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VOLUME 2 • ISSUE 5 • MAY 2008
From the Doc
May is the time of year when we take time to reflect, reminisce and pay a loving tribute to our mothers. I really believe May was selected as the month for Mother’s Day because it’s such a beautiful month. May has the full spectrum of colors, budding new life and wonderful aromas. It truly is a month worthy of mothers, and I hope you enjoyed celebrating your mom this month.
I would like to take this time to thank all my patients for their trust and devotion to our office. We work tirelessly to improve our services to better care for each and every one of you.
This month, we are taking an expanded course in the Invisalign technology. Invisalign is the brand of invisible, clear plastic tray braces that replace the old metal style. Our patients are really loving this new technology that allows for “invisible” teeth alignment. If you know a friend or family member who’s thinking about orthodontic work and would prefer their braces to be “invisible,” our office can definitely help.
We also remind you that it’s the time of year when young people are graduating from junior high, high school and college. If you’re having a hard time thinking of a special gift for the graduate in your life, we’ve got a great idea: Give the gift of a healthy smile that lasts for years, truly a gift that keeps on giving. Call Patti and ask her to send you a dental care gift certificate for $50, $75, $100 or more toward any type of dental service. We’re happy to help you say “I really care about you” to those you love the most.
Yours for a healthy smile,
Doctor Mark
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Summer Means Outdoor Activity... and Sports-Related Trauma
As summer approaches, our thoughts turn to the many outdoor activities that await us when warm weather arrives. For me, it’s all about sports. Sports and the ability to compete have always been very dear to me. There’s no better feeling than getting the game-winning hit, making a foul shot to beat your cross-town rival, or throwing the winning touchdown pass in the final seconds of the game. Adrenaline flows and emotions run high—you can’t beat the rush.
No one likes to think of the downside of strenuous physical activity, but unfortunately, injuries are often associated with sports. When you have contact, you’ll have injuries—it’s unavoidable.
Many times, these injuries affect the mouth and teeth. In high-contact games like football, hockey and soccer, teeth can get chipped, moved around in the socket or completely knocked out of the mouth. Other times, lips and gums get cut. When any of these types of injuries happen, you want to know you’ve got a qualified dentist on your bench.
The fact is, I’m not only a dentist, I received extensive training in the management of oral facial trauma at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia. I’ve put together a team of highly skilled dental technicians who really know their stuff. Consequently, our office can handle many kinds of mouth trauma associated with sports injuries. So, if summer activities find you or a family member encountering an injury to your mouth or teeth, please think of us. We can help.
Better yet, let’s talk about preventing mouth trauma altogether. If you or your children compete in sports, it might not be a bad idea to get a mouth guard. You have a few options here.
You can go to the drugstore or a sporting goods shop to find a mouth guard. To make sure these kinds of guards fit properly for comfort and sound protection, you must heat it up and insert in your mouth, then suck very hard. This manual vacuum forces the guard to conform to the general contours of your mouth.
This is better than the old guards that were pretty much one-size-attempts-to-fit-all models, which – let’s face it – left something to be desired. But if you don’t want to burn your mouth, and would rather have a version that fit you perfectly, we can make a custom guard right in our office.
Aside from providing a more secure fit, research has proven that truly effective mouth guards can help prevent concussions caused by the activity of sporting competitions. Just one more reason to check us out, and learn why we call ourselves Comprehensive Family Dentistry.
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You Can Afford Cosmetic Dentistry
When speaking of dentistry, we often think of treating or preventing problems concerning oral health. What most of us don't consider is cosmetic dentistry, the discipline of maintaining and improving the aesthetics of a person’s smile.
Not just for Hollywood anymore, cosmetic dentistry has become common, safe, and affordable across the country. People of all ages are having cosmetic procedures performed for all kinds of reasons. And if you think about it, it’s really not an expense, but a true investment.
Recent studies show that people with an attractive smile have better chances for career advancement, vibrant social life and healthy self esteem than those whose teeth are crooked, irregular or dingy.
With summer on the way, whether you’re graduating, attending a wedding, or taking that long-awaited cruise, you'll want your smile to look its best. Fortunately, we offer a broad spectrum of cosmetic dental operations,  such as:
- Teeth Whitening: Do you ever wonder how your favorite actor/actress has maintained such a perfect smile? Chances are, it’s at least partially through whitening. A variety of bleaching techniques can now be employed to remove the visible effects of consuming staining foods and beverages, smoking, or poor oral maintenance, and leave you with sparkling teeth.
- Dental Veneers: Porcelain and durable plastic laminates can be created to eliminate cracks, chips, and other wear from your teeth. The veneers can be bonded to your teeth to fill in gaps and fix severe discoloration, as well.
- Porcelain Bonding: Commonly used to repair small cracks and chips in teeth, this mixture can be applied to teeth and then sculpted and polished to look like enamel.
- Dental Fillings: This traditional dental procedure, commonly used to repair cavities, can be used in conjunction with porcelain bonding to remove any indication of the filling.
- Dental Implants: In order to compensate for tooth loss, artificial teeth can be made of a resin or plastic composite and permanently rooted in the mouth. An added benefit to implants is less difficulty talking and chewing as a result of restored structural integrity. Due to the quality of state-of-the-art materials, modern implants are also much more comfortable and less difficult to maintain than they used to be.
- Bridgework: Similar to implants, but often less permanent, bridgework is an option for smaller areas where missing teeth require restoration.
If you have any questions or concerns about these procedures, feel free to contact us. And remember: The question about cosmetic dentistry may no longer be whether you can afford to have it, but whether you can afford not to. | Open House
Get Back the Smile You Remember!
"Miles of Smiles" isn't just the name of our newsletter, it's what we try to create for you, our valued friends and patients. We'd like to help those in need of smile restoration learn and understand the benefits of modern dental implants. When it comes to tooth and oral structure repair, thanks to state-of-the-art technology and techniques, it's a whole new world than anything you've known before.
If your smile isn't quite what it used to be, we invite you to attend one of our upcoming Open House nights. Learn why you don't have to live with unsightly, painful old dental work any longer, and how modern materials techniques make new implant work much quicker, more comfortable and long-lasting.
Why wait one more minute to have the healthy, happy smile you deserve?
Call Patti right now at 215-860-0738 to reserve a seat for one of three convenient evening sessions from 10 A.M. to 2 P.M. on
We'll make the information interesting and accessible, and will open the floor to a Question-and-Answer session following the presentation. We expect the sessions to fill rather quickly, so please reserve your space early, and BRING A FRIEND! You'll be glad you did.
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Just Say No (to Mercury)
Until recently, almost all dental fillings have been made of mercury mixed with silver and other relatively inexpensive materials. This practice of using metal amalgam to fill tooth cavities has been common since the Civil War era.
 Most people over the age of 30 have at least one (usually more) of these potentially dangerous fillings. The hazards of these amalgam fillings have only lately been fully realized, but it is now understood that they can be detrimental to a person’s health.
Aside from containing up to 50% mercury (a highly radioactive substance), amalgam fillings pose a variety of other risks:
- They do not bond to the tooth: Because of the chemical composition of mercury, it does not “stick” to the tooth. This requires that the dentist insert the filling by jamming it into the tooth. By wedging the fillings into place, excessive amounts of healthy tissue are removed from the tooth, making it more susceptible to breaking, cracking, and chipping.
- They fluctuate in shape, size, and density: Mercury is known for its ability to expand and contract depending on the heat of its surroundings. While this elasticity makes it ideal for measuring temperature, it makes it a bad choice for dental repair. As the mercury in fillings changes shape, it slowly breaks the tooth apart. Over time, teeth with mercury fillings crack and split, requiring crowns and root canals to fix.
- They allow for easy plaque build-up: More often than not, mercury fillings don’t fit flush with the tooth. There are usually small gaps where bacteria and plaque can get underneath the filling. There, they are resistant to tooth brushing, and may decay the tooth until it becomes irreparable and needs to be replaced.
Fortunately, technology now allows dentists to recognize the oral health hazards brought on by mercury fillings, and to provide superior alternatives. These range from composite resin fillings to porcelain crowns and onlays. All these options are affordable, fully adhesive, and most importantly, safe. Being tooth-colored, they are also much more visually attractive.
If you have mercury fillings, be sure to talk to us about how best to replace them and retain the integrity of your smile.
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It’s Time to Root for the Root Canal!
Did you know that the second Wednesday of May is National Root Canal Appreciation Day? It’s true! Dr. Chris Kammer, a Madison, Wisconsin dentist, spearheaded the effort to recognize this often misunderstood dental procedure for the mouth-saving tool it is. He helped establish this new celebration of the much-maligned root canal in 2005.
“After years as the butt of the joke, it’s time to take the root canal out of the closet. We must hold it in high esteem for the millions of teeth it saves every year in America!” Dr. Kammer says.
I agree. The root canal has an unfairly negative image. I applaud Root Canal Appreciation Day, which is intended to reverse the common misconception that this routine dental procedure that saves 42 million teeth each year is somehow extremely painful and unpleasant.
I hope National Root Canal Appreciation Day will go a long way toward educating the public that, thanks to improved technology, the root canal procedure is now done with ease and comfort for our patients. It’s really important that people understand that this procedure, which dentists rely on so heavily to save oral function, health and appearance, become better understood in the public mind.
Why would I need a root canal?
Normally, if an infection develops somewhere in your body, your circulatory system will transport white blood cells to and from the area to combat the bacteria that have caused the infection. Unless your system is somehow compromised, your body will be successful in killing off the offending bacteria.
 Teeth can actually develop infections inside, too. Though a tooth is mostly hard, calcified matter, in its inner center is a hollow space called the pulp chamber. It contains the tooth's nerve tissue. Generally, each nerve enters the tooth at the tip of its root, then runs through the center of the root in small "root canals." These subsequently join up with the tooth's pulp chamber.
The nerve tissue keeps dentin and enamel -- organic components of the tooth's mineralized tissues -- supplied with nutrients and moisture. It also produces new tooth structure (reparative dentin) as needed to wall off and protect the nerve from tooth decay or injury such as a cracked tooth.
However, these kinds of trauma can and do happen, and bacteria enter through the crack or decay area. These cause the tooth’s nerve tissue to degenerate. The dying nerve's blood and lymphatic vessels, which transport white blood cells, also begin to degenerate. Now, with no effective way for white blood cells to access and combat bacteria, infections can develop.
In advanced cases, this bacterial infection will overwhelm your body's defense mechanisms. Pain and swelling will result, signaling an acute tooth abscess. And it’s this extreme discomfort that usually brings patients in for root canal treatment.
So, what IS a root canal, actually?
Root canal treatment provides the clean-up work your body’s natural defenses can’t do. It removes as much of the bacteria and tissue irritants as possible, providing an environment where your body’s mechanisms are able to finish off any residual bacteria.
The second half of root canal treatment involves filling in and sealing up the inside of the tooth. This seal encapsulates any debris that couldn’t be fully removed so it can't leak out and trigger more inflammation. This process also minimizes the possibility of re-infection resulting from:
- Bacteria re-colonizing the pulp chamber
- Tissue fluids seeping inside the tooth, becoming stagnant, and subsequently breaking down.
This procedure allows complete healing to occur, and is all done under local anesthetic, as we use when performing a simple filling.
As you can see, it’s time the world catches up with the progress we’ve made in the dental profession. It’s part of the reason I send you this newsletter, so we can help you understand the positive nature of such important health care. We’re grateful that Dr. Kammer has started the ball rolling in that direction when it comes to root canals!
| A Taste of May’s Freshness
Grilled Shrimp and Scallops of a Bed of Fresh Greens
Take advantage of all the fresh lettuces and various other greens available this time of year! Better yet, start a garden and grow different varieties of lettuce and greens right in your own yard. Nothing tastes better or is more convenient and good for you than locally grown produce. Top it off with some fresh-grilled Atlantic seafood, and you’ve got yourself a tasty, healthy meal... perfect for a light dinner or quick weekend lunch with friends on the patio.
Large sea scallops - 1 lb.
U-15 (Jumbo) shrimp - 1 lb.
5 cloves fresh minced garlic
One-inch length of peeled, minced fresh ginger
1/4 cup fresh chopped lemon grass
1/4 cup fresh chopped cilantro
1/4 cup lite sodium soy sauce
Juice of 2 limes
Juice of 1 lemon
Fresh tomatoes
Sweet red and yellow bell peppers, diced or julienned
Salt and pepper to taste
Combine all ingredients and mix with seafood. Grill shrimp -- it's best to place them on skewers to
make them easier to control on the grill -- over medium heat. Shrimp are done when the entire outside surface has changed color (usually from gray to pink, depending on the type you buy). Place the scallops over the hottest part of the flames and grill for about two minutes each side until cooked through. Remove from heat.
Toss seafood with greens, fresh tomatoes and bell peppers. Sprinkle with a sesame-balsamic vinaigrette dressing. Serve and enjoy.
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