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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

Dental Visits And Your Autistic Child

by Eric Bailey

When you have an autistic child, you may find yourself tempted to put off dental visits for as long as possible, but this is obviously not a good idea for the health of your child's teeth. You can take some steps in advance and at the dentist's office that may make the experience go better than you would have expected. Here are some things you can try:

Talk with the dentist ahead of time: Ask for a consultation with just you and your child's dentist. Meet them in person and explain your child's situation with them. Give them some insight into dealing with your child when they are in for their exam. For example, let them know that your child will prefer to have the lights down as low as is possible, that they will do better if they are allowed to examine the dental tools first and that the dentist should talk to them while avoiding the use of idioms.

Don't have them call your child back to wait: Let the staff know that you would prefer for them to hold off on calling your child back until the dentist is ready to walk right into the examination room. Otherwise, your child may become frustrated being in the room with the examination lights pointed at them and the carious equipment before them that they aren't familiar with.

Practice the visit first: If your child tends to do well with taking little steps at a time and getting slowly familiar with new places, then you may want to practice. Go to the dentist office and have them sit in the waiting room for a minute. You may need to go back a second time and have them sit in the chairs for a minute and then walk into one of the exam rooms. You can even go back a third time where they will sit in the waiting room, go into an exam room and then have the dentist just walk in and say hello to them. After this, they should have a much easier time getting through the entire appointment on their scheduled exam date.

Videotape the office and the staff ahead of time: If your child does better by preparing to go to new places by seeing them in the video first, then you can do this. Get the okay from the staff to walk through the waiting room and into an exam room while videotaping. Also, videotape some of the staff, the dentist and some of the equipment. You can show this videotape to your child, so they can prepare for the visit without introducing the noise stimuli and new smells at the same time.

Contact a dental office like John S. Lyon DDS for more information and assistance. 

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