We are heading once again into Winter sports time.  We remind all patients of the terrible impact a sporting injury can have on our teeth, jaw and soft tissues.  A knock to the mouth can result in losing teeth as well as significant long-term damage.  Most sports are now no mouthguard, no play; an initiative which we fully support.  Here at Adelaide City Dental Care, we make professional mouthguards for both junior and senior sport. 

Our mouthguards are custom-made, comfortable and firm fitting to ensure maximum protection for you or your child.  They are coloured in the design of your choice and even have your name in them.  We love the choice Michelle made for her custom mouthguard. 😊 Please see our video on the making of mouthguards here.

Should you or your child knock a tooth out, we would recommend the following steps:

•          Find the tooth, be careful to only pick it up by the “crown” of the tooth-not the root

•          If it is an adult tooth and fairly clean, put the tooth back where it came from (if you can)

•          Gently bite on a tissue to support the replaced tooth and get to the Dentist for assistance

•          If you are unable to put the tooth back in, store it in milk or saliva in a container and get to the Dentist immediately.

A chipped or broken tooth may also need to be assessed quickly.  Call and advise the clinic you have a mouth trauma and we will assess the tooth and decide on the best course of treatment with you.  We are here to support you in any emergency situation.  Call the clinic on 8332 1188 and will we assist you.

May the floss be with you!  As an avid Star Wars fan, May the 4th is one of Michelle’s favourite days of the year.  Expect a Star Wars meme or two on our Facebook page!!  We had a busy month during April. We hope you had fun over Easter and the school holidays. Michelle went overseas for a holiday, Anh-Thu spent time with family over the school holidays and Trudy had some time away.  All our staff also attended a Management course in April and we have an Infection Control course and Management of Medical Emergencies coming up in May. 

See you in the clinic!  The Victoria Park Dental Care team.

PS:  check out our socials (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram) for top tips for teeth, mouth and gums and dental family snaps!  Maybe even the latest video on YouTube. 

So first there was Simply Red! The younger readers (and maybe some older ones) will need to google.  But to shortcut google and answer why this is related to a dental newsletter, Simply Red’s lead singer, Mike Hucknall, had a ruby cemented to his upper left canine tooth. Why you ask. Well because the band was Simply Red and he thought it was cool.  Then to celebrate the new millennium he changed it to a diamond.  Believe it or not Simply Red is still touring in Europe.  So what sort of interesting tooth embellishments are available on the market and are they safe, do they damage teeth and do you want one?

Dental supply companies supply a range of glittery gold, silver and other trinkets that your dentist can stick onto your teeth.  Generally, these are quite small and thin and are stuck on with tooth coloured flowable resin very similarly to orthodontic brackets.  For anyone who has had orthodontic brackets you will know that the dentist will etch the enamel, place a bond layer that is cured, place the bracket with the adhesive cement and cure it.  The process is exactly the same.  Your orthodontist would also have said don’t eat anything hard or sticky forever on your brackets or they will come off.  Well the same is true for these fancy tooth blings.  When you decide you don’t want the pretty little trinket on your tooth it needs to be buffed off.  It can be a bit tricky to see where all the cement is so sometimes a thin layer of enamel is removed at the same time.  Hence there can be some damage to the tooth putting the bling on and taking it off.  You may also get some ulceration on your cheek and or inside your lips from the edges until your soft tissues get used to it. Now diamonds and rubies are a bit trickier as they can be bigger and might need some drilling of the tooth surface to make the stone flat against the tooth surface.  Drilling teeth for this is probably not the option your dentist would prefer you to take.

Then there is the Cosplay options for Dracula or Klingon or shark teeth which slip over your natural teeth made by taking impressions of your teeth and constructing an acrylic tooth coloured pull down in the shape that is desired. These are often quite bulky because they go over the natural teeth and shouldn’t be worn all the time as they are difficult to clean underneath resulting in holes in your teeth.  You can buy these on the internet but this is a buyer beware post as sometimes the materials they use can lock into the spaces between your teeth making it very difficult or impossible to remove! If you are interested in something like this we have a dental laboratory that we can work with to design something for you.

And then there are grills, fins etc that go in front of your teeth or behind so when you open your mouth they are visible.  Again, these are made by taking an impression, making a design and a dental laboratory milling or constructing a cobalt chrome item to the design.  Cobalt chrome is the material we use for making metal partial dentures.  There are examples of some in gold, which would be prohibitively expensive.

Each to their own!  But not the best option for your teeth.

See you in the clinic!  The Victoria Park Dental Care team.

PS:  check out our socials (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram) for top tips for teeth, mouth and gums and dental family snaps!  Maybe even the latest video on YouTube. 

Welcome to the Victoria Park Dental Care Newsletter

Mad March has arrived!  We hope that the Festival and Fringe events you go to are all fabulously fun and that you have a chance to support the local hospitality businesses along the way.  The Fringe and Festival do bring quite a vibe into the city and surrounds.

This newsletter we would like to acknowledge that despite great efforts the number of cases of Covid19 infection is still a thing and will be for some time.  Covid19 has had a significant effect on some people’s teeth, mouth, facial muscles, jaw joints and gums.  These effects may have been caused by stress, working from home snacking, essential workers N95 mask wearing, covid19 infection and other factors.

Working from home is often a cause for snacking during the day.  It doesn’t really matter whether it is high sugar snacking and drinking or other foods/drink snacking as all of these will drop the saliva acidity level for at least 30 mins after food. This results in loss of enamel material before saliva buffers the acid away.  Then especially if there is soft plaque between the teeth it is very difficult for saliva to buffer and decay can happen in between the teeth.  Cleaning between teeth with floss, interdental brushes or a waterpik/airflosser will help remove the soft plaques before they create issues.

Symptoms of jaw or muscle pain in the face and ear are often related to stress.  And we all know there has been no stress in the last 3 years! Who are we trying to kid! When we are stressed, we do tend to take it out on our teeth, jaws, head, neck and shoulders.  With teeth clenching and grinding creates wear facets and fracture lines in the enamel, bruises the ligaments between the teeth and the bone, inflames the jaw joint and compresses and tenses the muscles around the face, head and neck.  Continued clenching and grinding on teeth can lead to tooth cusps fracturing off or nerve death within the tooth requiring large fillings or crowns, root canal treatment or extraction.  Sometimes all of the above.  Often, we use an acrylic splint to help prevent damage to teeth along with a trip or two to the physiotherapist to help release the facial, neck and shoulder muscles.  The physiotherapist might also ask you about your ergonomics working from home.  Health care workers who are wearing an N95 respiratory mask may also often have issues with muscular facial, head and neck pain as the muscles are working against the stretch of the N95 mask as they talk.  So, if they are not talking that is okay.  They probably have a sore jaw.

Direct Covid19 infection effects on teeth, mouth, facial muscles, jaw joints and gums has not been fully investigated at this stage.  One symptom of infection can be a loss of taste and smell.  The mechanism behind this is unknown and it appears that those senses do return, although sometimes slowly. There have also been cases reported of increased gingival bleeding and pocketing, stress related injuries to teeth, muscles and jaw joints, and facial pain.  For these symptoms we recommend seeing your dentist and hygienist for advice and any treatment.

See you in the clinic!  The Victoria Park Dental Care team.

PS:  check out our socials (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram) for top tips for teeth, mouth and gums and dental family snaps!  Maybe even the latest video on YouTube.