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Dental Health and Food: Learning to Eat Better

My intense love for candy, cakes, and everything in between started as a child. I simply couldn't go one day without something sweet to eat. But my love for all things sweet took a toll on my teeth. My dentist diagnosed me with seven cavities, each one a different size and depth. After sitting through four long dental appointments, I decided to make a change. I now monitor my diet and only eat things that benefit my oral health. I'm here to help you take better care of your teeth. My blog offers tips on how to improve your diet, maintain good oral hygiene, and many other topics. Hopefully, you can learn to overcome your bad habits just as I did. Good luck with your future dental health.

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Dental Health and Food: Learning to Eat Better

Getting Rid of Cavities? Consider These 3 Tips for Pain-Free Fillings

by Eric Bailey

Children in America are not particularly diligent in maintaining their dental health, and this becomes especially clear when you take into consideration that half of all American children get cavities. Once your children's dentist detects cavities, it's vital that your children get fillings as soon as possible in order to prevent the cavities from further worsening and decaying. Getting cavities filled is not always a fun experience. The sound of the dental equipment and tools, as well as the environment, can be horrifying for some children. Making an effort to ensure that the experience is as pain-free as possible can really help ease stress and dental anxiety. Consider the following three tips.

Ensure Sedatives Have Taken Effect Before Starting

The key to having a pain-free cavity-filling experience is finding an experienced and patient dentist. Your children's dentist should suggest different types of local anesthetics that can be injected into the gums so that the area becomes numb. Your children should still feel some pressure from the dental instruments and tools being used but should not feel pain. There are several different types of local anesthetics that are recommended. All of them are equally effective. While it doesn't really matter which local anesthetic is chosen, it's crucial that your children's dentist is well versed on how to inject the anesthetic properly. If the anesthetics are injected too deep, complications, like hematoma formation, can arise.

It's important that your children's dentists are patient when administering the local anesthetics. They need to wait until the anesthetics have completely numbed the gums before they can start. The dentists should check to confirm that your children have lost sensation in that area of the gums before starting to fill in the cavities. The prick from the injection can be painful. Most dentists recommend applying a topical anesthetic.

Cover Exposed Nerves with a Liner

When filling in the cavities, your children's dentist needs to be careful with the tools and instruments that they are using. As there is a limited amount of space inside the mouth, the dentists need to be careful not to bump into or scratch any other nerves or exposed tissues. Ensuring that only the area where the cavities lie are worked on and exposed can prove to be beneficial. To ensure that other areas of the mouth do not become exposed to the dental tools and instruments, some dentists will go out of their way to cover exposed nerves and tissues with a liner.

Covering exposed nerves and tissues will not only prevent the dental instruments from coming into contact with the areas but also prevent these areas from getting contaminated. Contamination can lead to infections and other unwanted problems.

Take Ibuprofen After the Appointment

The next several hours after the cavities have been filled tend to be the most painful and uncomfortable. The gums are still sore and may be experiencing some swelling. The gums can easily become irritated as well. As the gums heal during this period, the nerves will send signals to the brain indicating that they are in pain. Blocking these signals from getting sent can help reduce the amount of pain experienced. The best way of doing so is to give your children some ibuprofen or other type of pain reliever immediately after the appointment.

As the sedatives wear off, the pain relievers will start to kick in. By the time that the pain relievers are out of your children's system, the gums and teeth should no longer be sensitive or painful to the touch.

Conclusion

Making an effort to ensure that your children's experiences at the dentist are enjoyable can help you in the long run. Your children will be less likely to oppose going to their dental appointments and will be more interested in maintaining their dental health. 

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