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The Top 3 Questions About Dental Implants

June 16, 2011 By 1 Comment

If You Can't See the Missing Tooth From the Front — Why Should I Get an Implant?

1. My missing tooth is in the back of my mouth. Why should I invest in an implant when no one can see the space?

When a tooth is missing, the underlying bone no longer has a purpose and begins to shrink. That’s what causes a sunken look around the mouth and jaw. Missing teeth also shift the burden of chewing to remaining teeth, causing them to wear down faster.

2. How does the cost of a dental implants procedure compare to other tooth replacement options?

When comparing tooth replacement options over a span of twenty years, dental implants are often the most cost effective. They last well over 20 years, while a bridge lasts 7-10 years and partials and dentures last an average of 5 years.

3. Am I too old for dental implants?

Age is not a factor. Dental implants are a lifestyle choice, as they affect appearance, eating, confidence, smiling and overall health. Last year, an 80+ year old patient got his dental implants before moving to Florida to continue his active lifestyle.

DENTAL IMPLANT FACT: 90% of all dental implants replace just a single missing tooth.

For more information on dental implants, visit our St Louis Dental Implants website.

Filed Under: Dental Implants, Teeth and Gums Tagged With: , , ,

What Do I Eat To Enhance My Overall Health and Well Being?

May 22, 2011 By Leave a Comment

One website I like to visit is www.mercola.com. This is one of the most visited websites online, with traffic surpassing even that of the American Medical Society. Set aside everything you’ve heard about low fat and low carb. If you really want to get healthy, I recommend these tips from Dr. Mercola’s site:

First, decide to get healthier.

That has to include becoming more knowledgeable about food, nutrition and exercise. Realize that you are in control of your own health.

Second, make forty percent of your daily intake fresh fruits and vegetables, preferably organic. Cut out the sugar and start to reduce carbohydrates like breads and pasta and processed foods. Add a tablespoon a day of flax seed oil. When you get up in the morning, drink a hot cup of water with lemon squeezed into it. If you do just those things for two weeks, you’ll notice a difference in how you feel. Losing weight will just be a side benefit.

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Bad Breath? Keep Your Gums In Good Health

May 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Have you ever had someone with bad breath talk to you up close? Have you had the thought “Gawd, I hope MY breath doesn’t smell like that?” And if it did … would anyone tell you? [Read more...]

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What’s Lurking Under Those Old Fillings?

April 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Teeth Can Be Cracked Under Old Mercury Fillings

Did you know the average lifespan of your silver amalgam fillings is only five to fifteen years? A high percentage of people keep theirs longer than that, which can lead to unseen decay, cracking and eventually pain.

If you’re over the age of thirty and have had your fillings for quite some time, schedule an appointment and let me examine them. They could need replacement if there are signs of cracking.

Cracking or decay festering underneath won’t be apparent until you find yourself in pain one day. Or, you bite down on something and feel the final crack give way beneath the old filling.

Also, as fillings get old they sometimes leak. In your exam, I’ll see if they’re worn around the edges and pulled away from the tooth enamel. When this happens, bacteria can enter and once inside the tooth it can’t be removed, so decay begins. There may be no symptoms until the decay reaches the nerve of your tooth, creating the need for a root canal.

If the decay gets far enough for you to be in pain, the remedy will require more treatment and more expense.

Every time you bite down you’re applying one hundred pounds of pressure to your teeth. If your fillings are weakening and there’s unseen cracking and decay underneath, every bite, is causing stress.

Last year I removed the silver fillings from a forty-five year old patient who has had regular dental care elsewhere and whose teeth and gums were in relatively good shape. She wanted the silver amalgam replaced with white fillings for cosmetic reasons. When we removed her silver fillings we discovered her molars were cracked and had to be restored. They are not only functioning great, but she no longer has dark fillings detracting from her beautiful smile.

When fillings are worn or broken down they need to be replaced as soon as possible to prevent the spread of decay throughout the tooth and any unseen cracking lurking underneath. In the process, you’ll get a smile update.

Filed Under: Cosmetic Dentistry, Dentistry, General Dental, Teeth and Gums Tagged With: , , ,

An Overlooked Cause of Obesity?

April 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Have you ever opened a bag of chips and then eaten the entire thing without planning to? What could create a seemingly insatiable appetite? Is it normal to continue eating after your stomach has signaled it’s no longer hungry?

John Erb, author of The Slow Poisoning of America and a research assistant at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, spent years working for the government. He made an amazing discovery while going through scientific journals. In hundreds of studies around the world, scientists were creating obese mice and rats to use in diet or diabetes test studies.

No strain of rat or mice is naturally obese, so scientists have to create them. In hundreds of studies presented in medical journals, researchers routinely administer MSG to newborn rats and mice to induce obesity. The MSG triples the amount of insulin the pancreas creates, causing them to become obese. They then use these animals as experimental subjects for research on anything from diabetes to weight loss.

MSG-laced food products are found in any kitchen: Campbell’s soups, Hostess Doritos, Lays flavored potato
chips, Top Ramen, Betty Crocker Hamburger Helper, Heinz canned gravy, Swanson frozen prepared meals, Kraft salad dressings, especially the ‘healthy low fat’ ones.

According to The Glutamate Association, a lobby group sponsored by food manufacturers’ (http://www.msgfacts.com/facts/msgfact12.html), the reason MSG is added to food is to encourage people to eat more. Their home page singles out the elderly as most benefited by MSG-laced food, since taste diminishes in the elderly and MSG causes them to eat more.

Interestingly, several attempts have been made to pass a bill in Congress that would prevent lawsuits from obese people against food manufacturers or retailers like McDonalds. Called the “Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act” also known as the “Cheeseburger Bill” it has twice been passed by the House and turned down by the Senate. Opponents make the analogy to the tobacco industry, which eventually was held accountable for creating disease in its customers.

Are Today’s Kids Overstimulated? MSG is also considered an “excitotoxin,” which is a substance added to food and beverages that stimulates neurons. Glutamate is the active ingredient in MSG. It is a neurotransmitter found mainly in the brain and spinal cord. Glutamate can cause neurons to become extremely excited and, if the dose is large enough, the cells will die.

In his book, Excitotoxins: the Taste that Kills, author Russell Blaylock relays the discoveries of neuroscientist Dr. John Olney. In 1948, Dr. Olney was working out of the Dept of Psychiatry at Washington University here in St Louis. He discovered that MSG caused widespread destruction of neurons. At the time of his report of findings, baby foods contained high levels of msg. His reports were ignored by medical journals, but after he and other doctors testified before congress as to their findings, MSG was voluntarily removed from baby foods in 1969.

While one can argue if an obese individual can blame his condition on McDonalds, it is interesting to note the
rise in childhood obesity with the prevalence of msg in our foods and the shift from home cooked meals to
fast food meals.

Filed Under: General Health Tagged With: ,

A Simpler Lifestyle is Healthier and Lowers Dental Costs

March 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Simpler Food Is Healthier

After treating patients for thirty-five years, I’ve noticed a definite connection between dental health and lifestyle. Dental health affects overall health and vice-versa.

Interested in saving on dental costs in the long run? Simplify your lifestyle by eating more meals prepared with unprocessed ingredients. It will have a profound effect on your overall health as well.

Americans today consume far more of their daily calories from carbohydrates than they did 30 years ago. In fact, soft drinks have now replaced white bread as the leading source of calorie consumption in America.

A 64 oz “Big Gulp” has an average of 800 calories and zero, none, nada nutritional value. That’s right…empty calories. The average adult requires 1600 to 2400 calories a day and a large soda averages 800 of these…supplying nothing to the body that it needs.

Your consumption of carbohydrates, whether in the form of high fructose corn syrup, grain or sugars, will determine whether or not you’re able to manage your weight and maintain optimal health.

If you’re overweight or your health is suffering, make a U-turn in your health by eliminating grains, sugars and foods containing high fructose corn syrup. If you rely on restaurant food for most of your meals, you’re likely slashing decades from your lifespan and increasing the likelihood of having to rely on expensive and potentially toxic drugs to treat the symptoms that will result from not eating healthy.

What to do?

Return to your kitchen and embrace good old-fashioned home cooking.

Return to a diet of simple foods. Restrict your grocery shopping to the perimeter of the grocery store, which gives you produce, dairy and meats. The processed foods are in the middle.

Restrict your intake of processed food to only 10% and get the rest from simple ingredients.

Purchase only meats and fowl raised without hormones, or antibiotics. These additives get into your system and affect your overall health. When you select your own ingredients, you control the calories.

The benefits of making the changes mentioned above include:

  • More energy
  • Added years to your lifespan
  • Reducing risks of cancer, heart disease and arthritis.

Much of the information for this articles was taken from Dr. Mercola’s site.

Filed Under: General Health Tagged With: , ,

The Secret to Saving Thousands on Implants, Veneers and Crowns

February 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Are All Crowns, Implants and Veneers the Same?

There IS a secret to getting your cosmetic work done for less. And it’s simple. It’s getting it done right the first time.

Even high quality crowns, veneers and dental implants can fail in your mouth. They can feel unnatural and make it uncomfortable to chew. Done incorrectly, they can lead to popping and clicking in your jaw or head, neck and back pain.

The secret to saving thousands on your crowns, porcelain veneers and dental implants is to ensure that the cosmetic dentistry actually “fits” your head, neck and jaw. Consider that dentistry is engineering on a very tiny scale. Everything must fit together to function correctly. Often, patients come to me with a jaw joint imbalance that has led to a deteriorated dental condition. Once this imbalance is corrected, cosmetic dental work can be placed on a sound structure.

This is called orthopedic cosmetic dentistry . This is not a recognized specialty in dentistry, but a protocol I’ve followed based on thirty-five years of experience, training and research into the best ways to ensure that cosmetic dental work lasts, does not interfere with natural chewing function, or create a structural imbalance leading to pain.

If you’re over the age of forty and have considered getting veneers, implants or crowns, I apply the principles of orthopedic cosmetic dentistry to Midlife Dentistry. That’s a sequence of treatment to restore the health of your teeth and gums and enhance your smile and usually entails some procedures that are common in the midlife mouth, such as:

* Your head, neck and jaw are balanced so that your cosmetic dental work is sitting on a sound structure. This ensures that your cosmetic work will last and save you from redoing procedures.
* As you age your teeth wear down, often causing an uneven bite. This can lead to unexplained pain in the head and neck area. If not addressed, you may have to redo cosmetic dental work. Worse, you may seek medical treatment for pain that has been caused by your cosmetic work.

But whether you’re midlife or not, your teeth and gums are part of the interrelated structure of your head, neck and jaw. A comprehensive program ensures the outcome of natural chewing as well as the expected aesthetic outcome. If your primary concern is just looks, then you may not get the work done correctly the first time.

I regularly have patients come to me to correct cosmetic work that was done over misalignment of the head, neck or jaw. This often leads to unexplained headaches due to a basic malfunction that was only made worse by veneers or crowns.

Some signs you may be ready for orthopedic dentistry are:
1. Thinning of your lips.
2. Wrinkles or sagging around your mouth and jaw.
3. A wearing down of your teeth causing your chin to get closer to your nose.
4. You avoid chewing on one side of your mouth.
5. You have missing or cracked teeth.
6. You don’t smile for pictures anymore.
7. You noticed facial pain with increased pressure in your head and sinuses.
8. You put your hand over your mouth when you smile.
9. You notice your smile is getting crooked as teeth wear down unevenly.
10. You’ve had an increase in root canals, especially on one side of your mouth.
11. You have neck and low back pain that creates inactivity.

The primary role of dentistry is chewing. Whether you are getting simple fillings or implants and crowns, your dental work needs to function naturally. With this approach to your cosmetic dentistry, your work is performed so that it’s in alignment with your structure. It is also done in the correct sequence, since all procedures are done in my office. This leads to work that doesn’t have to be redone. And that’s the secret to saving thousands on your cosmetic work.

You can learn more in my free downloadable ebook: Lifetime Smile.

If you are interested in a Consultation for Implants, Veneers, Crowns or Bridges,
call our St Louis dentist office 314 576 3000.

Midlife Dentistry is a service mark owned by Dr. Peter J. Pagano, DDS PC

Filed Under: Dental Implants Tagged With: , , , ,

In The Beginning Was The Orthopedic Dental Exam

February 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

An exam by any other name…Is not an exam.

A typical dental exam checks your teeth for cavities and your gums for disease and stops there. It doesn’t include examining your jaw joints and their impact on your dental health and your overall health. This more comprehensive dental exam is important in “orthopedic dentistry,” which ensures your jaw joints are balanced.

An “orthopedic dentistry” exam notes the teeth position and function of your teeth and their supporting structures; an analysis of how your teeth fit together when you bite down; an examination of your chewing and speech — and the movement of your jaws and joints and how they impact all of the above.

Taking the exam even further, the experience of the practitioner determines how much he/she is able to detect. Usually, a dentist doesn’t see much beyond what he or she can treat. At Artistic Dentistry, we treat nearly any dental situation — from root canals to orthodontics to cosmetics to identifying the “mysterious” reason for a tooth problem. In short, the scope of responsibility your practitioner is willing to take depends upon his/her knowledge.

Your teeth and mouth tell a story. Your mouth, gums and jaws indicate much about your overall health. Aside from your dental condition — I can sometimes detect conditions like osteoporosis, leukemia, cancer and even bulimia.

A young woman came to me with tonsils that had been swollen for fifteen years. She had regular dental care while growing up and five years of orthodontics. Neither her dentist or her orthodontist had suggested she see a specialist about the swollen tonsils. I queried her about a list of symptoms I suspected she was suffering from, including chronic fatigue. Wide-eyed, she sat up in my chair and asked “how do you know all this about me?” I immediately referred her to a surgeon who diagnosed that her condition as life-threatening.

A man came to me after spending $50,000 on cosmetic dental treatment. The doctor overseeing the case only performed cosmetic procedures and had referred him to several specialists to perform various phases, such as root canals, extractions, etc. After two years of treatment and expense, the patient still had lower crooked teeth. Why? The specialist overseeing his case didn’t perform orthodontics and told this patient he didn’t need it. After spending $50,000 to rehab your mouth, wouldn’t you want straight teeth? In our office, the steps of his treatment program would have been put in a sequential order that would have included orthodontics at the correct stage.

A dentist with multi-disciplinary skills sees beyond a limited set of procedures. So, the next time my staff in St Louis calls to get you scheduled for your cleaning and exam, you should know that this is one of the most important visits to the dentist you can make. If you value the health of your mouth and plan to keep your teeth for a lifetime, then we’re both on the same page.

Filed Under: General Dental, Orthopedic Dentistry Tagged With: , ,

Puffy, Bleeding Gums Are The Red Light On Your Car Dashboard

February 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Your Gums Are Like the Lights On Your Car Dashboard

Stinky breath. Puffy, red, ugly gums. Deep pockets where bacteria can crawl in and eat away at your bone. We dentists know that these are signs of the gums screaming out for deep cleaning. Truth is, they’re also indications that you don’t have enough “brush border” in your system to stay healthy. And that means you’ve most likely got other health issues.

Here’s a simplistic description of “brush border” that will probably make any medical person who is intimately familiar with this cringe, but I’m more interested in being understood than in being absolutely technically accurate.

Your brush border aids in the absorption of nutrients by increasing the surface area inside your gut wall. When this surface area is reduced from long term antibiotic therapy, suppressant medications and even stress, the brush border is compromised. The less brush border, the fewer nutrients get absorbed from your food and vitamins. That means the less healthy you’ll be and the less resistant your gums will be to periodontal disease. Having brush border is like having a big savings account. If you suffer a financial setback, you don’t hit the panic button. Brush border determines if you’re going to catch this year’s virus or be able to resist it. And, in case you haven’t guessed by now, brush border determines how quickly your gums are impacted by poor hygiene habits.

That’s why some people who are fanatical about brushing and flossing can still get periodontal disease. Others whose hygiene habits aren’t great, never seem to even get bleeding gums. Those people are in better overall health. They have good brush border and their resistance is higher.

In either case, you don’t want to ignore the signs of periodontal disease. You want to address redness and swelling right away. Your gum health contributes to your internal health and vice versa. So, pay attention to those gums. Like the red light on your car dashboard, their condition indicates your overall health.

Filed Under: Teeth and Gums Tagged With: , ,

Are You Making These Mistakes With Your Dental Health?

January 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

1. Ignoring bleeding or swollen gums.
2. Skipping scheduled cleanings and exams.
3. Putting off getting an ache or pain in your tooth checked out.
4. Allowing impacted wisdom teeth or decayed teeth to remain.
5. Keeping old mercury fillings (these often have cracked teeth underneath).
6. Ignoring the fact that you have bad breath and not knowing why.
7. Tolerating neck or back pain that leads to inactivity.
8. Going through life with missing or cracked teeth.
9. Putting up with sensitivity to hot or cold food and drink.
10. Avoiding one side of your mouth while chewing.

Once we treat any pre-existing dental conditions and get your teeth healthy (and believe me, this is so much easier than you might think), we can then give you the beautiful smile you’ve always wanted.

YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE WEALTHY TO GET A BEAUTIFUL SMILE.

My patients who have had smile makeovers not only include other dentists and professionals, but teachers, retirees and union workers. Today, cosmetic dentistry is affordable for nearly anyone.

 

 

Filed Under: General Health Tagged With: , , , , ,
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