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When teeth are properly aligned, they can create more than just a beautiful smile; well-positioned teeth are essential for oral health and help ensure your mouth can function properly. Any signs of tooth movement are a potential cause for concern, and it’s always best to come and see us as soon as possible. We can check your oral health and identify why your teeth have begun to move before creating a custom treatment plan to help stabilise and straighten them.

What Happens When Teeth Shift Position?

When teeth are out of place, it can affect your bite, so it is trickier to chew food properly. It can significantly affect oral health because misaligned teeth are harder to keep clean. It can also affect your jaw joints, called temporomandibular joints, causing temporomandibular joint disorder or TMJ. TMJ can be painful, causing your jaw joints to become inflamed, and the pain can even spread to your neck and shoulders or may cause chronic headaches.

Read on to discover why teeth can shift position.

Ageing

Teeth can shift position as a natural part of ageing, especially as the ligaments and bone surrounding your teeth can change and become weaker, causing teeth to loosen. Some people have an orthodontic relapse after wearing braces during childhood. As they age, teeth can try to shift back to their original places, especially if retainers aren’t used correctly.

One option for straightening teeth is to use Invisalign, an adult-oriented braces system that can help realign crooked teeth creating a healthy, attractive smile.

Teeth Grinding and Clenching

Bruxism or teeth grinding and clenching places teeth under substantial pressure, wearing them down and causing them to become chipped and cracked and eventually loosening teeth. In the worst case, teeth can even fall out, causing an unbalanced bite.

If you have noticed you wake up with a sore, aching jaw or that your teeth have started to look worn and chipped, we can assess your dental health and, if necessary, provide a custom-made night guard. The device fits over your teeth, preventing you from clenching and grinding, protecting your teeth.

Tooth Loss

Your teeth are designed to work together, so even losing a single tooth can increase your risk of dental problems. The remaining teeth will start to shift towards the empty space, affecting your bite and the stability of these teeth, and tooth loss can cause your jawbone to start deteriorating.

When you lose even a single tooth, we will want to discuss ways to replace it. One option is to use the latest dental implants that help protect your jawbone and help prevent unwanted tooth movements.

Gum Disease

Gum disease is a bacterial infection that is entirely preventable but which, without treatment, can cause tooth loss. It destroys the structures around your teeth so they loosen and can fall out.

Ensuring you visit us regularly for checkups and cleanings and maintain a good oral care routine at home will prevent this common disease.

You want everything to be perfect on your wedding day, including your teeth. It’s the one day you are likely to be photographed multiple times for posterity, so it’s only natural that you want your pearly whites to look their best. If you are looking forward to your wedding day soon, there are many things you can do to ensure you have a beautiful, healthy smile to celebrate your day and the beginning of your married life.

Book a Consultation

The first stage is booking a consultation before the big day, preferably as soon as possible. While some treatments are relatively quick to complete, others can take longer, and the last thing you want to do is to have to rush your treatment or compromise on your choice of options.

Book a Dental Cleaning before Whitening

A teeth whitening treatment is likely at the top of most brides’ dental wish list, but you will get better results if your teeth are perfectly clean before this procedure. Beautiful teeth will enable the whitening products to penetrate your teeth more easily and lift deep-seated stains.

Don’t Leave Teeth Whitening to the Last Minute

Because teeth whitening is such a quick treatment, many brides make the mistake of leaving it right to the last moment. It is far better to whiten your teeth at least a couple of weeks beforehand, especially because teeth whitening may make your teeth feel more sensitive for a few days afterwards.

Watch Your Diet to Maintain Your White Smile

Avoid highly coloured foods and drinks for the first few days after whitening your teeth until they settle down. Additionally, try to follow a healthy diet, like crunching on fresh fruits and veggies, as these contain lots of fibre that has a slight scrubbing action on teeth. Avoid foods that can stain your teeth like red wine, balsamic vinegar, tea and coffee or barbecue sauce.

Choose the Right Toothpaste

Choose good quality fluoride toothpaste to help protect your pearly whites. If you have sensitive teeth, choose a brand that will help reduce sensitivity, especially if you want to whiten your teeth comfortably.

Choose the Right Mouthwash

If you like to use mouthwash, choose a brand that is alcohol-free and preferably antimicrobial. It will help protect your oral health, giving your mouth clean and fresh.

Follow a Good Oral Care Routine, even if You are Busy

It takes less than 10 minutes a day to care for your mouth properly and will ensure you have a healthy smile and beautifully fresh breath to celebrate your day confidently.

Use a Straw

Use a reusable or paper straw for drinking your coffee or tea, as this minimises contact with your teeth, helping to prevent staining.

Enhance Your Look on the Day

Simple tricks can ensure your smile looks its best. Try to avoid gold jewellery that can bring out yellowish tones in teeth, and choose a red lipstick to contrast beautifully with your pearly whites. A smear of petroleum jelly wiped over any cracks or stains on your teeth will help mask their appearance in photos.

Many people suffer from seasonal allergies, but did you realise these can affect oral health? If you have allergies, let us know during your next dental checkup so we can discuss the possible impact on your oral health and how best to reduce this risk. When someone has seasonal allergies, we can adjust our recommended preventative dental care plan to help keep teeth and gums in great shape throughout allergy season.

Seasonal allergies can affect dental health in several different ways. An allergy triggers an immune response resulting in extra mucus production, which can cause tooth pain, dry mouth and bad breath.

Painful Teeth

Your sinuses are just above your upper teeth, on either side of your nose and should normally be filled with air. When you have a stuffy nose caused by allergies, your sinuses can become filled with mucus triggered by allergens. As the sinuses fill with mucus, they can place pressure on your tooth roots. The pressure can cause tooth sensitivity, or your teeth may feel painful.

Usually, taking antihistamines can help reduce sinus pressure, eliminating tooth pain. However, if your teeth continue to feel painful, please come and see us as soon as you can. Any form of dental pain is often an indication that something is wrong, and the sooner we can diagnose and treat any issues, the more quickly we can get rid of dental pain.

Dry Mouth

Seasonal allergies can frequently cause dry mouth, not least because it is easier to breathe through your mouth when you have a blocked nose. However, breathing through your mouth can soon cause it to become dry and uncomfortable, and a lack of saliva can increase the risk of dental problems, including tooth decay and gum disease. The problem can be worsened by taking antihistamines, as dry mouth is frequently a side effect of these medications.

Various strategies can help to increase saliva production, such as frequently sipping on water, so you remain well hydrated and chewing sugar-free gum to stimulate saliva production. Sucking on sugar-free sweets can have a similar effect. Try to avoid foods and drinks that can make your mouth drier such as alcohol and caffeinated beverages, or anything very salty and spicy.

We can prescribe a saliva substitute if needed and give advice about how to care for your mouth during allergy season, for example, having your teeth cleaned professionally more frequently to remove harmful bacteria that could otherwise increase the risk of gum disease and tooth decay. Fluoridated dental products such as toothpaste and mouthwash will help protect your dental health.

Bad Breath

Saliva helps to keep your mouth fresh and clean, so if you cannot produce enough saliva and begin to breathe through your mouth, you may find you develop bad breath. Some cases of bad breath are also caused by postnasal drip at the back of the throat. One way to help freshen your breath is to gargle using a warm salt water rinse that will help to fight and kill odour-causing bacteria.

Modern dentistry is extremely advanced, but did you realise dentistry has been evolving for hundreds of years? The first known dental practitioner dates back to 1092, when the first idea of surgery began. It was due to the Pope of Alexandria who decided that monks and priests should have a shaven face and a unique hairstyle, requiring a new profession to complete this task. The tools they used included razors, scissors and a lance, creating the first barber surgeons and marking the beginning of surgery as a profession. 

In those days, dentistry was practised primarily by barbers and other artisans like goldsmiths, wig makers, blacksmiths and even bloodletters and priests. None of these early practitioners had any formal academic training and instead used the instruments available during the mediaeval age to remove and try to repair teeth. Priests had an advantage because they could read medical texts and became physicians. 

However, priests could not perform any invasive procedures because they were not allowed to have blood on their hands. Because of this distinction, physicians began to separate from surgeons, creating two distinct professions. This separation is easy to see even today; for example, the Royal College of Physicians is separate from the Royal College of Surgeons here in Australia.

As the two professions evolved, barber surgeons were ranked lower than physician priests with their more formal education. Yet barber surgeons gained valuable experience treating sailors and soldiers wounded on battlegrounds and voyages. But it wasn’t until Pierre Fauchard began practising as a naval surgeon in the court of Louis XIV that modern dentistry was born. Pierre is considered the father of modern dentistry, a profession he decided to pursue after lacking the money to train as a surgeon. Dentistry did not need a costly apprenticeship. Pierre had already learned more than most dentists during his apprenticeship to Alexandre Poteleret, surgeon in chief to the king’s ship.

Pierre Fauchard published his book at the turn of the 18th century, describing the scientific knowledge of dentistry at that time. It includes using obturators made from ivory to treat cleft palates and using prosthetic appliances to replace missing teeth and the innovation of new dental instruments.

Another turning point was the introduction of anaesthesia in dentistry by Dr Horace Wells from Connecticut. He was the first patient to have a tooth removed using happy gas or Nitrous oxide. In October 1846, ether was used as a surgical anaesthetic for the first time by William Morton, making it possible to receive painless surgery. Amalgam was first introduced in the US in 1833 and was the restoration of choice for many years. Only relatively recently has amalgam been replaced by newer, more aesthetically pleasing materials like tooth-coloured composite resin.

Until the middle of the 19th century, dentures were made from ivory, human bone or metal material. It wasn’t until 1851 that they were replaced by vulcanised rubber, invented by Charles Goodyear. Dental drills have been around for thousands of years, but it wasn’t until 1868 that an American dentist called George F Greene invented a pneumatic drill operated by a foot pedal and an electric drill seven years later.

Toothpaste wasn’t invented until 1850, and the role of fluoride in preventing tooth decay wasn’t discovered until the early 20^th century.

You may think dental implants are a new invention, but they date back to the Mayan civilisation in 600AD. However, modern dental implants weren’t developed until 1965 by Dr Per Ingvar Branemark.

Nowadays, thankfully, we can carry out sophisticated dental treatments painlessly and can restore even complete arches of teeth using the latest dental implant systems. Digital dentistry is becoming increasingly common, enabling us to provide patients with precision-made restorations that look and feel like real teeth. The one thing we cannot do just yet is to grow a completely new set of adult teeth, but who knows what will happen in the future.

Good oral hygiene is crucial if you want strong and healthy teeth. Additionally, it helps protect your overall health. Gum disease, a common gum infection, is increasingly linked to serious health conditions, including diabetes and heart disease. Brushing your teeth at least twice daily is one of the best ways to keep your mouth healthy, fresh and clean, but deciding which toothbrush is best isn’t always so easy. A huge range is available, including electric toothbrushes and disposable or manual toothbrushes. We’ve put together some tips for choosing the best toothbrush, whether you opt for an electric toothbrush or a manual toothbrush.

Choose the Right Sized Toothbrush Head

Ensure you pick a toothbrush head that is small enough to allow you to clean all tooth surfaces easily. It must be small enough to fit right to the back of the mouth to clean around those hard-to-reach molars. Ensure the toothbrush handle fits comfortably in your hand and is easy to manipulate.

Choosing the Right Bristles

It may seem that choosing a hard-bristled toothbrush is the best option for cleaning your teeth thoroughly, but this isn’t the case. Instead, choose a toothbrush with soft bristles as you don’t need to scrub your teeth hard to get them thoroughly clean. It’s more about using the right technique; using a hard bristled toothbrush could damage your teeth and gums.

Is It Better to Choose a Disposable or Electric Toothbrush?

Your choice of toothbrush is largely down to personal preference, but there are some points to remember, and these include:

Cost

An electric toothbrush can cost far more than a manual toothbrush, and then you need to budget to replace the toothbrush head every three months or more often if it starts to look worn. A manual toothbrush only costs a few dollars and is easy to purchase. However, if an electric toothbrush helps you clean your teeth more thoroughly, you could enjoy lower dental bills and better dental health overall.

Comfort

Choose the toothbrush you feel most comfortable using and are likely to use regularly. Although effective, not everybody likes the feel of a vibrating electric toothbrush. However, others may find an electric toothbrush is easier to hold, especially if they have painful conditions like arthritis that reduce their dexterity. Choosing a toothbrush that feels comfortable to hold means you are more likely to brush your teeth for the recommended two minutes each time.

Effectiveness

Numerous studies have been conducted on the effectiveness of manual toothbrushes compared with electric brushes. These have largely concluded there is very little difference between them in their ability to remove dental plaque and food debris effectively. However, this does rely on people using the right brushing techniques and cleaning their teeth for the full two minutes. Electric toothbrushes usually have built-in timers that make it easy to brush for the correct length of time, but if you prefer a manual brush, consider placing a small timer in your bathroom or using the timer on your smartphone.

Smiling is a wonderful way to express emotion and connect with others, and there are some real benefits to smiling more frequently. However, it is often easier to frown than to crack a smile, especially at the end of a long and stressful day, but if you can force your features into a grin, you will probably feel all the better for doing so, and here is why smiling is so powerful.

Release Those Feelgood Endorphins 

Whenever you smile, your brain releases neuropeptides that help fight stress. It also releases neurotransmitters that include endorphins, dopamine and serotonin. Endorphins can relieve mild levels of pain, while serotonin is well-known as an antidepressant. It’s been suggested that smiling can help you recover more quickly from stress and lower your heart rate. Initially, faking a smile can boost your happiness level and your mood.

Making Others around You Feel Better

The feel-good factor isn’t just limited to you; when you smile, it can positively impact those around you. Seeing somebody smiling at you activates the reward centre in your brain, making you feel a bit better. Also, when someone smiles, it’s infectious and very difficult not to smile back, increasing feelings of happiness.

Making You Feel Happier in the Workplace

When you are happy and smiling at work, it can help improve your performance, increasing productivity. It appears that positive emotions like smiling and happiness can have a stimulating effect, while negative emotions like feeling sad can have the opposite effect. Smiling more can make you a more efficient and creative worker, enabling you to learn and make decisions more effectively.

Enjoy Better Relationships

Smiling is an important way of communicating with others and helps increase social bonds. One study discovered that smiling and laughter benefit emotional well-being in couples, increasing their closeness and deepening their relationship.

You Might Live Longer

Those people who smile and laugh more frequently may enjoy longer lives than those who don’t. A 15-year study in Norway discovered that women with a strong sense of humour lived longer than those without it. They were far less likely to die from heart disease and less likely to suffer from infections. In comparison, men with a good sense of humour only seem to be protected against infection. 

There’s a good reason why smiling and laughter can protect your health as it stimulates your organs and can increase your intake of oxygen, stimulating your muscles and your heart and decreasing blood pressure. When you feel less stress, it’s easier to enjoy more fulfilling social relationships, and a general sense of happiness can help you weather the effects of ageing, and any stressful situation life throws at you more effectively.

The easiest way to smile confidently is to make sure you visit us regularly for dental checkups and cleans. We can make sure your teeth and gums are in great shape, and professionally cleaning your teeth will give an additional sparkle to your smile.

Developing a good oral routine care while your child is still young is essential for them to grow up with healthy teeth and an attractive smile. The sooner you get them into a good routine, the more you normalise the need for excellent oral hygiene and a nutritious diet. The benefits can be huge, as your child is more likely to enjoy better oral health for life, and the school holidays are a great time to begin a new oral care routine. 

Here are some easy tips to follow before the new school year begins.

• Book Regular Dental Checkups

If you don’t already do so, ensure your child visits the dentist regularly. We prefer to see children every six months to monitor the growth and development of their teeth closely. Even though your child may still have their baby teeth, these are important and require excellent care to make sure they aren’t lost too soon. These baby teeth act as placeholders for adult teeth, so when they are ready to erupt, they are more likely to come through in the proper places.

• Get into a Regular Oral Care Routine

Brushing teeth at least twice daily and flossing once a day is important for everybody, but we know children can be in a rush to get to school and are often tempted to skip brushing their teeth. Ideally, begin making tooth brushing a routine from a very young age so kids know it is non-negotiable. Also, aim to make it more fun by allowing your child to choose their own child’s toothbrush, and you may want to buy them their own toothpaste in a flavour they enjoy using.

• Use Positive Reinforcement for Good Oral Hygiene

Praising or rewarding your child for good oral care habits will help them view tooth brushing as a positive habit. As an example, you may want to reward your child for choosing a piece of fruit in the lunchbox rather than a sugary snack.

• Encourage Your Kid to Keep Their Teeth Clean at School

In an ideal world, your child would be able to brush their teeth after every meal, including after school lunch, but this isn’t always practical. However, you can ensure your child always has a bottle of water handy so that they can swish their mouth thoroughly with water after each meal. Encouraging them to get into this habit will help remove loose food particles that would otherwise feed bacteria found in dental plaque and which can increase their risk of developing tooth decay and gum disease.

• Make Sure Your Child Has a Well-Fitting Mouthguard

Most parents are too pleased to encourage their kids to get involved with sports, but there is a danger of taking a blow to the mouth that could damage or even knock out a tooth, leaving a child facing a lifetime of costly restorative dental bills. A custom-made mouthguard can help prevent or reduce the damage considerably and is comfortable to wear, and won’t hinder breathing. It’s a great way to ensure your child’s safety while enjoying sports.

Making sure you teach your child about good oral care from a young age will help them avoid common problems like tooth decay. Establishing a good oral care routine will help prevent future dental problems, making them more likely to grow up with a healthy and attractive smile.

Here are six easy ways to teach your child about good oral hygiene.

• Let Them Follow Your Example

Children are great mimics and will often want to copy everything you do, so make sure they can see you clean your teeth and floss every day. While you brush and floss, make this task seem as enjoyable as possible, letting them know how good it feels to have clean teeth afterwards.

• Book Regular Dental Checkups

Regular dental checkups are essential for the entire family, including you. Lead by example by ensuring you book regular dental checkups with our practice, so your kid knows it’s just part of normal life. We also encourage young children to come to our practice with their parents so they can get used to a brand-new environment in a way that is fun and nonthreatening.

• Choose a Toothbrush Song

Pick a fun song with your child that lasts approximately two minutes so you can both dance along with it while you clean your teeth. Having a toothbrushing song makes the process more enjoyable.

• Turn Toothbrushing into a Game

An easy way to get a child interested in toothbrushing is to turn it into a game. You could help them clean their favourite stuffed animals or doll’s teeth while you brush their teeth. Children often find brushing an adult’s teeth fun, and you can guide their hands while they do it to ensure each tooth is cleaned properly. When a child has fun cleaning teeth, it turns into a positive experience and is easier to turn into a lifelong habit.

• Offer Rewards

If your child has difficulty cleaning their teeth regularly, offer them an incentive. You might want to start a sticker scheme where they can collect a certain number of stickers before receiving a treat. Decide on the treat between you, whether that’s a favourite bedtime story or a family outing, or something else they can look forward to enjoying. It’s best to avoid offering food as a reward, especially sugary treats.

• Choose a Family-Friendly Dentist

Last but not least, choose a family-friendly dentist you can trust to care for everyone’s teeth. Our practice caters for all ages, but we especially enjoy seeing children. We encourage parents to bring their child for their first dental visit soon after that first precious tooth emerges. Children tend to be curious about a new environment at this age, and most will enjoy a ride in the dental chair. When we see a child early on in life, we can begin building a great relationship with them as they grow up. When they are old enough, we can work with them directly, showing them how to care for their teeth and gently educating them on all the advantages of having healthy teeth and gums.

Getting older affects overall health and dental health, and it’s extremely important to ensure you maintain a good oral care routine. Otherwise, the risk of gum recession and failing teeth can lead to tooth loss. Anyone who has lost teeth will know it is a miserable experience, affecting your self-confidence and ability to eat comfortably and speak clearly, impacting your sense of well-being. 

Luckily, getting older doesn’t mean you will suffer from poor oral health. Biannual dental visits can help identify potential problems, hopefully before you notice anything wrong. We always provide customised preventive dental care plans for our patients, and as you get older, we can adjust this plan to ensure you maintain optimal oral health year-round. 

Read on to discover how getting older affects your teeth and gums and why good oral care is essential.

What Happens to Your Oral Health As You Age?

As you age, your skin becomes thinner and less elastic, and this also affects your oral tissues, including your gums. Teeth can become more fragile while bones can also weaken, losing density, especially amongst adults susceptible to osteoporosis. Your immune system may not work as well as when you are younger, so it is harder to fight infection, and you take longer to heal. Additionally, many older people have chronic conditions and require medications or treatments that can affect oral health.

Xerostomia

Xerostomia or dry mouth is extremely common amongst older adults and can negatively impact dental health. It is a condition where people cannot produce enough saliva, an essential fluid that helps keep your mouth clean, moist and comfortable, washing away loose food particles, plaque and bacteria. Bacteria can thrive when your mouth is dry, increasing your risk of dental diseases, including infections, tooth decay, bad breath and gum disease.

Often, dry mouth is due to side effects of medications or treatments. It can also occur if someone has chronic conditions like Alzheimer’s disease or diabetes or who has needed medical treatments like radiation therapy for head and neck cancers.

If you have dry mouth, we can work with you to help reduce the impact on your oral health. For example, you may benefit from more frequent dental checkups and cleans to reduce the risk of disease. We can also suggest other ways to help keep your mouth moist and comfortable such as using saliva substitutes or making some easy lifestyle changes. 

Gum Disease

Gum disease can affect anyone at any age but is more prevalent in older people. It is a bacterial infection that is often the result of poor oral care. Unfortunately, severe gum disease can result in tooth loss and increases the risk of general health problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, respiratory diseases and dementia. The good news is that gum disease is easily treatable when caught early, which is why your regular checkups are so important. We can also offer useful advice on how to clean your teeth thoroughly, especially if it becomes harder to manipulate an ordinary toothbrush due to loss of dexterity.

Tooth decay is a common disease throughout the world, and many children will go on to develop cavities in their teeth. An untreated cavity can cause toothache, greatly affecting a child’s well-being and health. Tooth decay will worsen without treatment because it is a bacterial infection that cannot clear up without professional dental care. In addition to toothache, children affected by tooth decay can suffer from:

• Difficulty sleeping
• Problems with eating can affect the growth and development
• Speech problems
• Lower self-esteem can lead to social isolation
• Untreated cavities can damage the permanent teeth developing underneath
• There is a higher risk of other teeth developing tooth decay
• Problems concentrating at school or missing a significant amount of schooling due to pain and the subsequent dental care needed for severely infected teeth

Although tooth decay may be common, it is preventable with the right oral hygiene habits. We have listed some points to follow below if you have a young child.

Make sure you do not put your baby to sleep with a bottle containing anything other than water. You can begin brushing their teeth as soon as they appear using a small baby toothbrush and either plain water or a smear of toothpaste. Ask us for advice on which we would recommend, as it is best to book your child’s first dental visit as soon as they get their first teeth.

From age one to eighteen months, you should be brushing your child’s teeth twice a day. We can show you how to brush them thoroughly when you bring your child to visit us using the proper techniques. From age one onwards, a child should be able to drink from a cup.

Between ages one and a half and five years, you can start brushing your child’s teeth with a pea-sized amount of toothpaste. You will need to help your child brush their teeth until they are aged eight because, before this age, they lack the dexterity needed to complete this task. Milk and plain water are the best drinks for a child, and it is better to avoid fruit juice that can be laden with sugar, regardless of your child’s age. Instead, encourage kids to eat fruit that contains useful fibre.

General Tips for Looking after Your Child’s Teeth

We recommend an initial dental visit by age one, so our dentist can make sure your child’s teeth are developing properly, and we can talk to you about how best to care for them at home. Many parents find this initial visit extremely helpful, especially for first-time mums and dads. Make sure you use an appropriate child-sized toothbrush to clean your child’s teeth. As they get older, it can be a good idea to involve them in choosing a toothbrush as there are many appealing designs available for kids, which can help get them more interested in dental care. Please encourage your child to eat healthily and limit their access to processed foods and foods high in sugars, including sports drinks and energy drinks.