Old Alabama Family Dentistry
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Office News
Our goal is to develop a strong partnership with every patient. When you understand the importance of your dental health, we can help you maintain a healthy mouth, as well as treat the causes and symptoms of any dental condition.
We invite you to read our latest SmileLink newsletter and to check out our website often for new information, or contact our office with any questions or concerns. Working together, we can help you achieve a lifetime of healthy and attractive teeth and gums.
Featured Article |
SmileLink Articles |
Are You Tongue-tied?
Probably many teenagers have been teased with "What's the matter; are you tongue-tied?" when they were thirteen and had just discovered the opposite sex. But being tongue-tied is nothing to snicker at because it refers to a condition that affects many people. The technical name is "ankyloglossia," but it's better known by its common name "tongue-tie."
Your lips are attached to the gums, and your tongue is attached to the floor of the mouth by a fold of skin called the frenum, or sometimes called the frenulum. If you look in a mirror, open your mouth and lift your tongue, you can see the lingual frenum. Pull up your upper lip and you will see the labial frenum. The frenum had an important purpose before you were born, but after birth it apparently serves no useful task.
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Spotlight: From My Point of View and TOOTHPASTE RECALL
October is Dental Hygiene Month. The hygienist is your strongest ally when it comes to helping you have healthy teeth and offering their advice about oral hygiene. SmileLink wants to show its appreciation for the work that these tireless, caring people do.
We spoke with a Shirley, a hygienist who may have come to the profession somewhat by default, but once she arrived, Shirley put her heart and soul into her work. She is involved in many aspects of dental care and uses her seemingly endless energies to educate and advocate for dental healthcare.
Gilchrest & Soames, a UK company based in the United States, recently announced that one of its products, toothpaste, which is sold to hotels worldwide, contains or might contain diethylene glycol (DEH).
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Your Dental Jedi Warrior
What do you associate with the movie "Star Wars"—Wookies, Jabba the Hun, Darth Vader and Yoda? Or did you think about Luke Skywalker and his cool light saber? Remember guys lined up outside the theaters, pretending they were fighting the Dark Side with their plastic light sabers from F.W. Woolworth's Five and Dime? Did you ever imagine that a light saber could become one of the coolest technologies used in the dental office?
The field of dentistry is changing in leaps and bounds. There are treatments and instruments used today or just on the horizon that could have been taken straight from a sci-fi novel written 30 years ago. But today, a dentist can fight the evil force of the Dark Side with a modern light saber that has the potential of revolutionizing dental surgical procedures. The dentist's light saber is called a laser.
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Dental Myths
As strange as it may seem, some of our daily life and routines are influenced by myths. Some myths are relatively harmless, such as "Take your umbrella so that it won't rain," mother used to say to me as I left for school. "The world is flat," insisted Galileo's sceptics. But there are some myths that are potentially harmful, such as "My tooth has a crown; so I’ll never need a root canal."
Well, we're pretty much onto the umbrella fallacy and know that certainly doesn't work. And early explorers proved that skeptics were wrong about the flat earth. But what about a dental crown; is that true? After all, we know that a crown protects the tooth. The answer is a resounding "No."
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The Enemy Below
Periodontitis—a word that instills fear in some people, a word you don't want to hear from your dentist.
Periodontitis is a chronic bacterial infection that destroys oral tissues and the jawbone. The American Academy of Periodontology estimates that one in three people over thirty years of age have periodontal disease (commonly referred to as perio).
Periodontitis generally is the result of improper and inadequate oral care. However, there are other factors that contribute to this disease, including tobacco use, genetics, medications and poor nutrition.
Yes, periodontitis is an arch-enemy to be reckoned with, but today, dentists have new ammunitions in their arsenals to treat this dreaded disease.
Testing–testing...
When your hygienist begins your routine exam, you likely see an instrument with a wire that is used to poke around your teeth. That is the periodontal probe (see photo), an instrument that has been in use for decades. The periodontal probe uses a measured wire to determine the depth of the sulcus. Sulcus are gaps between your teeth and gums that provide a hiding place for harmful bacteria to secretly grow. A measurement of 4mm on the periodontal probe indicates that the sulcus are now periodontal pockets. When your body tries to fight the bacterial infection, it mistakenly attacks you! This is evident when the probe indicates gum recession and when the gum bleeds when it is p...