What’s the single best way to avoid having bad breath? The answer’s simple—by maintaining good oral hygiene every day.

The Basics Are Still Best

Brush. Floss. Rinse. It sounds pretty simple, yet it’s the best routine to help you win the battle against bad breath. These easy steps will help you get the most from your dental health routine:

• Brush your teeth for two minutes twice a day with an Oral-B Electric Toothbrush to remove plaque bacteria. Follow up with a good tongue brushing. Pay special attention to the back of your tongue, where most odor-causing bacteria are found.
• Floss effectively to help remove food particles. If reaching back teeth is difficult, a floss holder can help.
• Round out your routine with a mouthwash that fights bad breath to keep your mouth at its freshest.

Other Ways to Protect Against Bad Breath

• Drink plenty of water to stay hydrated. The amount of water you need will vary based on your physical build and daily activity level.
• Chew sugarless gum to stimulate saliva production. Eating a mint is a temporary but less recommended method for breath freshening because it can leave a sugary residue behind.
• Chronic bad breath may be a symptom of a more serious condition, so you should consult a dental or medical professional.
• Learn which foods can cause bad breath.
• Consider limiting behaviors that can intensify bad breath, such as drinking alcohol or smoking.

Dental sealants act as a barrier to prevent cavities. They are a plastic material usually applied to the chewing surfaces of the back teeth (premolars and molars) where decay occurs most often.

Thorough brushing and flossing help remove food particles and plaque from smooth surfaces of teeth. But toothbrush bristles cannot reach all the way into the depressions and grooves to extract food and plaque. Sealants protect these vulnerable areas by “sealing out” plaque and food.

Sealants are easy for your dentist to apply. The sealant is painted onto the tooth enamel, where it bonds directly to the tooth and hardens. This plastic resin bonds into the depressions and grooves (pits and fissures) of the chewing surfaces of back teeth. The sealant acts as a barrier, protecting enamel from plaque and acids. As long as the sealant remains intact, the tooth surface will be protected from decay. Sealants hold up well under the force of normal chewing and may last several years before a reapplication is needed. During your regular dental visits, your dentist will check the condition of the sealants and reapply them when necessary.

The likelihood of developing pit and fissure decay begins early in life, so children and teenagers are obvious candidates. But adults can benefit from sealants as well. 

What Is It?

Tooth whitening lightens teeth and helps to remove stains and discoloration. Whitening is among the most popular cosmetic dental procedures because it can greatly improve how your teeth look. Most dentists perform tooth whitening.

Whitening is not a one-time procedure. It will need to be repeated from time to time if you want to maintain the brighter color.

What It’s Used For

The outer layer of a tooth is called the enamel. The color of natural teeth is created by the reflection and scattering of light off the enamel, combined with the color of the dentin under it. Your genes affect the thickness and smoothness of the enamel. Thinner enamel allows more of the color of the dentin to show through. Having smoother or rougher enamel also affects the reflection of light and therefore the color.

Every day, a thin coating (pellicle) forms on the enamel and picks up stains. Tooth enamel also contains pores that can hold stains.

The most common reasons for teeth to get yellow or stained are:

• Using tobacco
• Drinking dark-colored liquids such as coffee, cola, tea and red wine
• Not taking good care of your teeth

Root Canal Treatment is the procedure done to preserve the infected tooth. This procedure involves removing the damaged or infected pulp, treating any infection and filling the empty canals.

Root Canal Treatment procedure is started by drilling the enamel part of the tooth, that is topmost portion of the tooth. First the Dentist enters the pulp chamber, where the infected pulp is present. The next step is exploration of root canal, removal of the remaining pulp tissue and infected tissue. The infected pulp is then drilled out with the help of long needle shaped drills called files, Remears, K-flex, Headstroem ( H-files), etc.
After successful removal of the pulp, the root canal is disinfected with the help of intracranial medicaments like essential oils (eugenol), phenolic compounds, Sodium Hypochlorite and iodides. The disinfection procedure is done by using a plastic pipette or a syringe.

When it comes to restorative care, some smiles need more help than others. For patients who need to replace multiple teeth or fillings, or who need a root canal and crown, a full-mouth reconstruction may be beneficial. Similar to a smile makeover, a full-mouth reconstruction can involve multiple services, all used to help you restore your smile’s good health and functionality.

Dental scaling is the most common nonsurgical way to treat gum disease, which is also known as periodontitis.

If your disease is moderate, but not severe, your dentist may recommend scaling to treat the disease and keep it from getting worse.

Scaling is nonsurgical, but it is a different type of procedure from a standard dental cleaning because it involves cleaning the areas of the tooth below the gum line.

There are two types of scaling instruments and some dentists or dental hygienists may use both:

• Scaling with hand-held instruments. Your dentist or periodontist will use a dental scaler and curette to manually remove (scale) the plaque from the teeth. Because the dentist or dental hygienist can’t see the plaque,
• Scaling with ultrasonic instruments. Ultrasonic scaling instruments clean plaque from the teeth with a vibrating metal tip that chips off the tartar and a water spray to wash it away and keep the tip cool.

What is it?

A scale and polish cleans your teeth very thoroughly.

Scaling removes the hard tartar which forms on your teeth like scale inside a kettle. You can’t remove it just by brushing your teeth. Scaling also removes trapped food and plaque containing millions of germs, which can cause tooth decay and gum disease. Stains from coffee, tea, cigarettes or red wine are also cleaned away when your dentist polishes your teeth.

A dental hygienist is specially trained and will scale your teeth. If you clean your teeth very thoroughly anyway, your scale and polish will take less time.

What happens?

There are two ways to scale teeth.

• Hand scalers – These come in different sizes and shapes, to reach different parts of your teeth. This is why you will see the hygienist changing instruments quite often.
• Electric scalers – These use very fast vibration with water. The water is sucked out of your mouth. A hand scaler is used to check whether the teeth are completely clean.

For polishing, your hygienist will use a rotating brush or rubber polisher with toothpaste.

Scaling cleans above and below the gums. If you have gum disease, scaling needs to be deeper, around the roots of the teeth.

This is called ‘root planing’. Your hygienist may give you a local anaesthetic to make it more comfortable.

Your dental hygienist will tell you about the best way to clean your teeth and gums thoroughly at home.

Hypodontia is the condition at which the patient has missing teeth as a result of the failure of those teeth to develop (also called tooth agenesis). Hypodontia describes a situation where the patient is missing up to five permanent teeth, excluding the3rd molars.  In primary dentition the maxilla is more affected, with the condition usually involving the maxillary lateral incisor. The cause of isolated missing teeth remains unclear, but the condition is believed to be associated with genetic or environmental factors during dental development. Hypodontia is often familial, and can also be associated with genetic disorders.

Gummy Smile is the excessive gingival display when we smile. Under this condition, when we smile, gum tissue overshadows the upper teeth and it looks as if we have small upper teeth with larger than normal gums. If it feels a little awkward, it is because it truly is. If you have a gummy smile, you don’t need to worry as there are various ways in which this condition can be set right.

What Causes A Gummy Smile?

Before delving into how to solve the condition of a gummy smile, let us first understand what causes this condition. Its causes can be:

• Abnormal growth of teeth • Hyperactive functioning of the muscle which controls the various movements of the upper lip • Protrusion of upper jaw.

Is It More Than an Aesthetic

Factors like the position of facial muscles; the growth of gum tissues; size of the lips, mouth, and teeth and their shapes; usually affect the smile. An ideal smile is one, which shows as little gums as possible when we smile. When this is not the case and excessive gum is visible, one can feel awkward and not smile much.Sometimes, the gummy smile is just awkward and sometimes it becomes more than that. It may be an indicator of underlying dental problems that require your attention.

Tooth whitening lightens teeth and helps to remove stains and discoloration. Whitening is among the most popular cosmetic dental procedures because it can greatly improve how your teeth look. There are two main types of whitening procedures. Non-vital whitening is done on a tooth that has had root-canal treatment and no longer has a live nerve. Vital whitening is performed on teeth that have live nerves.

Some whitening agents are activated by a laser light, special lights or by the heat from these lights. After the whitening agent is applied, the dentist will shine the light on your teeth. If your teeth are badly discolored, your dentist may suggest that you continue the bleaching process at home for a few days or weeks.