Help fight the Decay Ninja

Decay is like a ninja, you may not see a ninja coming but you will know when he gets there.  Most of the decay we see in dentistry begins in between the teeth.  Food gets trapped in the small spaces in between our teeth.  If you are like most Americans you only floss the week before and the week after your hygiene visits.

When food is not removed from these areas decay begins.  We're great clinicians and technicians in our office but we still haven’t developed x-ray vision.  We can only see the cheek, side tongue side and biting surface of teeth with our eyes.  We can’t see that ninja-like decay laying in wait where your teeth touch each other.

It is waiting, slowly creeping closer and closer to the nerve of your tooth, undetected….then BOOM!

Ninja star to the nerve, a crushing blow, taking you down with little effort and a lot of effectiveness.  All that can be avoided by taking bitewing x-rays once a year.  A radiograph is like daytime to a ninja, there's no hiding from my super detection rays.  Radiographs taken once a year can reveal decay when its small.  If we can catch it when its small we can usually restore the tooth with a tooth colored filling.  The longer it hides in the tooth the more it's destroying tooth structure and eventually can cause major damage.  Treatment then becomes more complicated.  Your tooth could need anything from a simple onlay to a root canal or a crown (cap) or even extraction(if you let it go too far). 

Please, help us, help you

Thank you to Nicole McCracken, one of my Treatment Coordinators, for writing this blog, I simply edited it.

Just Sayin'... let 2012 be the year we stop the Ninja



Don't go changing, why not?

As a new year begins, we all look back and reflect on the year that has passed.  What we need to do is use it as a learning experience to move forward into the future.  We can't stand still, change is what makes the world move . An old native American saying is that you can never step in the same river twice, it is always in perpetual motion. Constantly changing.

Sorry, Billy Joel.

Don't go changing, to try and please me,
You never let me down before,

Without change, where would we be?  The phone would never have been invented, nor the cell phone.  The technology with which I am writing this would still be a cave drawing.

Don't go trying, some new fashion,
Don't change the colour of your hair

Go for it, try a new fashion.  It may not work for you, but you won't know til you try.  Hair grows back, constantly changing, so take a chance, change the color, what do you have to lose.

I don't want clever, conversation,
I never want to work that hard,
I just want someone, that I can talk to,
I want you just the way you are.

Be yourself and you will evolve into the person you want to be.  Who you are comes from deep within you.  When my daughter was little and skating, people would say that she looked so happy, and she would say, I forgot to smile.  I always told her that a smile starts deep down in your belly and works its way out, the position of your teeth doesn't matter.  (believe it or not this advice came from dad the dentist)

To paraphrase:

Don't stop changing, try and please yourself

You'll never let you down

Just Sayin'...Happy New Year