HELP! I burned the roof of my mouth eating pizza! What should I do?

If you burned the roof of your mouth eating something hot, like pizza, first try cooling your mouth down with a cold drink or a popsicle. Ice cream or yogurt can also do the trick. It’s best to stop eating the pizza until it cools, to prevent damaging your mouth further.

Once the pain has subsided, you can gargle salt water to clean and disinfect the area. Medical professionals recommend using a mixture of ½ teaspoon of salt and 8 ounces of water.

If you’re in a lot of pain, you can take an ibuprofen or try a topical numbing spray. However, if you think the burn is serious, contact your doctor right away. Most burns are first-degree burns, but second- and third-degree burns can cause long-lasting nerve damage to your palate. Symptoms of these types of burns include severe pain, blistering, swelling, redness, or white patches.

It can take up to a week for the skin in your mouth to heal. While your mouth is healing, avoid food with sharp edges like chips, which can aggravate the roof of your mouth. Spicy foods, citrus, mint, and alcohol can also irritate the burn. Additionally, if your mouth doesn’t heal within a few days to a week, follow up with your doctor.

Fun Fact Friday

Fun Fact Friday: Out of all of the teeth in your mouth, wisdom teeth often spark the most discussion and controversy. So this week, we’re giving you five fun and interesting facts about your wisdom teeth!

a) Wisdom teeth are actually called, “third molars” or “late-blooming molars.”

b) In most instances, wisdom teeth have to be removed to avoid overcrowding.

c) Stem cells can actually be harvested from your wisdom teeth!

d) It is estimated that only about 35% of people don’t develop wisdom teeth.

e) While the average person has four wisdom teeth, it is possible to have more or even less than four.

We know that flossing can be a task that’s easy to forget

We know that flossing can be a task that’s easy to forget, but by flossing daily, you can actually help to prevent gum disease, tooth decay and bad breath! Brushing your teeth can’t remove plaque from your teeth and gums the way that floss can, which is why we encourage our patients to make flossing a daily ritual. Floss comes in all kinds of flavors and sizes, and you can do it just about anywhere. Whether it’s, at your desk, or in the comfort of your own home, you can take your floss with you wherever you go!

How to Make Flossing Fun for Your Kids

The best way to become a consistent flosser is to start early. Here are three ways you can make flossing fun for your kids:

Make it a game - Turn flossing into a story or a song and your kids will be excited to do it.

Give them cool tools - Let your kids pick out their own tools, like brightly colored floss sticks, and they'll be more eager to use them.

Show their progress - You can put up a chart in the bathroom that tracks their success and give out prizes or rewards.

Any other ideas to get kids flossing? Let us know!

How You Can Eat and Drink Your Way to Better Dental Health

We all know that brushing and flossing helps maintain our teeth, but did you know that these foods and beverages can also help with dental health?

Cheese - Cheese can reduce levels of acid in our mouths.

Tea - Polyphenols, which are found in black and green teas, slow the growth of bacteria that causes gum disease and cavities.

Milk - Milk lowers the level of acid in the mouth.

Raisins - Raisins contain phytochemicals, which may kill cavity-causing plaque bacteria.

Cranberries - Just like tea, cranberries have polyphenols, which may prevent plaque from sticking to teeth.

Gum - As long as it's sugarless, gum creates more saliva, which clears away bacteria.

When you hear jingles in the stores and see decorations on your neighbor’s house, you know that the holiday season has arrived. Among other traditions, you can also expect food to play a big part during the holiday, whether it’s snacks for a party or a family dinner. Unfortunately, a lot of traditional holiday foods can be harmful to your teeth, from sticky candy canes to alcoholic eggnog. Thankfully, there are also lots of seasonal dishes and treats that can keep your smile as healthy as ever.

You probably already have a sizable list of foods you know to be bad for your teeth: soda, coffee, and candy. However, what about the crackers you set out as hors d’oeuvres? Even without extra-sweet ingredients added in, bread and related snacks are full of carbohydrates – that is, sugar – and their crumbly, dissolvable nature means that these bacteria-feeding carbs get stuck to your teeth. Alcohol, not counting the sugar it is often made of or mixed with, will dry out your mouth; dry mouths are the perfect environment for bacteria. Even the cough drops you take for colds and the flu not only have sugar in them, but also expose you to that sugar over a long period of time. Cough syrup, despite having similar amounts of sugar in it, is quickly swallowed and doesn’t expose the teeth to that sugar too long. Simply put, too many holiday edibles encourage the decay of your teeth.

Not to worry! Lots of holiday foods diminish, if not reverse, the damage other foods can do. Two common party snacks, for example, are meat and cheese. The calcium and proteins provided by meat and cheese can actually strengthen your teeth and gums. Nuts, like meat, also provide your mouth with a burst of protein and saliva production that help defend your teeth from bacterial build-up. Instead of sweetened cranberry sauce in your dishes, try using fresh cranberries; they can interrupt the bonding process of the decadent bacteria. Though dried fruit is a bad idea, crunchy fruit and raw vegetables can help scrub plaque off of your teeth.

The holidays and their traditions are fast approaching. If you eat too much of the wrong kinds of traditional foods, or you find yourself chewing on that food for a long period of time, your teeth can suffer. However, holiday tradition have also given us a lot of food to protect and strengthen our teeth as well. So, when planning out the next holiday party or dinner, keep these foods in mind. They may just save your smile.

Knocking out a permanent tooth is a true dental emergency!

Knocking out a permanent tooth is a true dental emergency. Don’t be afraid to contact your dentist right away. If you knock out a permanent tooth, here is what to do.

1. Hold the tooth by the crown and not the root so as not to spread bacteria unto the root.

2. Rinse dirt or any debris off with room temperature water but be gentle with the root.

3. Try to reinsert the tooth until you get to the dentist and hold it into place.

4. If reinserting is not an option, keep it moist by covering it with milk or water.

5. For optimal outcome, try to get to a dentist within 30 minutes.