WE ALL KNOW: Breathing provides our body with the oxygen it needs to survive. We also know what it’s like to have a cold, with a nose so stuffy that you can’t breathe through it. Breathing through the mouth only becomes necessary when we have nasal congestion due to allergies or a cold. When we are exercising strenuously, mouth breathing can help get oxygen to our muscles faster. But, there are many negative effects of mouth-breathing full-time, particularly if the habit begins in childhood.

ANIMALS MIGHT NOT BE as concerned with maintaining their oral health and hygiene as we are, but that doesn’t stop some of them from having very interesting teeth! Like our teeth are adapted to an omnivorous diet, animal teeth are adapted to the foods they eat. In some cases, the results can get pretty strange. Today, we’re going to focus on four of the weirdest sets of chompers we could find.

BRUSHING OUR TEETH is something we can get so used to doing that we don’t really think about it, but are we doing it the right way? It can be easy to get into some bad tooth-brushing habits, and the result can be that your teeth aren’t getting cleaned properly and you could be doing damage to your gums. So let’s take a moment to go over good brushing technique.

MARCH THRU JUNE our practice is raising donations for children’s charities through the Smiles For Life program. We’re honored and excited to participate in such a worthy cause! 100 percent of the donations we raise go to the Smiles For Life Foundation to benefit children in need, with 50 percent benefiting a local charity of our choice—helping kids in OUR community.

YOUR SMILE IS AN expression of who you are. It’s how you greet a friend, celebrate life’s joyful moments, and make someone’s day a little brighter. We know how important your smile is to you and those around you. That’s why Dr. Samsavar is a member of the American Society for Dental Aesthetics (ASDA) as well as other prestigious dental societies. This is so we can always provide our patients with the best and most up-to-date dental care!

The flu season usually runs from November through March. The heaviest flu activity occurs in February. In the United States, on average, 5 to 20 percent of the population gets the flu. Following are some of the dental related tips you can follow to lessen the possibility of re-infection or spread of the flu to others:

IF BABY TEETH almost always grow in straight, then why are adult teeth so often crooked? What is it, if not just bad luck? There are competing theories, but adult teeth can come in crooked for a variety of reasons, from genetics to diet to daily habits.

HAVE YOU EVER HEARD of “Mountain Dew Mouth”? It’s what happens to our teeth when we drink too much soda. The term comes from rural Appalachia, where that particular drink has long been the carbonated beverage of choice and tooth decay is alarmingly common. But this doesn’t just happen in Appalachia, and Mountain Dew isn’t the only drink that contributes to tooth decay.

ALL FIRST-TIME PARENTS are faced with a seemingly endless stream of questions, decisions, and unknowns about how to raise and care for their new baby. One of the big ones is whether to breastfeed or bottle-feed.

WE ALL REMEMBER what it was like to be children with loose teeth. For some, this was a pretty stressful time, while others found ways to speed up the process so they could get those Tooth Fairy payouts faster.

No matter what, though, the prospect of losing that first tooth is new territory for every child, and it can seem very strange and frightening to them. That’s why we’re here to help you calm your child’s nerves as they approach this milestone.

IT’S THAT TIME of year again: time to Put on Pink! October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month and with your help, our practice is increasing awareness and raising funds to support breast cancer research.

NO ONE LOOKS FORWARD to getting “long in the tooth” because of gum recession.

However, while tooth length might be an accurate yardstick for judging the age of a horse, age is not the culprit behind receding gums in humans. Gum recession is simply such a gradual process that it can take decades before the effects are noticeable.

UNDER MOST CIRCUMSTANCES, dentists are not fans of candy. The sugar in candy is the favorite food of bacteria that cause tooth decay. However, when it comes to chocolate, certain types may actually be good for oral health!

To be clear, this is not a blog post in which we give you a free pass to eat all the chocolate you want. Only certain types of chocolate have any health benefits, and too much of even the healthiest kinds probably isn’t a good thing.

MOST OF US find ourselves craving something sweet every once in a while—or perhaps more often than that! Unfortunately, as good as sweet treats taste, they can have a big impact on our dental health.

WE CALL SUSPENSEFUL BOOKS “nail-biters,” but the habit of nail biting itself has less exciting connotations.

The most obvious consequence is torn, uneven nails, and in particularly severe cases, nails that become dramatically shortened and deformed over time. This alone would be enough of a reason to discourage the habit, but far more insidious are the effects of nail biting on teeth and oral health.

HAVE YOU EVER woken up with your mouth feeling like a barren desert? Then you’ve probably experienced dry mouth, although it can be even more severe, making it difficult to speak or even eat. Dry mouth affects a tenth of the population, but why is it such a problem, why does it happen, and what can we do about it?

WE’VE ALL HEARD that if we want healthy teeth, we should brush twice a day, floss once a day, and schedule regular dental cleaning appointments twice a year. Definitely keep doing those things, but if you want to step up your oral health game, here are a few easy ways to do that.

BECAUSE BREATHING IS something we all do all the time without really thinking about it, the idea that there are unhealthy ways to do it might take some people by surprise.

BEING A PARENT, though wonderfully rewarding, can also be stressful and full of uncertainties, especially when it’s your first child and everything is new and overwhelming. Our practice might not be able to take away all of the uncertainties, but we can certainly help you out when it comes to pacifiers and thumb sucking and their effects on your child’s dental health.

WHITE SPOTS APPEAR on our teeth for a variety of reasons. Although not all of them are harmful to our oral health, they still prevent our smile from truly shining through.

Today we want to share with you some of the most common reasons these white spots appear, and what treatment is available to remove them and give you a bright, beautiful smile.