Advanced Dentistry of Alhambra Blog

Dr. Dara,
I have been diagnosed with gum disease and jaw bone loss. My dentist explained that smoking is a big part of the problem. Would it be better to switch to e-cigarettes?

Vaping pens, e-cigarettes, and JUULs are marketed as a safer alternative to traditional cigarettes and many people have turned to vaping to avoid the danger of nicotine. On the surface, e-cigarettes seem to have advantages over regular cigarettes, they are definitely less smelly and are advertised to have less nicotine. When looked in depth, however, and all facts considered e-cigarettes may be even more dangerous to our oral health than traditional cigarette.

With All-on-4 dental implants, you can replace all of your missing teeth at once with just four expertly placed implant posts. Thanks to the state-of-the-art techniques used during the surgery, All-on-4 recovery is usually shorter compared to that of traditional implant procedures. That said, it is important to know what will happen during the healing process. Here are 5 things you should expect after the All-on-4 procedure.

Dental filling is relatively non-invasive and very common dental procedure, after which patients may experience some mild to moderate pain and discomfort and wonder if that’s normal.

I want to offer some helpful tips on what you should do and not do after a dental filling is placed and when is necessary to go back to see your dentist about the discomfort you are experiencing.

To better understand the problem, let’s take a look at the anatomy of a tooth. Right in the middle of the tooth is the pulp (in pink) where the nerve of the tooth is located. The pulp plays vital role in early age when the teeth are developing. In mature teeth, the pulp is simply a signal system to alert where there is something wrong. Being so important, the nerve is protected by two layers. The outside layer, called enamel is the strongest structure in the human body and acts as a shield for the tooth crown. It is very condensed and free of any sensation. That’s why cavities in very early stage are painless. The inside layer, dentin is built from small tubules, microscopic channels that travel from the pulp to the enamel border. This tubules are housing the nerve endings.

It is common knowledge that the food we eat can significantly affect our general and dental health.  In the recent years the benefits of Calcium and Vitamin D for bone and teeth health, have been promoted widely. But calcium and vitamin D are not the only nutritional factors for structural integrity of the bone. An excess of these nutrients may even have the negative effect. It is important that the calcium and vitamin D are balanced with other nutrients like zinc, vitamin K, and most importantly magnesium.

Magnesium is essential for many biological processes that occur in the body. Besides the calcium absorption, magnesium activates over 300 reactions in the body and it is responsible to maintain proper muscle relaxation, helps stabilize the rhythm of the heart and prevents abnormal blood clothing. It activated many of the B vitamins, which without magnesium are not as effective.