The Process of a Tooth Extraction

 

Your natural teeth are ideal to keep, but there are several important reasons for removing them. At All Coast Dental in Pacific Beach, CA, we know some patients may be nervous about an extraction so it can help to know the process before it happens.

Depending on the complexity of the extraction, a local anesthetic or a general anesthesia may be used. General anesthesia will help you fall asleep until the procedure is over with. With a local anesthetic, you will be awake for the whole process. It will just depend on how deep the tooth is in the gums and/or how many teeth need to be removed. If the tooth is impacted, like many wisdom teeth are, we will first need to make incisions in the gum tissue. If bone tissue also needs to be removed, that will be done at this point. Forceps are used to rock the tooth back and forth until it is loose enough to be removed. Sometimes the tooth will need to be broken up before the whole thing is removed. Afterward, the area will be cleaned and stitched up, if stitches are necessary.

Extractions are sometimes necessary for your overall health. If you are feeling consistent pain to a tooth, schedule an appointment in our Pacific Beach, CA practice. Call All Coast Dental at (858) 270-4904 or visit our website, www.allcoastdental.net to make your appointment.

How Stress Affects Your Dental Health

 

When it comes to stress, mental or emotional strain may be the first thought to come to mind, but stress also greatly impacts a person’s dental health. At All Coast Dental in Pacific Beach, CA, Drs. Joseph and Julie Boulos pride themselves in treating all things teeth, including any stress-induced condition you may face. Here are a few ways stress affects your dental health. 

Teeth Grinding

Bruxism or clenching and grinding of the teeth can be caused by stress and anxiety. Oftentimes, you’re unaware you’re even grinding since occurs during sleep, leading to enamel damage and even jaw soreness and headaches. To protect your teeth from the damaging effects of grinding, your Pacific Beach, CA dentists recommend a dental night guard to wear. 

Gum Disease

Another condition potentially caused by stress is gum disease. If you’re under extreme stress, you are more inclined to snacking on sugary food or even forgetting to take care of your teeth. Failure to brush or floss regularly increases your risk of tooth decay and gum disease.

Canker Sores

Wondering why those pesky and painful spots appear in your mouth? Canker sores or mouth ulcers are also thought to be triggered by stress or a decreased immune system. These shallow wounds occur around the insides of your lips and make it difficult to eat or talk. These sores naturally disappear after 7-10 days, but if your sores are recurring, your dentists at All Coast Dental located in Pacific Beach, CA will provide other forms of treatment.

To learn more about how stress impacts your oral health, visit Drs. Joseph and Julie Boulos at 2180 Garnet Avenue, Suite 1-K Pacific Beach, CA 92109.

Myofascial Pain Syndrome

 

If you’ve ever had an issue inside your mouth, you’re most likely aware of the varying degrees of pain that come with it. Mouth pain ranges anywhere from mild discomfort to feeling like your head is exploding, just from a toothache and tenderness. All Coast Dental in Pacific Beach, CA, is committed to correcting the problem in your mouth and helping you manage any pain associated with it. This includes Myofascial Pain Syndrome (MPS). Drs. Julie and Joseph Boulos take pride in educating patients about how to prevent future oral problems. 

MPS commonly occurs in the temporomandibular joint (TMJ). The pain is caused by tension, fatigue, or spasms in the jaw muscles. MPS is usually triggered by bruxism, a condition where a person clenches or grinds their teeth during sleep. Nightguards are a great way to prevent bruxism and ultimately the jaw soreness that is felt in the morning. MPS is not limited to just the jaw muscles, it can occur anywhere in the body including the back and neck muscles. 

Other treatments and preventions of MPS include:

- Splint guard, mouthguard, or nightguard

- Mild analgesics

- Physical therapy modalities

- Anxiolytic before bed

Are you suffering from MPS? Come in for a checkup. Drs. Julie or Joseph Boulos will assess the problem area in your mouth and get you started on a treatment plan. All Coast Dental is located at 2180 Garnet Ave., Suite 1-K, in Pacific Beach, CA 92109. For more information or to schedule an appointment, please visit allcoastdental.net or call 858-270-4904.

Reasons for Wisdom Teeth Extractions

It’s common for dentists to recommend that people have their wisdom teeth removed, but you might not understand why this is. It’s not because dentists perfunctorily recommend extractions; although safe, those aren’t a first resort. Instead, it’s because wisdom teeth often put a patient at risk for gum disease and misalignment. At All Coast Dental in Pacific Beach, we provide care to patients of all ages and provide wisdom teeth extractions as well as gum disease treatment, so we wanted to explain to patients the danger of pericoronitis.

The wisdom teeth are the largest molars, and they usually don’t erupt until a person is on the cusp of adolescence. This is a problem because modern people’s mouths usually aren’t large enough to allow their wisdom teeth to erupt fully. Instead, the wisdom teeth become impacted, which is what dentists call a tooth that is stuck and only partially exposed. This creates problems for the other teeth because the wisdom teeth are pushing on them, moving them out of place. The partly-erupted teeth also tend to be difficult to clean. Food debris gets trapped under the gum flap partially covering the teeth, which is called an operculum, and bacterial infections result. “Pericoronitis” is the term we use to refer to inflammation in the area surrounding a tooth’s crown.

During a routine cleaning, we can remove food debris from the operculum and prescribe antibiotics for an infection. But the problem is likely to recur, and even if the operculum is removed, the impacted tooth is still hard to brush and puts pressure on other teeth. Extracting an impacted tooth might be more complicated than a regular extraction if we need to make an incision in the gum, but in those cases, we will monitor the patient’s recovery and help them to understand how to care for themselves during the short period of recovery.

Drs. Julie and Joseph Boulos operate All Coast Dental at 2180 Garnet Ave, Suite 1-K, Pacific Beach, California, 92109. To schedule an appointment, call 858-270-4904 or visit All Coast Dental and fill out a contact sheet.

Benefits of Implants

If you need to get teeth replaced, you’ve come to the right place at All Coast Dental in Pacific Beach. Our family practice offers several options for dental restorations, allowing us to treat patients in a wide variety of circumstances. But for long-lasting stability, one of the best treatments is a dental implant. These devices not only replace teeth, they also help restore the jaw bone, and can prevent a lot of other oral health problems.

An implant is like an artificial tooth root. It inserts in the jaw bone and supports an artificial crown. This differs from traditional dentures, which only replace the visible parts of teeth, in that the implant is immobile and spurs the growth of new bone tissue. When a tooth is lost, the jaw bone that used to surround its root recedes, causing the patient’s face to shorten. This can lead to temporomandibular joint pain and cause a person to grind their remaining teeth, further destabilizing them. But when an implant is inserted, new bone grows to surround it, in a process called osseointegration that takes a few months. When osseointegration is complete, a ceramic crown can be cemented onto the implant head and cared for like a normal tooth.

A patient will need to have some remaining jaw bone tissue to be a good candidate for an implant, and we’ll monitor the osseointegration process to ensure it’s working. But even if they lack bone tissue, it may be possible for a patient to get additive treatment. Implanted artificial teeth are still vulnerable to decay, and if the area around an implant becomes inflamed, the implant may have to be replaced. But most people can prevent this through regular brushing and flossing, and implants often last for over ten years.

Drs. Julie and Joseph Boulos operate All Coast Dental at 2180 Garnet Ave, Suite 1-K, Pacific Beach, California, 92109. To schedule an appointment, call 858-270-4904 or visit All Coast Dental and fill out a contact sheet.

Flossing Technique

Brushing and flossing are the two most important parts of oral preventive care, but many people misunderstand them. Flossing, in particular, is easy to do badly if you don’t know the right technique. At All Coast Dental in Pacific Beach, we work hard to provide restorations to people suffering from tooth decay, but in order for our work to last, a patient must understand how to floss properly. We thought it would be helpful to describe the process.

Flossing is supposed to remove debris from your teeth, not move it from one tooth to another. You’ll need to use long strands of floss, of at least fifteen inches, and wrap each end around your middle finger. You’ll be able to manipulate the taunt floss with your index fingers and thumbs, and as you floss each tooth, you’ll unspool a bit more floss from one finger and wrap the other end around the middle finger on the other hand.

To floss well, you need to scrape the floss along the side of each tooth. A common mistake is to simply slide it into the gap between the teeth, but you’ll actually need to pull it into a c-shape against each tooth and slide it a little way into the gingival margin. You’ll then rub the floss back and forth as you lift it back out, and do the same with the other side of the tooth. Doing this shouldn’t hurt or cause bleeding, and if it does, you’re going too far into the gum or you already have a mild gum infection. Sugar-free chewing gum can help remove food debris when you aren’t able to floss immediately after a meal, but flossing needs to be done daily, and be done on both natural and prosthetic teeth.

Drs. Julie and Joseph Boulos operate All Coast Dental at 2180 Garnet Ave, Suite 1-K, Pacific Beach, California, 92109. To schedule an appointment, call 858-270-4904 or visit All Coast Dental and fill out a contact sheet.

 

Diabetes and Gum Disease

If you have diabetes, you probably know that you’re at increased risk for gum disease. But if you don’t, did you know that by preventing gum disease, you can also lower your risk for developing diabetes? November is National Diabetes Awareness Month, and in honor of it, we at All Coast Dental want our patients to know more about the relationship between diabetes and gingivitis, and why daily oral hygiene is so important to your overall health.

People with uncontrolled diabetes are generally at greater risk for developing infections. Gum disease is an infection of the gum pockets, which become inflamed in response to the acid produced by bacteria’s respiratory process. A diabetic person’s immune system is less able to fight off the infection, and the cellular damage caused by unprocessed sugars in the bloodstream makes the gum tissue more prone to bleeding. The increased sugar in a diabetic person’s saliva would also provide more nourishment to oral bacteria, although lack of saliva would deprive the teeth of their protection against acid. There is also emerging evidence that the damage caused to gum tissue by bacterial acid inhibits the body’s ability to process sugars and disrupts its immune response, forming a vicious circle between the two diseases.

Keeping the gum pockets clear of food debris is essential for everybody’s health, but especially that of people who have difficulty controlling their blood sugar levels. Everybody should brush their teeth twice a day and floss at least once. It’s also especially important for people on medication to prevent dry mouth. They may use an artificial throat moisturizer, or try producing more saliva by chewing sugarfree gum. But regularly drinking unsweetened water throughout the day is also an important means of removing food debris and bacterial acid, and can also combat the bad breath gum disease sometimes causes.

Drs. Julie and Joseph Boulos operate All Coast Dental at 2180 Garnet Ave, Suite 1-K, Pacific Beach, California, 92109. To schedule an appointment, call 858-270-4904 or visit All Coast Dental and fill out a contact sheet.