There is hope for you if you’re missing all of your teeth or most of them—custom dentures can fully restore your smile and give you the glow you need to smile brightly this holiday season!

Get a Fully Functional Set of Teeth

Custom dentures allow you to use your teeth again! You’ll be able to chew properly and eat all the foods you used to with your natural teeth. Since custom dentures are made specifically for your unique oral structure, they’ll fit seamlessly and be secure in your mouth. Having a fully functional set of teeth can transform the way you think about eating, smiling, and enjoying life. Don’t worry about eating with family and friends this holiday—your new custom dentures will enable you to enjoy and be worry-free!

Speak and Smile Confidently

When natural teeth are gone, it’s easy to feel self-conscious about the smile that you present to the world. If you’re missing all of your natural teeth, you may avoid smiling totally or be afraid to speak in public. With your new custom dentures, your teeth will look totally natural in your mouth, allowing you to speak and smile with confidence this holiday season.

Our teeth help us to pronounce words correctly and speak with certainty. Without them, you may begin to feel embarrassed about the way you speak. Your custom dentures will change all of that. You’ll be able to speak again and not feel ashamed or nervous—you’ll have a gorgeous smile to show off in addition to your speech!

Look and Feel Younger

Missing teeth can make you appear older. This is because they cause your facial muscles to sag as your jawbone is no longer being supported by your teeth, which stimulate the jawbone to remain strong and healthy. Your jawbone will deteriorate over time without stimulation, causing your face to appear sunken and the skin to sag.

With custom dentures, you can get your youthful facial structure back. The dentures allow your muscles to be supported and keep you looking and feeling young. When you have a new smile to show the world this holiday, you’ll wonder why you didn’t get dentures sooner!

Schedule an appointment with your dentist to talk about custom dentures. You can restore your smile this holiday season and enjoy your favorite foods, speak and smile with assurance, and look and feel even younger. Dentures can change your life— just in time to see family and friends this holiday season!

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Tooth Decay

Tooth decay in children is pretty common. Children are often exposed to sugary beverages and snacks and lack the ability to properly care for their teeth, so tooth decay sets in. This is why regular visits with your child-savvy dentist are so important! Tooth decay could be causing discoloration of your child’s tooth, so get a check-up to see if your child needs treatment for decay.

Tooth Injury

Toddlers are always exploring and learning about the world they live in—this also means they’re prone to fall! Has your toddler experienced a tooth injury? It could have happened and you may not have noticed any visible effects of the fall or injury, but often teeth cracks or chips can be hard to spot. Your dentist can help identify if any tooth injury has occurred and is causing the discoloration!

Soft Enamel

Tooth enamel can get damaged for several reasons. Your child could have a mineral deficiency, or he or she may have too much plaque or bacteria that’s attacking the enamel and causing it to soften. Acidic and sugary foods can also be responsible for soft enamel. Since enamel is porous, it could be the cause of your toddler’s tooth discoloration. The signs of enamel loss usually aren’t apparent, but your dentist should be able to tell if your child’s enamel is damaged.

Too Much Fluoride

Fluoride can be beneficial for your child’s smile, but too much of it can cause tooth discoloration! Get your drinking water tested to determine how much fluoride your child is consuming. If your child is also using a toothpaste or mouth rinse with fluoride, he or she could be getting too much—talk to your dentist about how much fluoride is too much for your toddler!

Sickness or Medications

Underlying medical conditions or certain supplements or medications could be affecting the color of your child’s teeth. Ensure your child is healthy and take a second look at any supplements or medications your child is on. Antibiotics in particular could cause tooth discoloration. It’s always a good idea to talk with your dentist about what could be affecting your child’s teeth, especially when it comes to their health and medicines.

Tooth discoloration should be a cause for concern, and a simple visit to your dentist can help identify if there’s a problem and if so, what you can do about it. Your child’s primary teeth are important placeholders for their adult teeth and help set up healthy habits for the future. Work with your child to prevent tooth decay and always visit your dentist for checkups!

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More Stable and Secure

If you already have dentures, you know that they can be frustrating. Dentures are typically held in place by a combination of suction and your jaw structure, although some people find they need an adhesive agent to help their dentures remain secure. Regardless, many people experience anxiety and embarrassment about their dentures moving around in their mouth or even falling out.

This isn’t so with implant supported dentures. You’ll have an easier time speaking, chewing, and feeling more at ease with your dentures with implants to properly support them. The lower jaw is more common for implant supported dentures, as dentures are usually much less stable in your lower mouth, however, upper and lower implanted supported dentures can be done and work great for your smile!

Prevent Bone Loss

When people lose their natural teeth, the roots that once helped retain your facial structure are gone. With this, bone loss often happens and can be responsible for a subtle change in your facial structure over time. However, with implant supported dentures, your dental implants will help prevent bone loss, encourage new bone growth, and retain your beautiful facial structure.

That being said, you will need to have adequate bone in your jaw in order to support the placement of your dental implants. This is why it’s better to seek implants as soon as you’re able after losing your natural teeth. That way there’s no risk of bone loss. However, even if you’ve had traditional dentures for years, you could still qualify for implant supported dentures!

More Hygienic and Easier to Clean

Although wearing your implant supported dentures at night isn’t recommended, they can easily be removed, cleaned, and ready for you in the morning. Implant supported dentures tend to be more hygienic than traditional dentures, as they’re easier to remove, clean, and put back in your mouth!

There are two types of implant supported dentures—ball and bar retained. With the ball retained, your denture will snap onto the implant. With the bar retained, a custom bar that attaches to about five dental implants will be used to attach the denture to. Regardless of which one you receive, your dentures will be secure and you’ll feel more confident and at ease than you ever did with traditional dentures!

Visit your dentist to ask about implant supported dentures and find out if you qualify. They’re usually done in a few simple steps—from the consultation to your dental implant procedure to getting custom dentures, you’ll be ready to enjoy your new smile in no time!

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Causes

If you experience chronic dry mouth, there could be several culprits behind it. One of these is medication. Depending on which medications you’re taking, many of them can be responsible for causing a lack of saliva production. These include psychiatric meds as well as hypertension or even incontinence medications. If you suspect one of your medications (or several) are causing your dry mouth, talk with your doctor about what you can do. Smoking can also cause dry mouth, as can being dehydrated. Many people don’t drink enough water. Aim to get at least five or six glasses a day, more if it’s warm outside and you’re active!

Symptoms

Symptoms of chronic dry mouth include feeling thirsty often, having dry lips or even having sores in your mouth. You may also experience a sticky feeling in your mouth, dry throat, a red tongue, bad breath, and even problems swallowing. While some of these symptoms may seem minor, others—such as trouble swallowing and sores in the mouth—can become bigger problems. And no one likes having bad breath! If you’re experiencing one or more of these symptoms chronically, you could have chronic dry mouth. It’s time to visit your doctor as well as your dentist to see what you can do for your dry mouth.

Finding Relief

One of the easiest things you can do for instant relief is to begin drinking more water. Carry a bottle with you and sip throughout the day. To address your chronic dry mouth, visit your doctor if you suspect the cause is medication. There might be a different medication you can try or perhaps a different dose. There are also medications and rinses that can help your body produce more saliva. Other simple steps you can take are to add a vaporizer to your bedroom, minimize the amount of caffeine or alcohol you consume (both act as dehydrators), and avoid foods that are corrosive to your teeth to prevent further damage.

While having a dry mouth may not seem like a big issue, consider that having a chronic dry mouth can wreak havoc on your teeth. Saliva is meant to nourish our teeth, balance our good and bad bacteria, and prevent plaque from forming. When you have minimal saliva present, your teeth are more at risk for problems that wouldn’t normally develop without the presence of a dry mouth. It’s vital to talk with your dentist to see what you can do to treat your dry mouth before it damages your smile!

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What situations call for a root canal retreatment?

New Decay – Using an x-ray, your dentist may notice new decay that is occurring. Sometimes this occurs when a crown placement is delayed. As a result, the tooth has time to decay further. Reinfection of the root can occur, or continued decay of the tooth.

Reinfection of the Root – Sometimes this is the result of a delay in placing a crown. At other times, some of the infection is in a curved or narrow root canal resulting in a complication of the original procedure.

Original Filling Is Leaking – When the filling leaks, this can allow another infection to spring up. This can also occur if the crown becomes damaged.

Tooth Is Fractured – If a treated tooth becomes fractured, additional treatment becomes necessary.

Tooth Did Not Heal Properly – This can have numerous causes ranging from complications in the size or shape of the root canals to crown and filling issues.

While root canal treatments are successful about 97% of the time, even a successful treatment may spontaneously fail on occasion due to the causes noted above. If this occurs, retreatment can once again successfully save the tooth for many years, often for the rest of a person’s natural life.

Should I Opt for Retreatment if There Is No Pain?

Sometimes your dentist will catch something on an x-ray that you don’t even feel yet. When this is the case, it can be tough to decide to undergo retreatment. However, it is important to remember that by the time pain is felt, a lot of damage is done. For a tooth that has already experienced a root canal procedure, the best chance of saving the tooth is by performing retreatment before the new concern gets worse. While you may not be in pain now, your dentist will only recommend retreatment if an issue is imminent. Waiting for the pain to start may make it too late to save the tooth.

Once again, retreatment only presents one alternative, and that is extraction. That means that if the conditions above present themselves, retreatment is the best option.

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