist for a cleaning and a plan in order to decrease the opportunity for your gums to be negatively impacted.

Can Dental Implants Help You?

Dental implants can be a phenomenal opportunity for you to fix your smile if you have broken, cracked or missing teeth. By placing implants where you have missing teeth, your smile can look brand new.  Individuals report that their smile is one of the greatest attributes that impact them, positive or negative.

           

While implants are not the only option available to you if you have teeth that are broken, they may be the best option to replace teeth after extraction.  Implants can be fused into the jawbone, and once they are integrated, you are able to treat them as you would your real teeth.  Which means, you will need to continue to implement a brushing and flossing routine that will help keep your implants in tip top shape and provide you the smile you deserve.

If you are considering implants, Dr. Denine Rice can conduct a thorough examination in order to determine if there is any periodontal disease or other problems that need to be take care of first. It is important to clear up any periodontal disease prior to placing an implant as the disease can impact the foundation of your smile – your bone.

Your smile is the only curve that sets everything straight; don’t waste time with a smile you can’t show off to the world. Contact Dr. Rice today.