Month: October 2015

Forget the Ghosts: Halloween Candy Is What’s Scary

By: Dr. Elizabeth Eggert

Witches, zombies, and ghosts aren’t the scariest things about Halloween. For young and old ghouls alike, Halloween candy is what’s most frightening about the upcoming spooky holiday. The main villains? Sugar and acid. Here’s a guide to the most frightening Halloween candy and some scrumptious options that are better for your teeth.

Halloween’s Most Frightening Candy Options

The worst options for Halloween candy are packed with sugar, highly acidic, and stay in your mouth for a long time. Candies that fit this category are a major source of tooth decay. Sour candies in particular are nasty sources of enamel erosion.

The most frightening Halloween candy includes:

  • sour candies
  • gummy candies
  • taffy
  • candy corn
  • caramels
  • candy bars with nuts
  • lollipops
  • jawbreakers & other hard candies

Great Halloween Treats

Not all Halloween candy options are bad for your teeth. There are a number of delicious treats that won’t cause significant tooth decay. Sugar-free treats are always a safe bet, as are candies that are easy to chew, since they don’t stay in the mouth too long.

Here’s a list of great Halloween treat options:

  • sugar-free gum
  • sugar-free lollipops & hard candies
  • chocolate with no nuts or sticky fillings
  • powdery candies

When you go trick-or-treat shopping for your neighborhood ghouls, choose options that won’t rot their teeth. To put your own kids on the path to excellent oral health, contact us at 651-482-8412. Happy Halloween!

Answered – Your Burning Questions About the Tooth Fairy

By: Dr. Elizabeth Eggert

Our young patients love to talk about the Tooth Fairy. Many times this is a child’s first experience receiving cash for something they did – as opposed to receiving money as a gift. The Tooth Fairy has been a frequent visitor in American homes for many years. This tradition has helped generations of children through the sometimes unpleasant process of losing their baby teeth.

Tooth

There are numerous stories and rituals about the Tooth Fairy  Reportedly, hundreds of years ago, European children would bury their teeth. This symbolized that a new tooth would soon grow in its place. In other countries, a widely documented ritual involved offering the lost tooth as a sacrifice to a mouse or rat. The practice was done with the hope that the child’s adult teeth would grow in as strong and sturdy as a rodent’s.

By the 1900s, Tooth Fairy stories had migrated to the United States, and soon after became an established part of American folklore. But how did we get to a point of envisioning the Tooth Fairy as a flitting sprite? With a lot of help from movie animation. It could also be the fact that a child would rather have a fairy sneaking around his/her room at night rather than a rat.

Plus, fairies have pixie dust. What’s more fun than that?

The Tooth Fairy serves as a source of comfort during an experience that can sometimes be scary or even traumatic. The loss of a baby tooth is the first rite of passage in a person’s life, and probably the most frightening. As part of that rite of passage, it is also seen as a way to introduce children to the concept offiscal responsibility.

According to the August 2015 Visa annual survey, the Tooth Fairy is leaving an average of $3.19 per tooth under kids’ pillows. The Tooth Fairy must be feeling the pinch of economic times. For two years now, lost tooth amounts have steadily dropped – decreasing 24 cents from 2014 and 51 cents from 2013.

The Visa survey, of 4,000 people, found that the most common monetary gift from the tooth fairy is $1. [Interestingly dads report Tooth Fairy gifts being 27% more generous than reports from moms.] Kids are collecting about $64 in all when converting to a mouthful of adult teeth, which is down about $10 in the last two years.

Looking for some cute and creative Tooth Fairy ideas? Try:

Remember, children should be seen soon after the eruption of their first tooth. The team at Eggert Family Dentistry works hard to provide a relaxed, non-threatening environment for your child. Put your kids on the path to excellent oral health by calling us at 651-482-8412. We even have tooth fairy boxes!

Snore no More – An Easy Fix for a Great Night’s Sleep

By: Dr. Elizabeth Eggert

Snore no More – An Easy Fix for a Great Night’s Sleep

Snoring man. Couple in bed, man snoring and woman can not sleep, covering ears with pillow for snore noise. Young interracial couple, Asian woman, Caucasian man sleeping in bed at home.

We live in a society that is in critical need of sleep.

Sleep behaviors affect every aspect of your daily life. There’s nothing like a full night of rest to help you be ready to take on the world. Unfortunately, there are probably a lot of us out there that haven’t felt that way for a while.

If you’ve lost that spring in your step (and quite possibly your family is also feeling the fallout) take a look at your sleep habits. Are any sleep problems inhibiting your ability to get in seven to eight hours of restful slumber? Is your sleep problem – snoring?

It’s very easy not to take snoring seriously. It doesn’t really affect you unless, a) it wakes you up, b) your spouse moves into another bedroom to sleep, or c) no one wants to share a hotel room during the snowmobiling trip (yes, snoring can register at 80 decibels).

Snoring, however, is a disorder.

Snoring is a sound that occurs during sleep when soft (palatal) tissue in the upper airway vibrates as you breathe. Simple snoring, without obstructive sleep apnea, affects approximately 20% of the adult population, and is more frequent in males than females. [*See our blog Dental Help for Your Sleep Apnea to learn more about sleep apnea.]

Easy solutions to curb snoring include:

  • losing weight (if overweight)
  • exercising regularly
  • avoiding alcohol and smoking
  • avoiding sleep aids
  • sleeping on your side

But what do you do when the snoring continues?

First, work with a sleep center to determine that you don’t have sleep apnea. It’s far too dangerous to mess around with obstructive sleep apnea.

If it is just simple snoring, the best treatment involves the use of a jaw advancing prosthesis. This “dental appliance therapy” involves the use of a small device similar to a mouthguard or an orthodontic retainer. When worn during sleep, it prevents the airway from collapsing by bringing the jaw forward, elevating the soft palate, or retaining the tongue.

Dental appliances are an inexpensive and non-invasive way to bring peace and quiet to your household. Our patients have responded extremely well when using them.

Are you ready to learn more about treatment options for snoring? Give us a call today, 651-482-8412. We’ll set you up with an appointment to go through the records process with Dr. Elizabeth to gather the required information in determining if oral appliance therapy is the right solution for you. If you’re given the green light, models of your teeth will be sent to a lab, where an oral appliance will be made specifically to your tooth contours. During the appliance fitting, there’ll be adjustments made until you have satisfaction of the appliance’s fit and feel.

And then watch out.

All that extra sleep just may offer the health changes needed to put that spring back into your step! Not to mention how much better your family will be able to sleep too.