What is Dentin
The dentin contains a large numbers of pores or tubes that run from the outside of the tooth to the nerve in the center. When the dentin is exposed, these tubes can be stimulated by changes in temperature or certain foods.

How Do You Know If You Have Tooth Sensitivity
The best way to find out why a tooth is sensitive is to have your family dentist examine you. They can look for the signs of dentin exposure and even run tests to determine what the true cause of the sensitivity is. Your cause of the sensitivity may be due to abrasion or erosion, or the gums have receded, causing the roots to be exposed.

What Can You Do?
If your sensitivity is due to a cavity, a restoration can be placed. Also, if it is due to gum disease, the dental professional can perform a thorough cleaning of the area.

There are a number of dental treatments available, and a good family dentist, like Wayzata Dental & SmileSpa, can help you find what works for you depending on your situation. Always seek a dental professional’s help – do not try to diagnose this problem yourself because it may be more serious.

Today, at least 4 million preschoolers suffer from tooth decay. In fact, children now have much more sugar in their diets at an early age and bottled water — which usually doesn’t contain. Fluoride is important to maintain strong teeth.

How Does Tooth Decay Begin

Tooth decay begins with a group of germs that is related to streptococcus. Basically the bacteria feed on sugar and produce acid that eats away at the structure of teeth by depleting calcium. These bacteria also create plaque — a yellowish film that builds up on teeth and contains even more enamel-eroding acid. Once an area without calcium becomes big enough, the surface of the tooth collapses. The result is a cavity.

Interestingly enough, babies are born without any of these harmful bacteria in their mouth, and studies have proven that parents typically infect their children before age 2. It happens when you transfer your saliva into your child’s mouth — by repeatedly eating from the same spoon as your baby, for example, or letting your toddler brush his teeth with your toothbrush. And if you’ve frequently had cavities yourself, you’re particularly likely to pass the germs along.

There is no doubt about it. . . if you’ve had trouble with your teeth, you need to take responsibility for your child’s dental health — just like you’d be vigilant if you’ve had a family history of high cholesterol or skin cancer.

If you are looking for a family dentist, visit us at Wayzata Dental & SmileSpa. We are a Minnetonka family dentistry that can help you get your family’s teeth healthy and beautiful.

Aside from eating sweets too often causing decay, like ice cream, other pregnant women suffer from an unusual eating disorder called pica. With pica, you will have cravings for ice, freezer frost, or even soil! Pica can have adverse effects on an individual’s oral health during pregnancy and also can be hard to diagnose and treat during those nine crucial months.

Pica is a compulsive eating disorder in which sufferers have a constant appetite for non-nutritious substances. Although the conditions’ association and cause during pregnancy are not known, some believe that depression or iron and zinc deficiencies during pregnancy could be a major factor. Nevertheless, pica can destroy the mother’s teeth since it can cause serious erosion of the tooth’s enamel, as well as sensitivity, thinning, and chipping.

While women often believe they should avoid dental care during pregnancy, and some dentist will wait until after the baby is born to treat cavities, it is very important for those suffering from eating disorders, like pica, to continue with their dental visits. Surprisingly, the family dentists are often the first to witness the physical effects of an eating disorder on an individual’s oral health.

Pregnancy is a time to make sure you take care of yourself, including your oral health. Consult with your family dentist for the best way to do this safely for you and your baby.

Today, tooth decay affects children in the United States more than any other chronic infectious disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention even states that tooth decay, if left untreated, can cause pain and infections that hinder eating, speaking, playing and learning. Because of this, the controlled addition of a fluoride compound to public water supplies is considered to be the best and most cost effective way to prevent cavities and fight tooth decay. But are you getting it? If you or your family are drinking water in bottles that does not contain fluoride, then most likely not

How does fluoride work?
Fluoride makes the entire tooth structure resistant to decay and promotes remineralization, which helps in repairing early decay before damage sets in. In fact, close to 150 million United States residents in more than 10,000 communities drink fluoridated tap water. This “benefit” provides an automatic defense against the harmful matter that causes oral health problems.

No one likes to get their tooth drilled to fix cavities and simply drinking more water that is fluoridated either in the store bottle or or a reusable water bottle or glass is a great way to make sure you get this extra cavity fighting power.

But, if you can’t get the fluoride in the water, what can you do? You may want to ask your dentist about varnish. Varnish, applied quickly and easily by a dentist, is one of the most concentrated products available commercially. Varnishes that contain sodium fluoride adhere to tooth surfaces when saliva is present, providing an excellent fluoride treatment.

If you suspect that you have a cavity, don’t wait. You should visit a general dentist, such as our office — Wayzata Dental & SmileSpa. Also, tell you family dentist if you don’t know whether your water is fluoridated. It will help your dentist determine if you are not getting enough fluoride to fight cavities and treatments that may remedy this.

What is Tobacco?
Whether its snuff or chewing tobacco, the normal way to use it is to let it sit in your mouth and suck on the tobacco juices, spitting often to get rid of the saliva that builds up. This sucking and chewing allows nicotine, to be absorbed into the bloodstream through the tissues in your mouth.

Smokeless tobacco has been around for centuries. In fact, Native people of North and South America chewed tobacco. This bad habit was a trademark of American baseball players and viewed as safe to use.
By the 1950s, chewing tobacco had fallen out of favor in most of America, so by that time not too many baseball players were spitting big brown gobs all over the infield. Instead of chewing their tobacco, most people were smoking it. Today, professional athletes do not use tobacco and instead chew gum.

How Tobacco Harms You

Most people who stop smoking will turn to using tobacco thinking it will do them no harm. The truth is using tobacco can harm your mouth, including your teeth and gums, in many ways. There is no safe form of tobacco—using it produces many problems and risk factors, from tooth discoloration and gum disease to throat, lung, and oral cancer, and even death. Any form of tobacco, whether you smoke it or chew it will have negative effects on your overall health.

Every year, 35,000 Americans are diagnosed with oral cancer, which accounts for roughly 7,500 deaths each year. Wayzata Dental & Smile Spa, a Minnetonka family dentistry, offers an oral cancer screening. Make an appointment with us today.

Brushing and flossing will help eliminate plaque but if plaque is not caught early, plaque will form tartar — a harder substance to clean. Tartar harbors bacteria that make it easier to invade your gums, causing gum disease.

In the beginning, bacteria from tartar will cause inflammation of the gums or gingivitis, swelling and reddening of the gums. If you have gingivitis, your gums bleed easily even during toothbrushing.

Visiting your dentist for a general cleaning will help eliminate this and improve your teeth, but if left untreated, gingivitis will develop into periodontitis, which is more serious. Gum disease has also been linked to other health problems such as heart disease.

To protect yourself from gum disease it is important to practice good oral hygiene. This includes brushing your teeth diligently twice daily, flossing your teeth, avoiding cigarettes and tobacco products, eating a balanced diet and making regular visits to your family dentist. These as well as being aware of how your teeth look and feel will help you have healthier teeth and gums.

If you are searching for a family dentist, one that you as well as your children can visit to get regular checkups and cleanings, consider our office at Wayzata Dental & SmileSpa. We are a Plymouth dental office that also offers cosmetic dentistry such as professional teeth whitening. You can make an appointment online on our website.

Teeth grinding is something to laugh about. It can get become serious and cause damage to your teeth, chewing muscles, and jaw joint. It can even change your everyday facial expressions, so knowing whether or not you grind at night is a crucial step in preventing disfigurement of your teeth and chronic pain.

The dangerous part is that grinding teeth is that we have no idea that we’re doing it. Most grinders and clenchers do not know what they are doing since they have been doing it so since they were kids and really have become used to it. In fact, most people are quite surprised when they find out they do this at night. Most family dentists can spot people with this problem from across a room! They notice people with teeth that are flat. Some people will even compliment bruxers on how nice and straight their teeth are because a teeth grinder’s teeth appear to be the same length, after being worn down by constant grinding every night.

Teeth grinding can cause many problems. Most grinders will complain about neckaches and pain in their face. When they chew something like gum, their face will feel tired. Another sign is when bruxers visit the dentist and their cheeks start hurting when open as the chewing muscles tire quickly. A clear sign is that the jaw joint may make clicking or make an odd popping noise.

A simple diagnosis, aside from how you generally feel in your jaw, is to take a look in the mirror at your canine teeth, upper or lower. You can easily determine if they are pointy or are they flat. Flat teeth at any age may mean you are a bruxer.

An interesting fact is that teeth grinding also has a genetic component. Do your parents or siblings brux? This is a habit that runs deep in the family. In fact, fetuses exhibit bruxing behavior in the utereo.

If you discover that you are grinding your teeth at night, visit us at Wayzata Dental & SmileSpa. We are a Plymouth family dentistry that can diagnose your problem and help you find a solution to your teeth grinding.

Facts On Wisdom Teeth

First, several factors need to be considered when evaluating wisdom teeth: The condition of the second molar, the presence of gum disease, the age of the patient and the risk of dental crowding are all things to consider. . .

Adults have 32 teeth in their mouth, which includes the second molars, located immediately in front of the wisdom teeth. When evaluating wisdom teeth, it is important to evaluate the health of the second molars to make sure they are not compromised by the position of the wisdom teeth.

Many people don’t realize that wisdom teeth can grow in a variety of positions: Sometimes they grow straight up like the rest of the teeth, but other times they will grow sideways or toward the second molars, causing some major space issues. All this needs to be looked at closely before the consideration of removal takes place.

Growing Older and Wisdom Teeth

More and more studies have shown that older adults have a higher risk of having a periodontal defect on the second molar when wisdom teeth are present. Also, the incidence of cavities on wisdom teeth also increases with age. As far as complications after surgery, the risks of post-op complications and recovery time both increase with age, especially in patients 25 years of age and older.

On the other hand, early removal of wisdom teeth, basically when the roots are hardly there, has been shown to result in very predictable and successful outcomes, with hardly any gum pockets, dry sockets, nerve injury or infections developing post-operations. It seems to the case that early removal of wisdom teeth is much better for the patient.

Talk with the dentist and staff at Wayzata Dental & SmileSpa if you think your wisdom teeth are erupting. We can give you an idea what to expect. Visit us online!

When people avoid going to the dentist, their oral health tends to suffer. Not surprisingly, toothaches are the biggest reason a person visits the dentist, but unfortunately they come in too late – when bigger problems already are settled in. The main theme is that avoiding the dentist for a simple teeth cleaning, which takes less than an hour without pain, resulted in something bad and painful such as a root canal.

Keeping healthy oral habits is far more than just having pretty teeth, although you can have both. Gum disease can often lead to other diseases that can infect your entire body. One thing people forget is that poor dental hygiene can cause you to lose the use of your teeth therefore leaving you unable to have the foods you love. This may be a big enough reason to take care of your teeth!

There are many reasons why you should visit the dentist from getting your teeth cleaned, having a cavity filled, getting veneers, getting teeth whitened and cosmetic dentistry. These are all great reasons to see a dentist, although in the end, the best reason to go to a dentist regularly is so that you don’t have to go because of bad oral care. Cleanings are so much easier than getting a cavity filled.

Visit a dentist that offers an environment that is warm and inviting. . . and fun! Wayzata Dental & SmileSpa is a Minnetonka family dentistry that has an office with the comforts of home – including a refreshment area and video games! Check our office out online, where you can also make a dental appointment.

A mouthguard is a soft plastic appliance that fits over the teeth and protects it. When properly worn, a mouthguard protects the lips, cheek, tongue and jaws as well as the teeth. According to the American Dental Association estimates that mouthguards prevent 200,000 injuries each year in high-school and college sports alone.

Many schools and sports teams require students to wear mouthguards during contact sports, but they don’t realize is that the majority of mouth injuries occur in children between the ages of 7 and 14, while participating in everyday activities like skateboarding, rollerblading, sled riding or bike riding. In fact, the Academy for Sports Dentistry has identified close to 40 different sports including baseball, soccer, basketball, football, martial arts, skiing and gymnastics.

The most common accidents involving the mouth, include:

• Jaw dislocations
• Jaw and dental fractures
• Concussions and cerebral hemorrhage
• Head and neck
• Problems with the jaw joint

Types of Mouthguards
There are different types of mouthguards, and you can find them in just about any store that sells sports-related items. However, you can mouthguards custom made – which is far more comfortable. For children, comfort is the key to whether or not a mouthguard is actually used or left lying around the house or in a gym bag. Talk to you family dentist to see if a custom made mouthguards is the best choice for you. Although the cost is a bit higher, the results will be better and safer.

If you have questions about mouthguards or if you have a sports-related injury to your teeth, visit us at Wayzata Dental & SmileSpa. Our office is a Minnetonka cosmetic dentistry that can help you child or you get those chipped or broken teeth fixed.