what is dental scaling and its benefits?
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Scaling is the procedure in which a dentist or dental hygienist will use tools to remove the hard deposits ( calculus) on your teeth, both above and below the gumline. This is necessary because calculus breeds bacteria, which attributes to periodontitis. If this condition advances it actually reduces the amount of bone in your upper and lower jaw. This will cause your teeth to become loose, and you may lose them. If a dentist recommends a dental scaling, it is best to have it done.
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Unfortunately the stereotype can be true although not all Brits have Bad teeth, just as all Americans are not Obese!\n\nProblem is some Brits do not see their teeth (or their health generally) as a priority, they will happily spend £60 on a haircut, lots of money on sunbeds, cigarettes, beer etc but moan like mad when they have to pay £15 for me to use my professional knowledge to treat them, clean their teeth, which basically stops their gum disease in it's tracks and prevents them losing their teeth.\n\nHistorically Americans have always had to pay, usually top dollar, for their dental care, and have never had it heavily subsidised by the Government and so value their teeth and invest the time and effort in cleaning and care to make sure thay have the minimum work needed, prevention is better than cure, and generally it works! (although I'm sure there are some exceptions)\n\nWhereas some Brits tend to do the bare minimumin the way of cleaning, turn their nose up at flossing, eat lots of sweet foods and avoid the Dentist when they have a problem, coming to see us when the problem gets dire and then expect us to work miracles (and for nothing preferably) \n\nIt's only now there is less Subsidy from the Government, and fewer Dentists that patients will  perhaps realise good dental care is worth the money, and it is NOT all down to Dentist's wages, the Dentists I work with do not drive jags!\n\nThe materials and disposables we have to use during treatment are VERY expensive, a Dental chair costs around £15,000 for example. Crowns and Dentures  made in Dental labs do not come cheaply either.\n\nDid you know that Dental plaque not only causes Decay and Gum Disease but has also been implicated in the incidence of Strokes, Heart Disease and Premature Births ?\n\nWe don't just aim to look after the mouth, it's your whole body, we do what we can but ultimately it is up to the patient to take responsibility for their own Dental Health and put the effort in.\n\nRight off me soapbox now !!!!
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I'm a dentist.\n\nAttrition, my good friend.  Attrition.\n\nAs we age, our teeth tend to wear a little, but just a little.  Not enough to significantly alter the shape of any tooth.\n\nDid you know that the only time that our upper teeth and lower teeth should come into contact with each other is when we swallow?  Other than that, they should never touch.  Not when chewing your food.  Not when talking.  And certainly not at rest.  This is a fact.  The key words here, however, are "should never".  Unfortunately for most people, they touch much more frequently.\n\nWhat really changes the shape of our teeth is wear against the opposing teeth.  Many people grind their teeth or have some sort of habits that involve touching teeth together.\n\nAdditionally, dental work (with the exception of metallic materials) wears away the opposing teeth more quickly.  Porcelain crowns are notorious for causing excessive wear on teeth opposing them, as porcelain is much more abrasive than enamel.\n\nCanine teeth, both upper and lower (but especially the upper) serve an extremely important job in the mouth, and it is why any good dentist would make every last effort to save a canine tooth rather than extract it.  To explain this, I have to give you a little info about our masticatory system.  We have various muscles that close our jaws: masseter, temporalis, and medial pterygoids, all of which are controlled by the mandibular branch of the trigeminal nerve (Cranial nerve 5).  This nerve originates in our brainstem, if memory serves.\n\nTeeth do not sit directly in bone.  They are suspended by the periodontal ligament (PDL for short), which has many nerves in it, some of which are pressure sensors that tell your brain how much pressure is being applied to the teeth.  That's how you know to chew hard on beef jerky and softly on ice cream.  When your molars' PDLs pressure receptors are stimulated, your brain knows that it is ok to provide full biting force with your muscles of mastication.  After all, they are thicker, more robust teeth that can withstand those forces.\n\nIn contrast, your front teeth (canines included) are less robust and are not suited to withstanding heavy biting forces.  As a result, when the PDLs of your front teeth are stimulated, feedback is sent to the brain causing your muscles to reduce their force.\n\nWhen your jaw is in its "neutral" position (for lack of a better word that the lay person can understand), your molars will occlude with each other, but your anterior teeth won't (i.e. the shouldn't, unless you have some abnormality).  Your teeth are safe this way.  Move your jaw side to side or even forward a little, and what happens?  Your canines start to hit eachother, and through feedback from the canines' PDLs your brain knows to relax the muscles.  It is a protective mechanism for both your teeth and your jaws that prevents you from biting hard with your jaw in a position that can cause damage to the teeth or TMJ.  This is known as "canine guidance".\n\nIndividuals who, for one reason or another, move their lower jaws more than usual are rubbing their canines more, hence the attrition.\n\nThis is about as simple as I can make the explanation.  I hope it helps.  I'll bet you never knew there was so much to the profession of dentistry!
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Adding flouride to water systems is done in order to reduce the number if children and adults who experience tooth decay. But there is a debate about the safety of such measures for instance there are claims that it increases them risk of cancer. \nFluoridation: Benefits vs. Risks\nby Mark Bornfeld, DDS\n\nSince the early 20th century, the town of Hereford, in Deaf Smith County, Texas, was known as "the town without a toothache". Public health officials searched for a reason why this town had rates of dental decay that were significantly lower than average. It took nearly 12 years (from 1933 to 1945) for researchers to conclude through epidemiologic studies that it was the high naturally occurring levels of fluoride in its water that was responsible for this salutary effect on the residents of this town. On January 25, 1945, Grand Rapids, Michigan became the first city to intentionally introduce fluoride to its public water supply. Since that time, fluoridation of drinking water has become acknowledged by the Centers for Disease Control as one of the ten greatest public health accomplishments (see CDC / MMWR Report: Ten Great Public Health Achievements – United States, 1900-1999 at http://fluoride.oralhealth.org/papers/00056796.htm) Almost from the time of its introduction, however, the use of fluoride, especially in public water supplies, has been a topic of controversy. \n\nDespite some dissension on this issue by non-dentists (and a minority of dentists), most researchers believe the literature supports the purported benefits of the use of fluoride as a public health measure. (Not a scientific fact but an empirical observation: during the years that I maintained a practice in Lindenhurst, a small village in Long Island with demographics similar to those of my current practice in Brooklyn, I noticed an incidence of dental decay MANY orders of magnitude greater than that encountered in Brooklyn. The only factor which I could see to account for this difference was that Brooklyn was fluoridated and Lindenhurst was not.) I remain convinced of the value of fluoridation.\n\nFluoride can be applied to teeth in one of two ways: \nby application to the surface of the teeth (topically) through the use of fluoride-containing toothpastes, rinses, or professionally applied fluoride treatments, or \nsystemically, through fluoridation of drinking water or fluoride dietary supplementation. \nThe systemic application of fluoride is thought to benefit children whose teeth are still in the process of formation, because the fluoride introduced into the body can still be incorporated into the structure of the teeth. Since tooth enamel formation is generally completed by age 14 or 15, systemic fluoride is not thought to confer any benefit for those above this age. \n\nIn either method of application, fluoride becomes a part of the enamel structure. The main inorganic structural element of enamel, hydroxyapatite, becomes fluorinated: i.e., fluoride becomes an intrinsic part of its crystalline structure. This is postulated to combat decay by a combination of three possible mechanisms: \n\nEnamel becomes more resistant to softening by acid from decay-forming bacteria; \nEnamel develops an anti-bacterial quality, inhibiting growth of decay-forming bacteria; or \nEnamel develops a smoother surface that resists the accumulation of decay-forming bacterial plaque. \nRegardless of the mechanism or the efficacy of water fluoridation, its implementation required some assurance of safety, and therein lies the root of the controversy. Even before Jack D. Ripper declared (in the Stanley Kubrick movie Dr. Strangelove, 1964) that fluoridation was a "Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids", fluoridation ran into heavy opposition, and still does. Beyond the paranoia of the conspiracy theorists, there are legitimate questions that must be addressed, as they must for every therapeutic measure: do the benefits
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To some people its just assumed they will have perfect teeth.  What drives them is just expectation.  With other people it's internal motivation.   If you really want something you will work to get it, cost isn't a issue.  What you have to remember is that sometimes people who think you have bucked teeth will be making decisions that affect you.  A potentional employer, a traffic officer, anyone. . .  your appearance does affect the way you are treated.  It's not right,  But it is human nature.  So if you are on the fence and trying to decide  you should consider everything.  Bad and Good.\n\nOn the good side;\nStraight teeth are easier to maintain, so they tend to last longer.   AFter braces people smile more.  \n\nGood Luck Deciding
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It's all about what you eat. Read the following:\n\nIntroduction\nMeyer M. Silverman practiced dentistry in the city of Washington, DC for almost 50 years. He was well acquainted with the work of Weston A. Price, Sir Robert McCarrison and Francis Pottenger. As a GI in Europe, he observed the effects of starvation on people's teeth, and was appalled to find the same patterns of decay and bone loss among well-fed Americans. He staunchly opposed pasteurization and went to great lengths to obtain raw milk from a farmer in New York who sent it down to Washington on the Greyhound bus. This article was reprinted from the Journal of the District of Columbia Dental Society, March 1971.\n\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTeeth and Bone Hardness in Diagnosis and Prevention of Premature Aging\nBy Meyer M. Silverman, DDS. \nThe dentist is in a position to determine whether a person is prematurely aging by the degree of teeth and bone hardness. this factor can help determine whether an individual is well-constructed; it can also be a method of diagnosing how well-built an individual may be. Teeth and bone hardness can be a helpful diagnostic aid in predictive medicine,1 and it can also be one of many factors used to determine the rate of aging.\n\nWhile cutting tooth structure with low speed apparatus and chiseling bone during oral surgical operations it is possible mechanically to "feel" how hard or soft the teeth and bone are, and to determine the physical health of the human being. This mechanical feel of the tissues is similar to rubbing fabrics between the fingers to determine the quality of the material. The dentist is probably the only one in a healing profession who can literally cut into the tissues he is treating to determine the quality of the human animal. \n\nTeeth and bone hardness can be a control in developing and testing the effect of nutrition on laboratory animals and to study how to increase the longevity of adult human beings toward the 100 year mark with a minimum of illness. \n\nOBSERVATIONS\nI have noted while cutting teeth during operative procedures, and chiseling bone during surgical removal of teeth, that some patients had teeth and bone that seemed as hard as rock. Other patients had teeth and bone that were very soft or with variations between these two extremes. Why should there have been such differences in the character of these hard tissues of the body? The old adage that "we are what we eat" has been found to be the determining factor in the hardness of these oral tissues, and in the aging of the individual.\n\nThroughout the years, when extremes between the hard and soft tissue of patients were noted, the patients were asked about the types of food they had eaten from infancy up to their present ages, as well as questions concerning their general health and history. Generally, those with hard teeth and bones were strongly built and in their youth were participants in different forms of athletics. They were more often born and raised on farms, but also in large cities or small towns where they ate fresh-cooked and raw foods that were freshly obtained from the farm or the garden. They generally started out in life breast-fed and not bottle-fed. The milk consumed in childhood was, without exception, raw and not pasteurized. These people were generally in excellent health. When asked if any of their family or friends with similar diets ever had a heart attack in their early forties or fifties, or died young from any other causes, they would think back and say that their parents, grandparents or others in their family lived to old age—into their eighties and nineties—in good health. They also had many or all of their teeth. \n\nPeople with strongly built teeth and bone are being lost from our modern civilization in the United States of America. Their children have softer dentitions, and their grandchildren and great grandchil
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Neither.  It's digusting.  It smells horrible, it makes your clothes stink, and your teeth yellow.  I don't see any advantages to it.  But hey, to each it's own.
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Lol. Just like the body eats your teeth have to be brushed. This prevents cavities, lose of teeth, you name it all and the above, it also makes your breeth not stank. It makes your teeth and gums healthy, i also encourage consistant dentist oppointments.
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contact the british dental hygienist association BDHA they will help you with accurate figures
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A tooth location would be helpful.
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Scaling is the formation of an oxide film on iron or other metal or alloy when heated.
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Depends on your lifestyle. If you brush really hard, do drugs, are bulimic, or eat a lot of lemons/high acidic foods, then yes it would probably be a good idea b/c these things can weaken the tooth enamel and flouride strengthens it. If none of those apply then brushing with a toothpaste that has flouride in it is fine.
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Dental lasers are a family of instruments. Some lasers are used for surgery, some to cure restorative materials and enhance tooth bleaching, and others to remove tooth structure for elimination of disease and restoration – different lasers for different procedures. All lasers require eye protection. Safety glasses with special lenses will be provided. Family and guests in the dental operatory at the time of your laser treatment may also be asked to wear protective eyeglasses.\n\nLasers do not make whining sounds or other annoying noises. You may experience the sound of a rush of air, since air suction is often used to keep the area cool and cleaner. You should be able to relax and be comfortable while the dental laser is in use.\n\nDepending on your treatment needs, your dentist may use the laser for a long period of time or possibly only for brief moments. However, even those procedures that require only a short period of laser usage benefit from the advantages of laser therapy. With laser surgery, there is a reduced need for local anesthesia, bleeding is minimized, swelling is controlled, and there is usually little, if any, postoperative discomfort. Laser energy enhances the effect of tooth bleaching agents for a faster and more effective result. Natural looking restorative materials for teeth are more quickly cured to greater hardness. Lasers that remove tooth decay are fast and seldom require anesthesia.\n\nDental lasers are used for a variety of treatment procedures. Your dentist knows which types of patient care are more patient friendly with a laser than with alternative traditional methods. The dentists using lasers have devoted training time and expense to be able to bring you the many advantages of this exciting new technology.\n\ncc
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every one does.  if you go to a dentist and he has never seen you before he will check to see how much your teeth move, then he marks it on your record \nit is like a scale from one to ten \none being the least amount of movement \nand ten being a lot of movement
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Dental plaque is an organized colony of bacteria in your mouth. It keeps the acids the bacteria produce stuck to your teeth. The plaque then protects the coating of acids on your teeth so your saliva can't dilute it, buffer it, or wash it away. This will "eat" your tooth over time.
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I have not had this procedure done, but I have seen it done many times.  I am a dental assistant.\n\nScaling and Root Planing is a procedure done by a dental hygienist or dentist to remove calculus (tarter) from the roots of your teeth.  You should be fairly comfortable for this procedure b/c you will be numb.  Usually they will have you come back 4 times to complete each quadrant one by one. \n\nYou may experience tenderness and/or puffy swollen gums for a few days after each quadrant is scaled, due to the tissue being traumatized.  This is normal.  Continue brushing and flossing (at least 2x/ day).  Believe it or not, this will help reduce inflammation over a period of a few days.  It may be uncomfortable for the first couple of days, but you will see results if you continue on a daily routine.  Do not be deterred if you see blood in your toothpaste....this is a good sign!  Your tissue will begin to shrink to regular size soon!  Keep brushing and flossing!\n\nAs for the Arestin.....this is an antibiotic that is dispensed via syringe.  It will be placed in areas of deep pocketing (between the teeth) to reduce bacterial infection and try to restore healthy bone.  It is a powder like substance and should not cause you any discomfort.
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I don't know of any websites, but I can tell you about my experience working with dentists and dental labs.\nThe dr.'s want efficiency. They want you to answer their questions quickly and kindly when they call. They want you to know what you are talking about and to correct any problems they may be having. They are generally too busy to fool around. And there's almost always patients calling to ask when such and such is going to be ready. They just want to product to be there and be done correctly.I think as long as you do those things, they will keep using your lab. Oh, and the quality of the lab's work has to be very good, too!!