Routines Are the Way to Go To Be Cavity-Free This Summer!

Summer is in full swing, and that means school will be out until August! And because there are no classes, homework, or tests, kids can run around freely, do whatever they want, and eat whatever they want, right?

Wrong!

Summer may be the season that revolves around family, fun, freedom, and relaxation, but like everything else in life, too much of a good thing can be detrimental. In this case, kids can be placed at a higher risk for tooth decay during the dog days of summer because children tend to consume more sweet drinks, soda, ice cream, and other sugary treats at this time. Studies have shown that sugary substances can attack teeth within 20 minutes after consuming them, which can then lead to tooth decay.

Now, we’re not saying that kids aren’t allowed to have any fun whatsoever throughout the summer. Of course, kids are allowed to unwind, relax, and learn through having fun, but we humans are creatures of habit. Therefore, it’s best to keep your child on a regular routine throughout the summer. In that routine, you should be sure to include teeth brushing AT LEAST twice a day!

“But Dr. Mastroianni, why do I have to keep my kid on a regular routine throughout the summer? Do you just not believe in having fun?” you ask.

If you know me, you know that I LOVE to have fun. But you also know how strongly I believe in keeping one’s teeth in great condition, even during fun times (this includes vacations!).

And believe it or not, brushing one’s teeth is easier than you may think to keep in a regular schedule! Here are some tips to help ensure that your children will brush your teeth throughout the summer and remain cavity-free!

Include Brushing Teeth on the Schedule AT LEAST Twice a Day – This not only includes when you stay home during summer days but also when you’re on vacation. That’s right. Even if you’re camping or driving across the country to visit relatives, you need to have your children brush their teeth twice each day.

Keep Sugar Intake Down – This can be difficult to do, especially during the summer! Of course, treats for special occasions like a birthday are perfectly fine. Just try to keep the sugar intake in moderation, and try to sway children away from consuming nothing but sweets, ice cream, soda, and other summertime treats!

Provide Healthy Snack Alternatives – Always do your best to keep healthy options available to your children as snacks. Include veggies, cut-up fruit, and even low-fat cheeses. Not only will these snacks be less prone to giving your child cavities, but they are also very nutritious and beneficial to your child’s growing body!

Emphasize Drinking Water, Not Soda – As the temperatures rise more and more throughout the season and kids become more and more physically active, they will reach for sodas and sugary drinks to help quench their thirst. Help keep this in check and provide water when you can! Besides being healthier, water will also quench thirst while sugary drinks tend to simply dehydrate children, causing them to drink more.

Be a Good Role Model – As with everything else when it comes to raising children, if you want your child to exhibit certain characteristics or actions (like teeth-brushing, for instance), you should do the same. Be sure that you take care of your teeth yourself, eat healthily, and drink water. It isn’t fair to make your child eat veggies while you chow down on chocolate all day! Try to make oral hygiene a family goal and act as a team to help each other reach this goal!

Brush To Music – Who wants to brush their teeth to the sound of silence? Not children, that’s for sure! Try to make teeth-brushing an enjoyable time by playing a song that your child likes while they brush their teeth. Typically, songs can last between two and three minutes, which is the perfect amount of time that one needs to thoroughly clean his or her teeth!

Get Regular Checkups – Summertime is an excellent time of the year to take your child to a routine dental check-up. You won’t have to worry about taking time away from a child’s school activities or sport’s activities. It’s recommended that you see your dentist at least twice a year.

If you have any questions or would like to schedule an appointment, call us here at Mastroianni Orthodontics at (618) 288-0600 or check us out at our website at www.amazingsmiles.com. We provide excellent orthodontic services and help people obtain (and keep!) amazing smiles. Call today!

iTero Digital Impression System - Our Office Just Got a Whole Lot More Futuristic!

If you’ve ever had to have impressions of your teeth taken, you know how much fun it is (or isn’t) to have those trays filled with putty pressed up against your teeth. Up to this point, taking impressions the old-fashioned way with the putty was necessary to orthodontics. Most orthodontists would mix up the material, put it in special horseshoe-shaped trays, and then insert it into the patient’s mouth for several minutes. Anyone who has done it knows that it’s a messy procedure and in some cases it can cause a gag reflex. It’s certainly not the most fun thing to do when going to the orthodontist, but I’m very glad to tell you that at my office in Glen Carbon, that that experience is no more!

Instead of using the traditional putty method, we now use the new iTero Digital Impression System, which scans patients’ teeth and lets us work with a 3D digital model. This system is available at our Glen Carbon office. The whole process takes somewhere between 8 and 15 minutes and gives us a perfect 3D representation of the patient’s teeth that we can interact with on the computer. iTero uses a combination of lasers and optical scanning software in a process called parallel confocal imaging. What it means for our patients is that the messy material and gag reflex are a total thing of the past!

The other added benefit of having 3D scans in this way is that patients can directly see the progress that they are making with their teeth alignments. This will help them better understand what is going on in with their teeth, and it will help us to better explain how we are helping them.

Also, since the entire process is digital, the amount of time it takes us to get working models of our patients’ teeth is much shorter and far less cumbersome than it used to be.

Instead of sending off the impressions of your teeth to Invisalign and waiting 2 to 3 weeks for the results, we now can email the scan of your teeth directly to the company and can get a speedier result. This then allows us to give you an amazing smile even more quickly and accurately!

In the end, this all means that we can have patients come into the office for their first visit and leave the office on their last visit with a great smile in a shorter time than we used to. I love seeing my patients as much as I can, but I also know that we’re all working toward giving them the awesome smiles that they are capable of as quickly as possible, and this is definitely one of the tools that will help us achieve that.

So what are you waiting for? If you aren’t happy with your smile the way it is, then we’re ready to help you get the confidence and the pleasure that comes with having straight teeth and a fantastic smile! Call us today at (618) 288-0600 and set up an appointment, or stop by our website at www.amazingsmiles.com. Also, don’t forget to friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter! I can’t wait to hear back from you!