Archive for the ‘Dental Health’ Category

Natural Toothache Remedies

May 5th, 2012 admin

Not many people are aware of the fact that several herbs can be used in the relief of toothache pain. herbs such as cloves, calendula, tarragon, and yarrow can be used to help relieve th pain until you can get to the dentist. For many years, different cultures have counted on herbs to help get the pain of a toothache control and get temporary relief.

Native Americans for example, used the inner bark found in the butternut tree to their gums to get relief from toothaches. The butternut tree is found in North America, and is also the cousin of the black walnut tree. Butternut trees are found along rivers in well drained soil, rich woods, and even in back yards. Once the tree matures, it can reach heights of up to 60 feet, with the bark being light grey in color, and the leaves and the fruit resembling the black walnut tree. The bark of the tree can be applied to the gums, helping to alleviate toothache pain.

Yarrow on the other hand, can be found in Asia, Europe, and North America. It normally grows wild in meadows, fields, and in open wood lands. The root of yarrow, is what contains the anaesthetic effect. If you apply the fresh root of yarrow to your tooth or gums, it will help to stop the pain – until you can get an appointment with the dentist and get it taken care of.

The herb known as clove is an evergreen tree, native to tropical areas. These days however, it can be found throughout the world. As many already know, the dried flower bud of clove is what contains the medicine. The oil from clove, when used on a toothache, will help to stop the pain almost immediately. If you compare cloves to other natural toothache remedies, you’ll find clove to be the best.

For many years, natural herbs have been used to stop toothache pain. Hundreds of years ago, herbs were the only way to stop the pain. Dentists were just starting to come around, although they didn’t have near the equipment and sophistication that they have these days. Even though teeth were pulled during these times, it normally happened with alcohol to numb the pain then pliers to remove the tooth.

Throughout the course of time, herbs have proven to be very effective with stopping toothache pain. If you are interested in herbs or have any questions about them, you shouldn’t hesitate to ask your dentist his opinion. Dentists know herbs, and should be able to recommend natural remedies to you if you request them. The next time you experience the pain of a toothache – you should always remember that herbs are a great way to relieve the pain.

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Teeth Care

March 6th, 2012 admin

When you get your photo taken, you usually smile and reveal to the world your teeth. Healthy teeth can be a indicator of one’s personality. Slobs usually have teeth that are rotten and they have bad breath.

However, people who keep their teeth in tiptop shape are the ones who are known to be successful and responsible in their careers. Personal dental care differs from one person to another, but it all comes down to one important fact: the healthier your teeth are, the greater you would look.

Aside from the aesthetic value of healthy, good-looking teeth, they also help a person chew foods properly. Remember, for a person to have a good digestion, the foods that he or she would eat should be chewed properly. Having a good set of teeth also enables a person to speak clearly and confidently.

People who have a poor set of teeth are usually shy and hesitant to talk inpublic and fail to effectively communicate with others. Although  sometimes, the shape and structure of one’s teeth may be genetic, dentists and orthodontists can usually help re-shape and improve crooke,ugly teeth.

The Importance Of Healthy Teeth It is very important that individuals take care of their teeth because it will prevent plaque formation which pertains to a clear film that sticks to the surface of the teeth.

You might think that having a clear film stuck to your teeth is harmful (since it’s clear, anyway) but you might change your mind when you discover that the film is very sticky and it has a magnet-like aura that attracts bacteria to stick to it.

Sinfully Sugary Sweet Bacteria are attracted to sugar stuck on your teeth like ants in a picnic. The bacteria that is attracted by the sugary substance left in your mouth after you eat candies or cake breaks down the sugar into acid.

The acid is the one responsible for eating away your tooth enamel, which would then cause holes in your teeth called cavities. Too much plaque also causes a disease called gingivitis. It is a gum disease that makes gums red, sore and swollen.

The first indicator that you have gingivitis is when your gums easily bleed even with just simple and basic brushing. Practicing personal dental care is really important because if one wouldn’t take care of his or her teeth, the cavities and unhealthy gums will make the gum very sore and rotten.

Getting awful toothaches can also be a result of lack of personal dental care. Having toothaches and other mouth-related diseases due to lack of personal mouth hygiene will surely make eating, as well as communicating with other people difficult.

Brush Properly If you are already getting paranoid about all the bacteria that is staying inside your mouth, don’t be! You can actually combat the bacteria in your mouth by two simple weapons: toothbrush and toothpaste.

By brushing your teeth at least two times a day, you can break down the plaque and prevent it from building up to cause cavities and other teeth and mouth problems.

Being a responsible owner of pearly whites is not difficult. You just have to make sure that you don’t forget about your personal dental care amidst your busy work or lifestyle.

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Abscessed Teeth

August 27th, 2011 admin

An abscess in the tooth refers to an infection that was caused by a pocket of pus residing in the tissue around the tooth. Abscesses are very serious conditions, and can lead to serious matters if they aren’t treated immediately. When the pulp of a tooth dies due to damage or decay, bacteria will begin to grow from the dead tissue that is left. This bacteria will eventually spread from the root of the dead tooth into the tissue that is below and create a pocket of pus – the abscess.

Gum disease is also a cause for a tooth becoming abscessed. Gum diseases causes the gums to pull back and away from teeth, leaving pockets behind. When one of the pockets becomes blocked, the bacteria can grow and spread, or get backed up. When this happens, an abscess will start to form under the surface of the gums and become apparent will swelling as it gets bigger and spreads.

Once the infection has started to spread, your jawbone may start to dissolve as it makes room for the swelling in the area that has been infected. Once the bone starts to dissolve, the pressure will be greatly reduced, although the infection will still be there. Even though you will get relief, the infection will get worse – and the pain will always come back. Once more of the bone has been dissolved, there will be nothing left to support the tooth, meaning that it will become loose and end up needing to be extracted.

The symptoms of an abscessed tooth are easy to see, as they include severe pain in the affected area, red or swollen gums, a bad taste in your mouth, swelling around the area or the jaw, and possibly a high fever. Pain is excruciating with an abscess, normally affecting the area in a bad way. No matter what you do, the pain seems to intensify.

Abscesses mostly occur with back teeth, although they can happen in the front as well. Once your tooth has become abscessed, your dentist won’t immediately pull it. If a tooth that has abscessed is extracted once the infection is still present, it can quickly spread. Your dentist will instead prescribe you some antibiotics that can help to destroy the bacteria.

The dentist can also perform a root canal, in an attempt to remove dead or decayed tissue. Last but not least, he can also drill a hole in the tooth to give the infection a chance to drain and try to remove any dead pulp. The most common treatment with an abscess is to use antibiotics to kill the infection, then get the tooth removed. You should never let it get that bad – as an abscess is something that can destroy your jawbone.

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Toothaches Causes

July 19th, 2011 healthinformation

When it comes to toothaches, there are many different things that can cause a toothache. A toothache can come at any given time, even though you may not expect it. The pain can be unbearable at times, and you’ll do practically anything you can to make the pain stop. When a toothache first comes on, many of us start to wonder what caused it to happen.

Some of the main causes of toothaches include decay, a fracture in the teeth, and cavities. A crack in the tooth is also a cause, although it can be difficult to diagnose, as cracks will normally appear to be invisible to the naked eye and x-rays. Cracks can make your tooth feel as if it is exploding, as they expose the dentin and nerves to the air and anything else you put in your mouth. If you don’t get them fixed, they will get worse, possibly leading to your tooth breaking off at the gums.

Pulp irritation is another cause of toothaches, as it occurs after dental treatment. No matter how well your filling or crown was done, the materials that were used to fix the tooth can end up causing pain later on down the road. There really is nothing you can do, as crowns can sometimes come off or the filling can sometimes come out. If this happens, all you can really do is go back to the dentist to get the problem fixed.

If you have an exposed root or nerve, it can also be the cause of your toothache. This normally happens due to rough brushing, receding the gums and exposing the root. If the root is exposed, the air or liquid you drink can trigger a toothache. To prevent this from happening, use care when you brush and never try to tear your gums apart thinking it will get your teeth cleaner.

If you use tobacco products, you’ll more than likely get toothaches on a frequent basis. Chewing tobacco is a common contributor to toothaches and tooth pain, as the tobacco will eat away at your teeth until there is nothing left. It doesn’t take long for it to happen either, especially if you have been chewing for a long time. Smoking can trigger toothaches as well, as the smoke is bad for your teeth and eats away at them as well.

Even though there are many causes to toothaches, there are things you can do to stop and pain and prevent toothaches. You should always brush your teeth on a daily basis, and go to the dentist for your regular checkups. If you get a toothache you should always go to the dentist and get the tooth fixed. The dentist may be able to catch it early enough to save the tooth – which will prevent you from having to get it pulled and save you a lot of money – and pain in the long run.

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Teeth for a Lifetime

June 23rd, 2011 admin

Thanks to better in-office dental treatments and at-home care, more people find it easier to manage their personal dental care.

Although there are some conditions and diseases that can facilitate tooth loss, the products and technology today gives people more control to help keep their original teeth until they get old.

The most common suggestions to have a healthy set of teeth for a lifetime is to constantly brush and floss them. Most teeth and mouth problems are triggered or caused by plaque, an icky layer of bacteria, food particles and other organic matter that forms on the surface of the teeth.

The bacteria found in plaque are responsible for producing acids that cause cavities to form. Plaque is also responsible for periodontal disease, an infection that can damage the tissues and erode the bone surrounding the teeth.

The best way to remove plaque and destroy its chances of building up is through brushing and flossing. Regular brushing and flossing is really needed so that the plaque won’t have the chance to accumulate and harden.

Don’t Be A Sloppy Brusher Most of the people have been taught the proper technique of brushing the teeth when they were kids.

However, as people get older, they tend to disregard the proper way of brushing and just brush their teeth sloppily. If you think that simply brushing your teeth all round and making bubbles is enough to get rid of the plaque and other food debris, think again.

You may just be wasting your time, effort and toothpaste if you don’t practice the proper technique of brushing your teeth. It takes more than instinctive brushing to get your toothbrush bristles to remove plaque without injuring your gums.

If you really want to know the proper way to brush your teeth, you can visit a dental hygienist or a dentist so that they can show you the proper way to do it.

General Tips About Brushing You need to brush your teeth at least twice a day. Perhaps the most important time to brush your teeth is just before you go to sleep because during sleep, the production of saliva decreases, making the teeth more vulnerable to the attack of bacterial acids.

It’s not advisable to brush more than three times a day because it may cause the gums to recede in the long run. When brushing your teeth, make sure not to make the strokes too harsh because it will also cause the gums to recede or bleed.

Imagine this: plaque sticks to the teeth just like jam sticks to a wooden ladle. Rinsing the wooden ladle won’t really remove the jam, instead, light and constant brushing will be able to do the trick.

Brushing too hard will damage the ladle, which will also have the same damage to the teeth and gums. Don’t rush when you are brushing your teeth. Two minutes is the recommended time to adequately remove the food and plaque build-up on your teeth. Change your toothbrush regularly.

Don’t be a scrooge when it comes to toothbrushes because they are the primaryweapon for personal dental care. They don’t cost a lot so when you notice that your toothbrush has been with you for three months already, or if you already that the bristles of your toothbrush has already began to splay, it’s high time that you replace it with a new toothbrush.

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Teeth Clenching and TMJ

June 6th, 2011 admin

If you’ve been researching TMJ for some time and how to treat it, you’ve probably found one overall statement from every reliable source:

There is no real cure for TMJ.

The only thing doctors can do is give out strong pain relief medicines or muscle relaxation drugs. There is nothing else they can do.

Little by little, you get immune to the strong pain killers and other short term medications and they’ll stop working for you (if they ever did relief your pain in the first place).

Your dentists may try his best to help you by making a dental implant. These implants are mostly meant to save your teeth from grinding down. It is not a permanent cure and usually doesn’t relief the pain, although it may be well worth it to save your teeth.

The traditional health system has no cure for TMJ!

You can’t really blame them tough.

TMJ is one of the most complex conditions you’ll ever find.

Every TMJ patient has different original causes for his or her condition. And not only one cause or accident. There are probably several contributing factors causing your pain. Both physical and emotional.

Overwhelming feelings like stress, grief, or intense anger are often basic triggers of TMJ. Injuries, like car accidents or sport injuries are another common triggers.

You may not even have noticed at all when your condition began to develop. Maybe you bumped into something but didn’t give it a
second thought. Few days later you began to experience pain. Most often, there is no way to know the original trigger.

Okay, that’s enough. Lets talk about what we DO KNOW!

What we know for a fact about TMJ is, the jaw joints are always misplaced in some way. It doesn’t necessarily have to be complete misplacement (although sometimes it is). Small wrong misplacement can be enough. And the symptoms can be both nerve racking and painful…

  • Jaw locking opened or closed
  • Uncontrollable jaw or tongue movements
  • Clicking, popping jaw joints
  • Clenching or grinding at night
  • Grating sounds
  • Inability to open the jaw smoothly or evenly
  • Jaw deviates to one side when opening
  • Inability to “find bite” with teeth
  • Limited opening
  • Frequent, migraine type headaches
  • Extreme pain in cheek muscles
  • Discomfort or pain to any of these areas

…are just few obvious symptoms. You may have some or all of them. Or non at all. Like I said, this is very complicated condition.

Another thing we know for a fact is, the jaw muscles are always very tense. It varies how painful they’re or if they’re torn but they’re always too tense. These weak, tense jaw muscles will push your jaw further out of position and make the problem worse.

This is similar to back problems. Most people who suffer from back problems have weak, tense muscles. The back problem may have started by using bad position when working, by minor injury, or something else that didn’t seem very serious at the time.

As self defense, the back muscles get tense to avoid the pain. This is unconscious and uncontrollable. That’s why you often see people with back problem walk bent. The back pain becomes chronic when, the tension in the back muscles actually push the spine out of place. What was only supposed to be temporarily pain relief has caused serious condition.

It’s no different with TMJ. Something that probably began as minor problem (maybe small bump on the jaw or period of intense feelings) is now becoming serious problem as the jaw muscles push on the jaw joints.

This, then leads to series of other problems.

Now the two jaw joints do not cooperate together. They’re unbalanced and uncontrollable. It shouldn’t really come as surprise that everything gets stuck. The pain is unbearable. It’s like begin constantly tortured.

Nerves get squeezed when the jaw joints are out of place. This is, for example, the reason many people suffering from TMJ experience loss of balance. The nerve system, controlling the jaw are directly connected to the nerves in the ear, where the function balancing your body takes place.

All the muscles in your body are connected. If one gets tense, all the muscles around that one become tense too. You’ve probably, for example, felt your shoulders and neck get stiffer as your TMJ grows worse.

Less noticeable is the tension in all the small muscles in your head. Including your other face muscles, tongue, throat and even eyes. You may also feel like your throat is narrower now than before (you’re not crazy it’s true).

You don’t have to imagine all the secondary symptoms this indirect tension from the jaw is creating. You’re experiencing some or all of them yourself… voice fluctuations

  • sore throat without infection
  • swallowing difficulties
  • bloodshot eyes
  • tongue pain
  • balance problems, “vertigo”, dizziness, or disequilibrium
  • feeling of foreign object in throat
  • clogged, stuffy, “itchy” ears, feeling of fullness
  • watering of the eyes

…plus endless other secondary symptoms, some people experience but others don’t.

The only way to reverse the development of TMJ and heal your self is to loosen up and strengthen both the jaw muscles and all the muscles around the jaw.

This does actually not require hard effort tough. The exercises are simple and easy to do. But you have to practice them if they’re are going to work for you.

1)The jaw exercises strengthen and loosen up the jaw muscles directly. As you practice these exercises, the jaw muscles stops pushing the jaw into wrong position. Instead, it guides the jaw joints into right place and that way heals your TMJ.

2)Consider how close the tongue is to the jaw. It’s no wonder how important it is to remove any tension from this muscle. You do that using simple tongue exercises.

3)You probably noticed how many of the secondary symptoms had something to do with the throat. You’ll feel a whole lot better after you practise the throat exercises for few days.

4)The neck and shoulder muscles are directly connected to the Jaw muscles. These muscles are usually the first one to freeze when the jaw muscles get stiff. They can, however, easily be put back into regular function using powerful neck and shoulder exercises.

5)All muscles need oxygen to function properly. Stiff muscles, reduce the amount of oxygen they can process. Using specially designed breathing exercises, you can bring these muscles back to life, so they may begin to function properly again.

Most people who practice these exercises claim to get really good relief from them. Many totally heal their TMJ permanently. This is amazing, considering how complicated this condition is.

But before you celebrate, let me be brutally honest with you.

This will most likely take some time and effort. The exercises take less than 10 minutes a day on the average. But you must commit to them for some period of time. Some people literally get healed over night but that’s not the norm.

Your TMJ has been developing for years (even if the symptoms just showed up). So give the training few weeks. Even couple of months.

The muscles around the jaw must regain their old strength and flexibility. So must the jaw muscle itself. But that’s not enough. The jaw muscles must guide and lock the jaw joints into natural healthy position. This happens little by little (often fraction of an inch a day).

The fact remains, this is the only method proven effective to heal TMJ. Nothing else helps!

Do you want to learn more about these exercises and try some of them for free? If so, follow this link to cure TMJ permanently.

Christian Goodman is the founder of The TMJ No More Program (www.tmj-no-more.com). The program has helped thousands of people to cure their TMJ without having to undertake dangerous surgery, dental implant or having to buy and use drugs every day.

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Wisdom Teeth

April 28th, 2011 healthinformation

Also known as the third set of molars, the wisdom teeth are the last set of teeth in the mouth to erupt, which normally happens around the ages of 17 – 25. For many years, there has been a lot of controversy as to the need to remove these teeth. If the teeth don’t cause any harm or pain, they are normally fine to stay in place. If they present a bad position or cause you a lot of pain or discomfort, they will need to be removed.

When the wisdom teeth first come in, they will sometimes be impacted. Impacted teeth will normally need to be extracted. Sometimes they can be pulled, although in most cases they need to be cut out by a qualified surgeon. When the time comes to have your wisdom teeth extracted, you’ll need to go to an oral surgeon and have a consultation first.

During the consultation, you’ll take a few x-rays that will let the surgeon know how bad your wisdom teeth are. He will go over the >results with you, take a look in your mouth, then tell you what options you have. If he is going to pull or cut out your teeth, you’ll have the option of using local anaesthesia or going with an IV sedation. An IV sedation is the preferred way to have wisdom teeth extracted, as you’ll be so relaxed you won’t know what is going on. If you decide to just use local anaesthesia, which is numbing, you’ll be fully aware of the procedure. You’ll also hear the popping and cracking involved, which can make you feel quite uncomfortable.

Depending on the shape, size, and the formation of the wisdom teeth, the removal process can vary from easy to hard. If the root tipshave managed to wrap themselves around the bone, the removal process can be very time consuming and quite painful. Once the extractions have been completed, there is normally little to no swelling involved. Your dentist will prescribe you some pain medicine, which you should use as soon as you arrive home. If you are going to use IV sedation, you’ll need to someone to accompany you, as you won’t be able to drive home.

After the removal of your wisdom teeth, your dentist will go over what you need to do to ensure the proper healing of your gums and mouth. Normally, he will give you information to go over, to make sure that you experience no problems in the healing process. Someone will need to be with you for the first 24 hours, to make sure that you ok. You won’t be able to eat certain foods for the first 48 hours, which is to be expected. Once you get your wisdom teeth removed through – you’ll notice a big improvement in your mouth – and your health.

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