April 2022 - Carolina Complete Dental Blog

April 27, 2022

Goose Creek dentists, Dr. Barganier, Dr. Zuffi, Dr. Williams, and Dr. McAdams at Carolina Complete Dental, share engaging activity ideas meant to teach children the importance of dental health with fun crafts and science experiments. At Carolina Complete Dental, we know your little one’s smile fills you with joy and pride; smiles are a source of joy and pride for us, too! We cherish the opportunity to help build a foundation that will ensure your child has a healthy smile for life. But, we know before they become oral hygiene pros, they’re not quite sure why interrupting playtime to brush their teeth is necessary—or why you won’t let them have more sugary drinks and snacks.

Luckily, there are many fun ways to teach them the importance of dental health. Carolina Complete Dental has a few suggestions you can try out with your child, and if questions come up that you’re not sure how to answer, don’t hesitate to contact us and schedule a visit! We love sharing our knowledge and showing families that oral health is a gift that keeps on giving!

Brushing Basics

Demonstrating how to remove the nitty-gritty from your little one’s mouth is a good precursor to explaining the nitty-gritty of what can happen if they skip brushing and flossing (whether it’s with the traditional string variety, soft picks, or perhaps a WaterPik® meant for kids).

We find large model mouths especially helpful, and they can be fun to put together! If you have access to white Styrofoam™ egg cartons or ice cube trays, you can create the teeth of your model. If you’re going with the egg cartons, you can cut the rows apart and glue, tape, or staple them on cardboard to imitate the upper and lower rows of teeth. For a (slightly) more realistic look, you can paint the cardboard pink! Once you’ve got the mouth ready, your child can practice brushing each tooth and flossing between the spaces.

If you’ve got white ice cube trays, a dry erase marker, a craft stick (or a popsicle stick), felt, and glue, you can create another mouth and toothbrush model. Glue the felt to the top of your stick, and you’ve got yourselves a toothbrush that will scrub dry-erase ink from the ice cube trays. You can even spell out plaque, tartar, and bacteria with the dry erase marker, which could make wiping away that ink feel especially satisfying.

Flossing Frenzy

To add to the fun, you can also bust out some play dough (either homemade or store-bought will work) and place it between the spaces of the carton or ice cube tray teeth, then remove the buildup with pipe cleaners or yarn. This step is great for teaching children the importance of flossing. You can tell them, “Your heroic toothbrush needs a sidekick to remove the dangerous, bad-breath causing bugs that it can’t reach alone.”

Dangerous, Bad-Breath Causing Bugs?

Those words might sound scary, and the truth is, they can be. If your child’s oral health defense isn’t strong enough, they’ll be susceptible to tooth decay and gum disease. Teaching them healthy habits from the beginning goes a long way toward creating strong, beautiful smiles they can be just as proud of as you are. And luckily, little ones really want to follow in the footsteps of the people they’re closest to, so setting a positive example by caring for your smile will make a big difference.

With the serious warning out of the way, we’d love to talk about a fun science experiment you can conduct with your little learner!

Lab Coat? Check. Goggles? Check. Eggs? Wait, What?

You won’t actually need a lab coat or goggles, but you will need 4 hardboiled eggs and the imagination to pretend they’re teeth. You’ll also need:

4 cups or jars
1 cup of soda
1 cup of vinegar
1 cup of fruit juice
1 cup of water
Baking soda or toothpaste
Toothbrush

When you’ve got your cups or jars of each liquid ready, carefully place 1 hardboiled egg in each, with the shells still intact. Leave the eggs to soak overnight, then prepare to be amazed (or have your predictions confirmed) by your findings the following day!

The egg that sat overnight in soda is likely to be deeply stained—this is where the toothpaste or baking soda and the toothbrush come in handy. Have your child see if the staining can be scrubbed off. The egg might return to its former appearance with enough scrubbing, but it may lead to the questions, “What is this soda doing to the rest of my body?” and “Is drinking soda worth the erosion it causes?”

Depending on the juice chosen, it might not have changed the color of your hardboiled egg much, but the coating of the shell may become gritty, and your child’s toothbrush might pick up some color as you scrub it. The potency of vinegar softens the shell to the point that the egg can be squeezed without cracking. Lastly, the water tends to have no visible effect. Water is neutral on the pH scale, which makes it an excellent beverage choice, and creates the opportunity to talk about how acidity and alkalinity can create illness or wellness!

And to think this all began with a topic seemingly as simple as teeth! Your child’s smile may be more full of wonder after these activities, and Carolina Complete Dental would love to encourage their curiosity and help their smiles stay healthy and strong as they continue learning and growing. Contact your Goose Creek dentist at Carolina Complete Dental today to schedule your next checkup!

The content of this blog is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of qualified health providers with questions you may have regarding medical conditions.

April 14, 2022

If you and your child are the proud companions of a pet, there’s a good chance you’ve both thought or said something like: “Fluffy’s really living the life. Instead of having to go to school or do chores, they can relax and sleep all day, getting up only to eat or maybe chase a laser if they’re feeling feisty.” However, Fluffy also doesn’t have to floss and brush their teeth, so how do Fluffy’s teeth manage not to suffer from disease and decay?

Contemplating this may lead you and your little one to wonder about all kinds of different animal mouths and how they remain clean and strong. Dr. Barganier, Dr. Zuffi, Dr. Williams, and Dr. McAdams of Carolina Complete Dental happen to love talking about teeth of all types, so keep reading to go on a toothy smile safari!

Myth Busting

Before we start listing fun facts about animal teeth of different species, we’ll answer the question we asked first about Fluffy’s teeth seeming impervious to decay. The myth that dogs have cleaner mouths than humans has existed for some time even though they lick themselves daily and have an affinity for things as yucky (and potentially toxic) as soiled kitty litter. Our mention of these particular habits and the word myth probably clues you into the truth, but we’ll explain in more detail.

Human mouths are home to anywhere from 650 to 1,000 different types of bacteria at any given moment, while the number of bacteria in the mouth of a dog may hover around 600. On its own, this fact might make you believe that pervasive myth, but diets and the types of bacteria are important to keep in mind. Dogs shouldn’t be ingesting sugar the way many humans do, making cavities less likely to form in their teeth, but both humans and dogs are likely to develop gum disease without a solid oral hygiene routine.

Doggy Dental Care

You read right—canine friends need help cleaning their mouths to prevent periodontal disease (the advanced form of gum disease), which can lead to tooth loss. You can softly brush your buddy’s teeth and gums with a toothpaste meant for dogs, as toothpastes meant for humans can contain ingredients like xylitol, which is very harmful to your beloved pooch. Giving them treats with the seal of approval from the Veterinary Oral Health Council is helpful, too! And be sure not to smooch your pooch on the mouth, as harmful bacteria can be transferred easily! Mothers, lovers, and dogs are the most common sources of gum disease infections.

If you’re curious about your feline friend, research suggests their oral bacteria is very similar to a dog’s. One big distinction between their mouths is the tongue. Why do cats have rough barbs (known as papillae) on their tongues? Simple—they help remove dirt, debris, and loose hair from their coat, but their primary function is to scrape flesh from their prey’s bones—they’re animals after all, even if we’ve domesticated them. A look at their diets (or what their diets would be if they weren’t our sweet housemates) brings us back to the topic of animal teeth!

Sharp or Dull, Long or Short, Numerous or Few?

The different types of teeth you’ll find in an animal’s mouth provide clues on what they eat! Can you imagine a cow’s mouth with teeth like a dog’s? That wouldn’t be helpful for them to chew grass, leaves, and other plant matter, which is why you’ll find rows of flat, wide teeth in the mouths of herbivores (plant-eaters) like horses, camels, cows, sheep, and goats. The jaws of these animals are also capable of moving sideways, which helps them grind the food between their molars for healthy digestion.

When it comes to the mouths of carnivores (meat-eaters), you’ll find a mouthful of long, pointed (sharp) teeth that help lions, tigers, foxes, wolves, and the Tyrannosaurus Rex (testing to be sure you’re still with us), grip and cut the meat of their prey. Flat teeth meant for chewing aren’t necessary for these eaters, because they’re able to swallow and digest larger chunks of food.

If an animal eats both meat and plants, they can be referred to as an omnivore and will have a combination of sharp and flat teeth for their varied diet.

Teeth as Tools

While Carolina Complete Dental strongly advises you and your child stick with using your teeth for speaking, eating, and smiling, there are animals that can use their teeth for other activities. For example, elephant tusks are actually teeth, and they use them both defensively and like hands as they lift and carry objects, and even dig with them. If they lose a set of tusks, they can grow replacement tusks up to six times in their lives. If you think that’s incredible, wait ‘til you read about shark teeth!

Sharks lose teeth each week! They’re not attached to gums like human teeth and may break or come out clean when they’ve chomped into their prey. Luckily for sharks, they can grow a replacement tooth within a day of losing one. This leads to the phenomenal presence of over 20,000 teeth in one shark’s lifetime!

There are so many astounding facts to learn about the animals we share a planet with, and we love to share what we know with our young (and not so young) visitors. Unlike elephants and sharks, you and your little one are given just one set of permanent teeth. We’re here to help ensure they’re healthy for a lifetime of happy smiles, so contact your Goose Creek dentist at Carolina Complete Dental today to schedule a checkup!