The Three Health Benefits of Dental Implants in Arlington, PART 1

This two-part article series explains the three ways dental implants benefit both your short and long term oral health: by (1) preventing bacterial infection, (2) restoring dental stability and (3) promoting good jaw bone health.

Dental implants in Arlington are recognized by dentists and oral surgeons around the world to be the best and most sophisticated technology for the replacement of missing or irreparably damaged or decayed teeth. This is not only because they are carefully fabricated to be virtually indistinguishable in appearance from a patient’s remaining healthy natural teeth, nor is it because they support a strong bite function, enabling patients to eat all the foods they love. While the functionality, aesthetics and comfortable fit of dental implants in Arlington are fundamental to their success as a tooth replacement technology, the Arlington dentist recommends them for their various short and long-term oral health benefits.

In this two-part article series, we shall be discussing these various benefits with a qualified and experienced Arlington dentist. Armed with this information about dental implants in Arlington, it is hoped that you will go on to make the best possible decision regarding your oral healthcare in the unfortunate event that you lose one of your natural teeth.

1. Dental Implants in Arlington Minimize the Risk of Bacterial Infection

“When a natural tooth is lost and left without replacement, the remaining tooth socket is left completely vulnerable,” explains the Arlington dentist. “Food debris and bacteria easily get stuck in the socket and because it’s deep and probably still quite tender, it is impossible for a patient to keep entirely clean.”

“The consequence of leaving a tooth socket bare is an increased risk of bacterial infection. Also, because of its proximity to the healthy teeth on either side of the gap, there is a risk of this infection spreading and compromising the health of the entire dental arch,” says the Arlington dentist. “This is why we always recommend immediate tooth replacement with dental implants in Arlington.”

By filling in the exposed tooth socket, dental implants in Arlington effectively prevent food and bacteria from collecting in this natural fleshy trap, thus minimizing your risk of infection.

2. Dental Implants in Arlington Restore Stability to the Dental Arch

“All it takes is one missing tooth to upset the stability of the entire dental arch,” says the Arlington dentist. “Each tooth in your mouth, to some extent, depends on its neighbors for support and stability.” So, when one tooth falls out or is extracted by the dentist and left without replacement by, for example, dental implants in Arlington, the adjacent teeth will begin to migrate to fill in the gap. As each tooth moves, its adjacent teeth will also become unstable.

“Many patients experience a loosening of all their teeth after only losing one or two,” says the Arlington dentist. “Dental implants in Arlington restore stability and support where necessary, which prevents migration of the adjacent teeth, thus maintaining great oral health and bite function.”

The Health Benefits of Dental Implants in Arlington: Stay Tuned

To read about the remaining health benefit of dental implants in Arlington, stay tuned for the second installment of this article series.

What Your Pearly Whites Tell the Dentist in Arlington TX About Your Lifestyle, PART 2

This two-part article series explains what the health of your teeth and gums can tell a dental healthcare professional about your lifestyle and the bad habits you may have.

Welcome back to the second installment of this two-part article series on the toll unhealthy lifestyles take upon the health of your teeth and gums. In our previous article post, the dentist in Arlington TX discussed teeth grinding, unhealthy eating and addiction: three traps people who hit it hard at work frequently fall into. In this article, we shall look at the dangers faced by those who hit it hard after hours…

2. Hitting it Hard After Hours

There is nothing better than loosening the tie, sitting back with a bunch of friends and knocking back a couple of beers, or cosmopolitans or whatever your poison may be. “Alcohol is a fantastic social lubricant and, because it acts as a central nervous system depressant, serves to relax one,” explains the dentist in Arlington TX. It’s then not hard to understand why a beer (or three) is especially welcome after a long and stressful day at the office!

It’s when alcohol becomes synonymous with ‘unwinding’ that lifestyles go from balanced to seriously compromised. “There’s nothing wrong with having the occasional drink with friends,” says the dentist in Arlington TX. “But most people don’t know when to draw the line. Alcohol becomes a coping mechanism; a way to escape and even a form of rebellion when one spends their entire day in a highly demanding and stressful work environment.”

Dentist in Arlington TX: Excessive Drinking

“For many reasons, heavy drinking has a terrible impact upon oral health and hygiene,” say the dentist in Arlington TX. “Most alcoholic beverages contain a lot of sugar and are very acidic. The sugar encourages oral bacteria to flourish, while the acid softens your dental enamel, leaving it more vulnerable to decay and cavity-formation.”

In addition to this, alcohol causes ‘dry mouth’. “The enzymes in your saliva act as a natural defense against bacteria,” explains dentist Arlington TX. “Xerostomia or ‘dry mouth’ impedes the healthy production of saliva, which leaves your teeth and gums incredibly vulnerable to decay.”

Dentist in Arlington TX: Bad Habits and Poor Oral Hygiene

It’s not only the direct impact hard drinking has upon your oral health. Hitting it hard after hours is also linked with other bad habits, such as smoking, poor oral hygiene and unhealthy eating. “If you stagger home at 5am, chances are you’re going to skip brushing and flossing and go straight to bed with a half-eaten bag of chips still clutched tightly in your one hand,” says the dentist in Arlington TX.

Drug abuse is also a problem amongst people who hit the pubs and clubs after hours.

The Dentist in Arlington TX: Achieving the Ideal Balance

There nothing wrong with having the occasional party. In fact, it’s essential for your overall health, even if you do find yourself getting a little tipsy. The socializing, dancing and unwinding serves to de-stress, lower blood pressure and increase ‘happy’ hormones. But, as with everything in life, we need to establish a healthy balance. “Hitting it hard at work is fine if you swap the nicotine and caffeine with a solid gym session,” says the dentist in Arlington TX. “The latter is a far more effective stress reliever anyway.”

Look after yourself well and you will find that your general and oral health will reflect your lifestyle. “What this means,” says the dentist in Arlington TX, “is more energy, greater emotional vitality, a stronger mind and… a beautiful award-winning smile!”

What Your Pearly Whites Tell the Arlington Texas Dentist about Your Lifestyle, PART 1

This two-part article series explains what the health of your teeth and gums can tell a dental healthcare professional about your lifestyle and the bad habits you may have.

Whether you’re hitting it hard at work, or hitting it hard after hours (or both), an unbalanced lifestyle can take a visible toll on your oral health. In this two-part article series, the Arlington Texas dentist discusses some of the consequences unhealthy living has on the quality of your smile…

1. Hitting it Hard at Work

The human lifestyle has moved out of the forests and plains and into the concrete jungle. When intellect is pitted against intellect, it takes a lot of time, effort and hard work to get to the top of your game, whatever your ‘game’ may be. “Nowadays, most of us spend eight or more hours draped over our computers, leaving us precious little time to do those essential activities that keep us strong and healthy, both physically and mentally,” says the Arlington Texas dentist. These include:

• Eating properly and regularly
• Getting a good night’s rest
• Exercising
• Socializing with friends
• Spending time with family
• Pursuing a hobby

The results of a life spent rushing from one appointment to the next vary depending upon the individual. But without the time we need to recharge our batteries, the common denominator ends up being stress. And stress, as the Arlington Texas dentist will tell you, wrecks your teeth!

Arlington Texas Dentist: Your Arlington Dental Health and Teeth-Grinding, or ‘Bruxism’

“Teeth grinding and jaw clenching are unconscious expressions of stress and anxiety,” explains the Arlington Texas dentist. “They also occur most frequently at night, when you’re asleep, so you might not even be aware that you do it.”

The Arlington Texas dentist can generally tell from the excessive wear on the biting surface of your molars if you are a teeth grinder. They can also tell by the presence of fracturing in your dental enamel. The short of it is that teeth grinding, which is believed to be caused by stress, absolutely wrecks your Arlington dental health.

Arlington Texas Dentist: Your Arlington Dental Health and Poor Eating Habits

“A stressful lifestyle can also have a deleterious impact upon your eating patterns, as well as the quality of what you eat,” explains the Arlington Texas dentist. If you’re incredibly busy during the day, you may find yourself grabbing what you can for lunch and unfortunately the most accessible food is, as the name suggests, ‘fast food’. “It’s much easier to grab a hot dog from a food vendor than it is to spend 20 minutes packing your own healthy lunch at home,” says the Arlington Texas dentist. “And if you don’t have the time to get lunch, energy drinks and sugar-packed snacks will fill in the gaps!”

The result of all this is an unhealthy, unbalanced and irregular diet. “Your Arlington dental health depends as much upon nutrition as the rest of your body,” explains the Arlington Texas dentist. “Not only will this kind of diet take a toll on your immune system, but the high sugar and acidic content of fast foods, sugared beverages and energy snacks and drinks will increase your risk of cavities and tooth decay.”

Arlington Texas Dentist: Your Arlington Dental Health and Addiction

“Last, but certainly not least, stressful lifestyles tend to culture addictions,” explains the Arlington Texas dentist. Most people rely on coping mechanisms to deal with stress. They provide a mental vacation from the incredibly difficult tasks at hand. For the smoker, a cigarette break provides seven delicious minutes of peace and quiet. For the 12-a-day coffee drinker, caffeine provides the nervous energy they need to meet their deadlines.

Then there are the more dangerous addictions: prescription pain-killers and sedatives to numb the brain against constant anxiety. “Highly educated people can even turn to illegal drugs to help them cope with stress, however false this coping may be: crystal meth, cocaine and heroin,” says the Arlington Texas dentist.

All of these addictions, one way or the other, ruin your teeth and lead to the development of diseases like gingivitis, periodontitis and even oral cancer.

For More on Your Arlington Dental Health, Stay Tuned:

People hitting it hard at work need to find a healthy balance and they need to prioritize what’s important; their health,” stresses the Arlington Texas dentist.

But this isn’t where things end. When the sun goes down, people who hit it hard at work tend to swing violently to the other end of the spectrum, hitting it hard after hours…

Stay tuned for the second installment of this article series!

Arlington TX Dentist Talks about the Top Four Causes of Tooth Loss, PART 1

This two-part article series explains the four main causes of tooth loss: accidental trauma, tooth decay, periodontal (gum) disease and, interestingly enough, tooth loss to begin with!

You can’t imagine what it’s like to lose a permanent tooth until one of your pearly whites actually falls out your mouth or is extracted by your Arlington TX dentist. Unfortunately, too many people have become acquainted with this feeling; According to the American Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, approximately 70% of all Americans between the ages of 35 and 44 have lost at least one of their original adult teeth! The initial shock and anxiety caused by losing a tooth has as much to do with a concern for your smile aesthetics as it does the cost and trouble involved in fixing it. Any Arlington TX dentist (and anyone who’s lost a tooth) will explain to you that prevention is ALWAYS better than cure, especially when it comes to tooth loss. This is because your teeth are irreplaceable and no fancy modern technology - even Arlington dental implants - can rival your own biological technology.

In this two-part article series, the Arlington TX dentist shall be discussing the four main reasons teeth become irreparably damaged and either fall out by themselves or need to be extracted: (1) accidental trauma, (2) tooth decay, (3) periodontal (gum) disease and curiously enough (4) tooth loss to begin with!

1. Arlington Dental Disasters: Accidental trauma

Contact sports involve all kinds of physical risks. Professional and amateur players alike regularly walk (or hobble) away from the field or court with serious injuries. Whether you play basketball, rugby, baseball, tennis or something a little more obvious like boxing, if there are balls, fists and feet flying around, you should have a mouth guard custom fabricated for you by your Arlington TX dentist and you should wear it at all times. “All it takes is an accidental fist to the face or a stray tennis racquet to the teeth and in a single second, your smile can be irreparably altered,” says the Arlington TX dentist.

“Hundreds of millions of teeth are lost or severely damaged every year as a result of accidental trauma. While most accidents aren’t ‘planned’, you can certainly exercise the correct amount of caution to either help prevent them or mitigate the damage done by them,” explains the Arlington TX dentist. The message here is to be careful, tread cautiously and wear a mouth guard if you play sports. Take care of yourself.

2. Arlington Dental Disasters: Tooth decay

The next major cause of tooth loss is decay. “Your mouth, no matter how good you are about keeping your teeth clean, is teeming with opportunistic bacteria,” says the Arlington TX dentist. “If you don’t brush and floss regularly and if you don’t see your Arlington dental health care professional twice a year, you are leaving your teeth highly vulnerable to oral bacteria.”

“Bacteria feast upon the sugary residues left in your mouth after eating and drinking,” explains the Arlington TX dentist. “Just like any other organism that eats, they produce waste products and this excrement is very acidic. By neglecting to brush and floss your teeth, you give bacteria a chance to establish vast colonies in the natural creases of your gums and teeth,” says the Arlington TX dentist. Eventually, bacterial acidic waste will erode away your dental enamel forming cavities which provide even greater shelter for bacteria.

Without treatment by the Arlington TX dentist, cavities eventually deepen, allowing bacteria a direct pathway into the heart of the tooth. Once the pulp chamber becomes infected, the tooth will need to be sterilized via a root canal procedure. The vast majority of Arlington dental patients, however, opt to simply have the decayed, problematic tooth extracted.

“Preventing decay requires high standards of oral hygiene and regular attention from an Arlington TX dentist. You should also minimize your intake of sugar and lead a healthy lifestyle,” advise Arlington dental health care professionals.

For More on Your Arlington Dental Health, Stay Tuned for the Second Installment of This Two-Part Series!

Dentist in Arlington TX Recommends “All-on-4” Surgical Protocol for Fixed Oral Rehabilitation, PART 4

This four-part article series takes a comprehensive look at the modern dental implant protocol able to give edentulous and near-edentulous patients a brand new set of fixed and non-removable teeth in as little as a single day.

Welcome to the final installment of our four-part article series on “All-on-4” dental implants. So far, the dentist in Arlington TX has discussed how this technique for oral rehabilitation works and how the solutions it provides compare with those of removable dentures. In this final part of the series, the dentist in Arlington TX will describe how the “All-on-4” dental implant protocol is able to provide patients with a brand new set of teeth in as little as a single day, with a single surgery. It all begins with the design of the technique…

Dentist in Arlington TX: The Innovation of “All-on-4” Implants

In 1993, European implantologist Dr. Paulo Malo innovated a surgical technique that overcame one of the largest hurdles in oral rehabilitation using dental implants: bone grafting surgery. You see, people who have been living without teeth for many, many years (or with dentures) frequently present with a lack of bone volume in the jaw. This is caused by atrophication of the hard tissue, which wastes away without the stimulation provided by the tooth roots. So, when these patients come to the dentist in Arlington TX for help, depending upon the degree of bone loss in the jaw, they may not be considered candidates for dental implants.

In these cases, the dentist in Arlington TX may recommend bone grafting surgery, which augments the existing bone and encourages the growth of new and healthy hard tissue in the jaw. The problem with this step towards oral rehabilitation is that it is invasive and incredibly painful for the patient to go through. It’s also expensive and requires months of healing before the jaw is ready to accept dental implants, explains the dentist in Arlington TX. The need for bone grafting surgery represented a hurdle in one’s journey towards having a full set of beautiful and functional teeth again. But with the advent of “All-on-4” dental implants, the dentist in Arlington TX is almost always able to skip this procedure entirely.

Dentist in Arlington TX: How the “All-on-4” Avoids Bone Grafting

Dr. Paulo Malo specifically designed the “All-on-4” technique to avoid the need for bone grafting entirely. This was done through the placement and angulation of four dental implants in the jaw:

• Two dental implants are placed by the dentist in Arlington TX in the front portion of the jaw, where the bone naturally exists in a greater volume and is more resistant to atrophy.

• Another two (longer) dental implants are placed towards the back of the jaw, in the region of the second and third molars. These implants are inserted at a very precise angle, which enables them to reap maximum support from the underlying jaw bone, explains the dentist in Arlington TX. This angulation also ensures that they avoid damaging vital structures, such as the nerve canal in the lower jaw and the sinus cavity in the upper jaw.

Together, these four dental implants provide ample support for a fully customized prosthetic dental bridge. Because only four dental implants are placed per jaw, the entire procedure can be completed in a single day, with a single surgery, explains the dentist in Arlington TX. And it is this unprecedented treatment time that has earned “All-on-4” dental implants ‘breakthrough’ status in the fields of implantology and fixed oral rehabilitation!

A Final Note from the Dentist in Arlington TX

Removable dentures are no longer the best and most sophisticated solution to edentulism and near-edentulism. Whether you already wear dentures or are facing an immediate future of them, dental implants provide a much more comprehensive and long term answer; one that doesn’t cost you in your quality of life. Speak to your dentist in Arlington TX about the sophisticated solutions provided by the “All-on-4” protocol!