Keep Everyone Smiling Through Halloween

It may not be your worst nightmare, but Halloween can present many parenting problems in addition to the usual fun and thrills and chills of a haunted house. As your child’s dentist, I hope to provide some guidance on how to navigate through this sticky season.

In my family growing up, if mom took me trick or treating, I came home with very little loot, but if dad took us we had to have the radio flyer to haul it all home! So here you are after the night of trick or treating in the neighborhood that had the reputation for handing out the really good candy. Your children each have at least 20 lbs of candy…what do you do?

Scenario #1: Don’t let them get too much at once, so they can only eat 10 pieces a day and the candy stash lasts well past Christmas.
Scenario #2: They have access to their stash at will and the hoarders make it last through Christmas and the “spenders” have it gone before the week is up.
Scenario #3: Make them eat all of it that very night in hopes they get such a belly ache they never want candy again.
Scenario #4: Throughout the week, you successfully sneak candy out of their stash, and then either eat it yourself or throw it away.

Surprisingly, the best dental scenario is #3, but most physicians and parents won’t recommend this tactic.

What can I recommend? At least 10 days prior to Halloween, come by our office and buy some cavity-fighting herbal lollipops to control the cavity-causing bacteria while they have higher than normal sugar consumption in the month after Halloween. This becomes very important if your child is prone to getting cavities.

What else can you do? How teeth survive Halloween actually depends as much on your child’s risk for cavities as how they eat their candy. Not surprisingly, the basic principles we recommend every other day of the year also apply following Halloween. However, if your child is high risk for cavities, you have to follow these principles more exactly or your child is more likely to experience problems.

Principle #1: Time your sugar with meals when the body’s defenses are best able to keep your mouth in balance.
Principle #2: Don’t spread your sugars out over long periods of time. Consume them as rapidly as possible so your body can get back to fixing the damage.
Priciple #3: Eat your sugars in a form that doesn’t stay in the mouth as long. For example, gummy sugars are worse than chalky candy. Sugar bubble gum is particularly bad if you chew it for a long period.
Principle #4: Clean your teeth BEFORE you eat your sugar. This will remove the plaque that holds the sugar and a large number of bacteria that converts the sugar to the acid that breaks down the teeth.

We hope these guidelines help your family fight cavities throughout the whole year!

Keisha’s Corner: Sports Drinks

This is the time of year many teenagers and youth in the practice tell me about their sports practices and games. In turn, I also have more kids acknowledge they are drinking sports drinks on a regular basis.

While sports drinks can be especially beneficial for replacing electrolytes in children intensely exercising for longer than 60 minutes, adopting particular sports drink habits can sometimes threaten the health of their mouth. Sports drinks are extremely acidic (optimal pH for cavity bugs) and have large amounts of carbohydrates (food for cavity bugs).

Taking the sports drink “off the field” is the most alarming trend to guard against. Once kids and parents get acquainted with the taste of sports drinks, they often start consuming them even when they are not exercising. The sports drinks end up in the fridge where they are consumed on demand and throughout the day.

Like all other sugary drinks, controlling frequency and timing is essential.

Here are some additional practices recommended by the Chicago Dental Society to help protect your child’s teeth from decay:

• Use sports drinks in moderation. Water is the best drink for light workouts when less body fluids are lost


• Dilute sports drinks with water


• If possible, use a straw to reduce contact between the drink and teeth. Do not hold the drink in your mouth or swish it around.


• Do not brush your teeth immediately after consuming a sports drink. The acid in sports drinks makes teeth softer and brushing can cause protective enamel to be lost.

Please keep in mind the 20 ounces of sports drink in your child’s bottle probably contains more electrolytes than he or she will need. Water should still be your child’s primary source of hydration. Most importantly, keep the sports drink reserved for the time your child truly needs the energy and mineral replacement: during intense athletic activity on the field and not for hydration around the house.

I have the privilege of discussing soccer games and football practice with your child twice a year. You are there every kick and tackle along the way. I hope you feel better equipped to coach your child for good oral health during the fall sports season! Go team!

TV Channel 4 Spot: Dr. Gary Likes These Lollipops

Did you see us? Myers Pediatric Dentistry made the news! We were interviewed by Jacksonville’s Channel 4 news on Wednesday, September 26 regarding our use of Dr. John’s Herbal Lollipop. The spot aired on their Friday morning show.

Although they edited my explanation of how the lollipops work to about a five second sound bite, it was very encouraging to hear our message of prevention get out to the Jacksonville community.

For those of you who did not see the news clip, there is a new sugar-free lollipop on the dental market that can suppress the bacteria that causes cavities for up to 3 months. The active ingredient is an herbal extract of licorice.

I first heard about this product two years ago when it was still in development by researchers at UCLA. About 4 months ago, Dr. John’s Herbal Lollipops made their market debut with some national news coverage. Channel 4 picked up a press release about how they’re being integrated into Head Start programs on a national level, so we called and asked if they wanted to talk to an office using it locally.

In our office, Dr. John’s lollipop is another way to control the bacteria in the mouth that cause cavities. It is not a magic bullet that will allow bad habits to persist, but it can reduce or eliminate cavities when used along with good hygiene and diet. Of course, we still love and recommend Xylitol gum as a way to create healthy bacteria in the mouth and suppress the destructive bacteria for a longer timeframe.

If you or your child has struggled with cavities, please let us know when you visit so we can develop an individualized strategy to get you back in balance and avoid future cavities. You never know – this dentist may hand you a lollipop!

Announcement: Now Accepting Moms and Dads

Parents have asked us for years if we would treat them as well as their kids, so we are happy to announce we can now say “YES” to these requests!

Two weeks ago we rolled out our hygiene program for parents. It has been getting rave reviews thanks to the dedication and time our hygienist Keisha has put into developing the program.

As a pediatric specialist, I had resisted the idea of “seeing adults” for years, because I didn’t want to take away from our primary focus: your children. However, at a recent dental conference I had a revelation that seeing moms and dads will actually enhance our mission: a practice full of cavity free kids. I can remain focused on your child’s health, and you benefit as well. Here is how:

1. The whole family hears about our progressive cavity prevention methods and receives our individualized coaching. If the parents are on board and participating in habit changes, the kids will be more likely to follow their example. I can think of numerous times where we could not get the soda or candy out of the house because one parent was not equally motivated to make the needed changes.
   
2. The added convenience of scheduling the whole family in the same place at the same time.
   
3. Better bacteria control. We can better work to control the bacteria of every individual in the family, so it is not passing from parent to child or from child to child. Once the bacteria established are the healthy strains, it is easier to keep the body in balance and avoid cavities.
   
4. The compassion and understanding that is so important when working with children is also appreciated by adults. You will just have to excuse us if we still use kid friendly terms like Mr. Thirsty and Squirt Gun!
   
5. Our dedication to the latest therapies and research will now apply to adult care and your periodontal health. Overall health is increasingly being linked to periodontal health (i.e. healthy gums and teeth). Full term pregnancies, lower blood pressure, increased heart health, and better controlled diabetes are just some of the benefits being linked to a healthy mouth.
   
6. Our office’s dedication to communication, coaching, education, and individualization will now be accessible to you.

We hope you are excited and will take advantage of this expansion of our mission. Now we not only want to keep the children in our practice cavity-free but their parents as well.