Going to any dentist can be a really painful experience and most people do require something or the other to be done on their teeth. But with careful care you can maintain your teeth in perfect condition and just get follow up care very six months. Here are a few tips on how you can maintain perfect dental health for yourself.• Use a straw while drinking soft drinks. Most soft drinks contain a large amount of carbonic acid which can etch the surface of teeth. You can feel this after having soft drinks; the surface of your teeth immediately feels rough. The carbonic acid eats away at the superficial layer on your tooth and causes it to retain food particles. These can later on form cavities. You can avoid this completely by sipping soft drinks directly through a straw which prevents the soft drink from washing against your teeth.
• Drink water with every thing sweet you eat. The water washes away all the sugar and prevents it from lodging in between the teeth where it does the most damage.
• Drink a lot of water and, make sure you swish it around your mouth. Most countries and cities, especially London, now have compulsorily fluoridated water which is good for teeth. Combine this with a fluoridated mouthwash and with fluoridated toothpaste and you can’t lose. Just be careful with children under the age of two.

Maintaining oral hygiene is really important and you can do it really well if you follow a few common tips and ticks like,
1. Avoid scrubbing away at your tooth surface with your toothbrush use minimal pressure and a sweeping motion from the gum towards the tooth surface. A soft multitufted rounded brush is the best for almost every one. Be sure to replace your tooth brush every two months.
2. Brush for at least 3-5minutes and time yourself with an egg timer or an alarm clock. Brush 3-4 minutes twice daily as a replacement for brushing speedily five or more times through the day.
3. Rinse your mouth after every snack or food you eat. Keep a toothbrush in your desk drawer to remind yourself to brush once in the day time.
4. Brush daily at least twice a day to avoid problems in the future.
5. Get a biannual cleaning done to maintain your gum condition
6. Sue a fluoridated toothpaste to keep your teeth healthy and use a fluoridate mouthwash to add to the benefits.
7. Eat more green leaf veggies and fiber to keep your mouth healthy.
8. Obviously don’t smoke or drink to keep your teeth perfectly healthy.

I’ve heard of London blood banks, money banks, and even old clothes banks but this is the first I’ve heard of tooth banks? And why would any one want to save old teeth?
A Norwegian company is now requesting about 100, 000 teeth from children in Norway for their tooth bank.The Tooth Bank happens to be a research sub-project of the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa).It also happens to be a collaborative project between the Norwegian Institute of Public Health as well as the University of Bergen. The main objective of this project is to collect baby teeth to gain further information on the effect of environmental influences and nutrition in the fetus and early childhood.

The new Tooth Bank, MoBaTann, is planning to get parents to donate their children’s teeth for the research project on children’s nutrition as well as developmental influences on teeth. Parents are also encouraged to contribute further information about each mother’s diet and background through pregnancy with answering feedback forms, diet charts as well as complex blood and lab testing for references .The children are followed as they grow with questionnaires. This will be the largest project on collecting information on children teeth as well as the influences they have been exposed to during pregnancy.

It’s really appalling and I’m not being sarcastic here. When patients have to resort to pulling their own teeth you really have to wonder what the general healthcare has come to!
London and England have long been famous for the reputed NHS free service which was readily offered to patients as well as visitors who visited the city. But it’s not that way now!
Rising healthcare cost as well as a dearth of dentists has forced many patients to attempt treating their maladies at home itself! In fact two separate surveys of patients in London has come out with the shocking conclusions that 19 per cent of patients avoided dental work because of cost while one man admitted to at least ten attempts to remove teeth on his own with pliers!
Another frequent complaint of patients is that patients find it difficult to remember the confusing tariff list of charges. While many more found the cost down right excessive. Quite a few admitted to taking out loans to pay for their dental treatment or shifting to more expensive and private dentists just because a NHS dentist couldn’t be found.
If this can be the condition in developed countries then you can just imagine what must be happening in third world countries! It’s a fact that the NHS system needs a total overhauling and it needs someone with the guts to take on the lumbering giant. More reforms are definitely needed to get primary dental care to thousands of suffering London patients.

The National smile month for the year 2008 starts from May 18 to June 17. By organizing an event in National smile month gives oral health information to the patients, dental students and the workforce.

At the 143rd Annual Chicago Dental society midwinter meeting held on 28-02-2008, Nobel Biocare announced new advances in strength, fitness and beauty of dental restoration using CAD/CAM techniques.

Recent studies confirms the effectiveness of the fluoride which contains varnish fluor protector from Ivoclar vivadent against the acid present in soft drinks, Alcohol pop and preserved fruit juices They do harm teeth be it children or adults. The fluor protector serves as a shield against any untoward teeth erosion and guards the teeth from damage.

There are studies that show dental problems relating to malignancies as well, more so in women, who suffer from cervical and ovarian cancers show some dental ailments as well. While in another study, it was concluded that people who had lot of dental-related worries were less likely to conceive given information correctly than those people who are free of dental problems.

One of the researches performed by the department of periodontology at the University of Copenhagen relates gum disease and diabetes. Another study performed by the University of California found that gum disease might contribute to clog of the carotid arteries that might result in a stroke.

“When you notice a change in your teeth or gums, the first thing you should do is visit a dentist, he is your teeth’s best friend,” remarks an expert dentist here at London.