January is a popular time for dental work. In many cases, that’s because dental insurance plan coverage starts over and people suffering from tooth pain or people who have put off necessary dental work and checkups can now get those procedures done with the help of the dental insurance dollars instead of having to pay for the procedures entirely on their own.

In general, having dental insurance is better than not having it, especially if you can get it through your employer as opposed to paying for an individual plan on your own. Most dental insurance plans are designed to pay for preventative dental work like semi-annual dental checkups and teeth cleanings. Most of the time, dental insurance won’t cover the entire cost of getting a crown, bridge, filling or root canal. Dental insurance plans also almost always have maximum dollar amounts that they will pay, after which, you’re on your own.

The National Association of Dental Plans reports that 98 percent of Americans with dental insurance get it through their employers or a large group like AARP. If you’re one of the 43 percent of Americans without dental insurance, don’t let it stop you from getting the dental care you need. Look into an individual dental plan and research the options available to you.

Check out what’s available through online insurance websites like eHealthinsurance.com. Select a few plans that cover the types of dental procedures you think you’ll most often need done (fillings, root canals, crowns, teeth cleanings, x-rays, etc.). Compare your findings with estimates posted on HealthCareBlueBook.com to see if the plan(s) you’re considering is worth the money.

Whatever you decide about dental insurance, don’t let cost keep you from addressing tooth pain and dental problems. As we’ll discuss next week, even without dental insurance, there are still options available to you to help you get the dental work you need.

Fear of anything is a vicious cycle. Sometimes, fear can be effectively managed by completely avoiding the source of that fear. Most often though, avoidance only makes your life more inconvenient, increases your fear and limits your opportunities. If you’re afraid of driving on the interstate, you can choose to take only surface streets, but you’ll have to plan more travel time and any long road trips will take longer and cost more.

If you’re afraid of going to the dentist and therefore never go, you may be more likely to develop dental pain and problems. Dental problems often start as minor issues that can be easily and painlessly resolved; left unchecked, minor problems turn into major ones that are costly, unpleasant and sometimes, painful to deal with. If you wait until you can’t stand the pain any longer to see a dentist about it, your fear of the dentist always being associated with pain and discomfort will only be confirmed.

The truth is that going to see a dentist for annual checkups and teeth cleanings will commonly reduce the dental pain, discomfort and fear that you experience. The best way to deal with dental fear is to meet it head-on. Confront your fear by finding a dentist that will help you get through it by being sensitive to it. If you don’t have a dentist now, ask friends who they recommend. If you have a friend of co-worker who shares your fear but goes to the dentist in spite of it, ask that person what he thinks of his dentist. If he’s happy with his dentist, chances are good that you will be too.

Visit a few dentists until you find one that you are comfortable with. Be upfront with the dentist about your fear and ask what he and his assistants can do during your visits to reduce it. Some tactics you and your dentist might agree on for lessening your pain and fear include:

• Local anesthetics
• Pain-killing drugs like Novocain
• Pre-arranged hand signals when you need a break from a procedure
• Nitrous oxide gas
• Anti-anxiety medication

Discuss the options with your dentist and make the best choice for you. Just don’t let fear stop you from taking good care of your teeth.

From everyone at Emergency Dental Care USA, Inc. and Ask the Emergency Dentist, we want to wish a Happy New Year to you and your teeth! What would be a better way to start off 2012 than with 12 resolutions, that if followed, should result in a happy, healthy mouth?

1. Eat less starchy crackers and chips. Doing so will help your teeth and your waistline as they can be just as harmful to your teeth as sweets.
2. Drink tea and coffee without sugar. Holding the sugar on your tea and coffee can reduce plaque buildup and cavities.
3. Brush your teeth twice a day or after every meal. Regular brushing will keep plaque buildup low and your breath fresh.
4. Floss daily. Take care of your gums this year by flossing in between your teeth at least once a day, twice if possible.
5. Don’t use your teeth to open things. Use your hands or scissors, not your teeth to open packages, cut tape and tear open things this year.
6. Switch to fluoride toothpaste. If you don’t already use toothpaste with fluoride in it,  start as it will help your teeth grow strong and plaque-free.
7. Give up smoking. It’s good for your health not to smoke and reduces the staining that tobacco products cause to teeth.
8. Chew sugar-free gum after lunch. Many people find it difficult to work in a tooth-brushing session after lunch. If it’s more convenient for you, carry around a pack of sugarless gum and chew a stick after lunch or a mid-day snack.
9. Use a soft-bristled toothbrush. Nylon-based, soft-bristled toothbrushes remove plaque and tartar from your teeth without scratching or ruining the naturally protective enamel coating.
10. Trade in your toothbrush every three months for a new one. Like so many other things in life, toothbrushes wear out and need to be replaced regularly to stay effective.
11. Wear a mouthguard. If you play competitive sports, a mouthguard can protect your teeth from breaking and cracking, which can occur contact sports.
12. See your dentist regularly. Get a checkup every six months to keep 2012 a healthy one for your teeth and gums.

The last week of the year can be a great times to get dental work done, especially work that you want but don’t necessarily need. Getting the most out of your dental insurance is a skill honed with practice, kind of like herding cats. While it may seem unnatural at first, learning how to work the system to your benefit is both legal and practical. Here are three steps to getting the most out of your dental insurance.

#1 - Get Your MBA. Look at the paperwork you received when you signed up for your dental insurance this year or go online to find the explanation of your dental benefits. Specifically, find your maximum benefit available (MBA). The MBA is the most money your dental insurance will pay for root canals, teeth cleanings and other dental work in a calendar year. Whatever you don’t use of the MBA is lost at the end of the year. Think of it as money you paid for that’s sitting in your dental insurance account, waiting to be used by you and only you.

#2 - Gather Your EOBs. Dental insurance companies send handy, but often confusing, statements called “explanation of benefits” or “EOBs” that detail how much they’ve paid for your dental expenses each time a dentist submits a claim to them for work you had done. Total up all that your insurance has paid out, as shown in your EOBs. Call your insurance company if you need help and just ask them how much you have remaining on your maximum benefit.

#3 - Give Your Dentist a Call. Armed with the knowledge of how much (or little) credit you have available in your dental insurance tank, call your dentist and schedule an appointment to have necessary dental work done. If you have $500 left on your MBA, for example, and have been wanting to get your teeth whitened all year, call your dentist, ask what he charges for the service and get those pearly whites serviced before your big New Year’s Eve bash. You’ll enjoy ringing in the new year, and your mouth will show it!

Watch out for the Nutcrackers this Christmas; biting down on something hard could lead to a broken tooth and that could destroy more than just a nice Christmas meal and night of caroling. A broken tooth can cause sensitive nerves to become exposed. An exposed nerve can cause a lot of pain, which may make eating a warm sugar plum or drinking a cold glass of egg nog anything but a Christmas treat.

Most teeth are remarkably strong but they can chip, crack or break if they come into contact with something hard or are hit suddenly. The worst thing you can do when you break a tooth, even if it is on Christmas Eve, is to wait or try to ride out the pain until after the holidays. You have the best chance of saving a broken tooth if you get to the dentist within thirty minutes of the break.

If you break a tooth this holiday season or any time during the year, here’s how to take care of it:

• Look in your mouth and around you on the table or floor for broken pieces of tooth.
• Gather tooth pieces into a small bag or glass.
• See the dentist within 30 minutes if the entire tooth is knocked loose out of your mouth.
• Don’t touch any exposed roots.
• Rinse your mouth gently with saline solution or water.

There are a few simple tips you can follow as well to help prevent breaking a tooth in the first place. Avoid chewing on hard things like ice cubes, frozen candies and nuts. Wear a mouth guard when playing in sports, especially contact sports like football or soccer.

If you do break a tooth and don’t have a dentist or need help outside of normal office hours, Emergency Dental Care USA, Inc. may have a location near you where you can be seen to get your tooth fixed and pain relieved right away.

According to popular opinion, the worst food to get stuck in between your teeth is a poppy seed. These tiny little black seeds are common on rolls, muffins, bread and even in tea. They may taste good but can create chaos for your gums and teeth. Other foods that commonly get stuck in between teeth and gums include:

• Cooked spinach
• Celery
• Apple skins
• Red meat
• Broccoli
• Salad lettuce
• Corn on the cob
• Popcorn husks

Little bits of sticky candy can also easily become lodged in the spaces between teeth. In general, getting food stuck in between your teeth is a simple problem, easily solved with dental floss and regular brushing. The problems come when people don’t have floss on them and improvise by using toothpicks, nail files, forks and other small, sharp objects to attempt to dislodge the unwelcome visitor from their mouths.

Dislodging Unwelcome Bits of Food

If you’ve used something other than floss to get a piece of spinach or a seed out of your teeth and have walked away unscathed, consider yourself fortunate. Others don’t always fare so well. At the the Emergency Dentist, we see patients who’ve damaged their gums and teeth severely by sticking dirty or sharp items in their mouths to try to clean them. Lacerations can quickly become infected, creating an even worse problem that in extreme cases leads to teeth being pulled.

The best way to remove a strand of celery or a poppy seed from your gumline or from in between your teeth is not with your fingernail. It’s with dental floss. If you aren’t at home, run into a grocery story or pharmacy and purchase a roll of dental floss. Find a mirror (preferably in a bathroom, but your rear view mirror will do as long as you’re not driving while trying to remove the foreign object). Tear off a 12-15-inch piece of floss. Wrap the ends around your middle fingers.

Gently, slowly and carefully work the floss in between the teeth where the food is stuck. Work the floss up and over the object. Then, pull the object down along with the floss to remove it from your teeth. Swish some clear water around in your mouth to help dislodge pesky pieces of food. Keep working at it with floss and water. Then, brush your teeth, if necessary to work the food out completely and leave your mouth feeling fresh.

If you hurt yourself trying to get the food out some other way, call your dentist and have him or her remove the food for you.

Webster’s dictionary defines cantankerous as “difficult or irritating to deal with.” Donkeys and old women unaccustomed to change are given as examples of the word. After talking to my mother-in-law recently about some dental problems she’s been having, I’d have to say that Webster’s needs to update their listing to include canker sores as an example.

My mother-in-law has never had good teeth. Lately, it seems like she’s been having one bad problem after another with her teeth and mouth. The latest development includes canker sores. After having four new back molars put into her mouth, she developed a line of painful canker sores along the sides of her tongue. When she went back to her dentist in search of relief from her pain, he told her that it was a reaction to the new molars. Apparently her tongue didn’t know what to do with the new additions to her mouth and just kept rubbing up against them causing canker sores to develop.

One antibiotic shot to her tongue and a little tooth filing later, my mother-in-law was on the phone telling me through rather garbled speech that she’d have to endure another 7-10 days of life with these cantankerous visitors to her mouth. That got me interested in finding out more about canker sores and how they’re treated.

What Causes Canker Sores

According to the American Dental Association, canker sores are “annoying and painful” sores caused by “infections from bacteria, viruses or fungus; a loose orthodontic wire; a denture that doesn’t fit; or a sharp edge from a broken tooth or filling.” The ADA recommends having your dentist examine any canker sores that last longer than one week.

Canker sores are actually tiny ulcers that consist of a white or gray base surrounded by a red border. They form inside the mouth and are not contagious. You can develop one canker sore at a time or multiples that come and go over time. While specialists don’t know exactly what causes canker sores, these sources have been suggested along with what was mentioned in the quote above:

• Fatigue
• Stress
• Allergies
• Hormonal changes as part of a woman’s premenstrual cycle
• Adverse reactions to hot or cold beverages
• Intestinal issues like Crohn’s disease

Caring for Canker Sores

Canker sores most often heal on their own within 1-2 weeks. Gels and other topical anesthetics are available over the counter at your local drugstore and may be used to temporarily relieve the pain canker sores cause. Your dentist may prescribe an antibiotic and oral bandages if you have a severe case of canker sores, like my mother-in-law. While you’re waiting for your canker sores to heal, avoid spicy, hot and acidic foods or drinks and be thankful that you’ll soon be free of their unwelcome presence in your mouth.

This Thanksgiving was a memorable one for me. Unfortunately, it wasn’t because the food was abnormally outstanding. My family and I came down with the stomach flu on Thanksgiving; about the only thing we could stomach was a bowl of cheerios and milk. Thankfully, it was a quick bug. We enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner the next day.

As we sat there eating cold, dry turkey with no gravy or rich, butter-infused stuffing, I thought to myself - “I wonder what happens when mouths get sick.” If you’ve ever wondered the same thing (or are the parents of toddlers who like to ask a lot of ‘why’ questions) then this post is for you.

There’s a Battle Being Fought in Your Mouth

We know what happens when our stomachs get sick — we feel nauseous and often throw up. When we get head colds, our ears, noses and throats feel the pain. When a virus attacks our mouths, the repercussions can be much worse than a common head cold. The mouth is actually the forward battleground in our body’s fight to protect itself from invading viruses.

Sitting so far back in your throat that you might be tempted to overlook them are your tonsils. Two tiny balls of tissue on the right and left side of your throat fight infection-causing germs everyday, and work around the clock to keep you healthy. In that sense, your tonsils are the fighters that go ahead of your body’s attack system and meet viruses head on before they can make you sick.

Signs of Tonsillitis

Sometimes though, a virus attacks your tonsils and takes them down. What that happens, your mouth feels sick. You know you have tonsillitis when your throat hurts and some of these other symptoms appear:

• It’s hard to eat, drink or swallow
• You have a fever
• Your tonsils are red and inflamed or covered in a yellow or white coating
• The glands in your neck are swollen
• Your breath smells bad

A trip to the doctor can help rule out other infections, like strep throat, and confirm whether or not your tonsils are infected. The doctor may prescribe an antibiotic and will tell you to drink plenty of fluids and eat smooth foods like jello, soup and ice cream. In a few days to a week, your tonsils will feel better and will get back to protecting you from mayhem in your mouth.

If you’re like my husband, no one will hear you utter those words this Thanksgiving. Reach for the sweet potato casserole and pumpkin pie, if you prefer, later this week but realize that every bite advances the cause of the mutans and glutans waging war on your teeth. The battle doesn’t result in something deadly like oral cancer, which we’ve discussed before on this blog, but it can cause common tooth decay.

These dental soldiers might sound like characters out of Star Trek but they’re real life bacteria with one purpose in life — to feast on the sugar you consume. When they’re done processing the sugar from all those tasty Thanksgiving side dishes you’ll consume later this week, they’ll indiscreetly leave their waste behind on your teeth in the form of acid. This acid eats away at your teeth’s natural defense system — enamel. Once your enamel breaks down, it leaves your teeth vulnerable to plaque, cavities and dental decay.

The mutans and glutans don’t care about any of those nasty side effects of their single-minded quest to get more sugar; but you should. New research out of the University of Rochester Medical Center shows that cranberries might be your secret weapon in the fight against tooth decay this Thanksgiving. You don’t have to give up the pie, whip cream and apple cider, you just have to mix in a healthy helping of natural cranberries.

Researcher Michael Koo has found that compounds within cranberries interrupt the destructive work of glucosyltransferases, which are used by bacteria S. mutans to build glucans. If the mutans can’t build glutans, they can’t build plaque on your teeth. Regular toothbrushing is still your fiercest ally in the battle against dental decay, and trips to your dentist for teeth cleanings twice a year help immensely, but don’t count out the cranberries this Thanksgiving.

Eat, brush your teeth and be merry. Happy Thanksgiving everyone from the Emergency Dentist.

According to the American Dental Association, students miss 52 million hours of school each year due to dental related illnesses. Some dental and mouth injuries such as a bitten tongue, cracked tooth or bitten lip or cheek can be prevented by fastidious use of a mouth guard during sports activities.

It’s easy to bite your tongue and injure it badly if you or your child is playing soccer, football, basketball, volleyball or other contact sports without wearing a mouthguard. Your dentist can fashion a custom mouthguard tailored to fit your teeth or you can purchase a generic one at a sporting goods store. Either type helps prevent you from biting through your tongue inadvertently during a hit, serve, volley or kick.

Sometimes, children and adults can bite their tongues accidentally while eating. Chewing too fast or eating while doing other things like driving, watching TV or playing can lead to distracted eating which can sometimes result in a painful bite into the tongue. Dentists and emergency rooms see patients every day who’ve accidentally caused major damage to their tongues by biting.

If you or your child reaches for a carrot and inadvertently bites into tongue, there are a few simple steps you can take to relieve the pain before going to see the dentist or heading to the hospital:

• Clean - wet a clean washcloth with cool, clear water and gently wipe the tongue with the cloth
• Cool - set a cold compress from a first aid kit or your neighborhood drug store on the injured tongue; the cold compress will reduce swelling and help stop blood flow. If you don’t have a cold compress, try sucking on an ice cube or wrapping a few ice cubes in a thin, clean, wet cloth and applying the ice to the tongue.
• Call - if you’ve cleaned and cooled the tongue and it’s still bleeding after a few hours, see your dentist or head to the emergency room or your local urgent care office to have a doctor examine your tongue. Sometimes, if bites are bad enough, stitches may be needed to help the tongue heal properly.

Most tongue bites heal on their own relatively quickly. However, some severe bites do require medical attention. If you’ve gotten the bleeding to stop but are in pain, consider taking the recommended dose of an over-the-counter pain reliever such as acetaminophen (Tylenol) or ibuprofen (Advil) to help get through the worst of the pain.