Tag: pediatric dental services frisco

What Should You Do?

Posted on by MillenSmiles_aDmEEN

If you have children, you probably already know that they fall. It’s inevitable. Falls happen. While most incidents of falling are minor and can be handled with a band-aid and a hug, sometimes when kids fall they can accidentally knock out a tooth. This situation takes a fall from minor to scary in seconds. So, what do you do? We’ve compiled a few things to do (and a few things not to do) if your child falls and knocks out or damages a tooth.

First, stay calm. While that may be extremely difficult if your child has lost has just lost a tooth, your ability to remain calm will help your child calm down.

Second, call us. If your child has lost or damaged a tooth, call us immediately. Ideally, we should see your child within an hour of the incident.

Third, store it safely. If you can locate the tooth, put it into a cup of saliva. Yes, we said saliva. While milk is often touted as a way to –preserve teeth, it is not the best option. If you cannot get your child’s saliva, you can use your own if you are comfortable with it. If not, then you can use milk. Do not use water – ever.

Fourth, don’t try to clean it. While there may be dirt, mud, or blood on the tooth, attempting to clean the tooth can cause unintentional damage. Do not rinse or use a cleaning agent such as alcohol or peroxide. Try not to handle the tooth too much, either, to prevent adding germs to the mix. If you have to handle the tooth, try to pick it up by the crown and not the root.

Fifth, don’t try to put it back in.  If it is a baby tooth, do not try to push the tooth back in. Doing so could damage the new adult tooth just below the newly-created space.

We hope a dental emergency never happens to you, but if it does, we will be here. Call us at 972-987-4899 with all of your dentistry needs.

Candy Is Okay for Halloween – with Some Considerations!

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Halloween is just a few weeks away. As you are planning your costumes and thinking about festivities, we want to take a minute to talk about one of the best parts of Halloween: candy. Yes, candy! We know you are probably surprised to hear a dentist say that candy is great, but let’s face it, candy is actually pretty great. Of course, we recommend that you eat candy with a few rules in mind.

So, It’s Okay to Eat Candy?

Yes, it is okay to eat candy. But, candy is best consumed in moderation. We suggest limiting yourself or your kids to one to two pieces a day (yes, a day!), instead of grabbing the bowl and binging. We recognize that this means practicing serious restraint, but trust us, it will be to your benefit.

Too much candy shows. It shows up on your waistline and on your teeth, which could lead to cavities if you don’t brush or floss regularly. Keep in mind that any food can lead to cavities if you don’t take care of your teeth!

A Word About Gum

While gum is not candy, we want to take a minute to talk about it, too. Chewing gum can help keep your teeth healthy because its sticky nature helps to pull out tiny bits of food left behind after you eat until you can brush or floss. The act of chewing gum helps to cause saliva production, which is beneficial because saliva can help remineralize your teeth.

What About Sugar-Free Candy?

While there is a time and place for sugar-free candy for some individuals, sugar-free candy frequently contains artificial sweeteners, as well as acidic additives that can be damaging to tooth enamel.

We would love to see a picture of your trick or treaters! Be sure to share on our Millennium Smiles Facebook page!

What Is Tongue Thrust?

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Usually when a person swallows food or liquid the tongue pushes on the area behind the upper front teeth. However, a person with tongue thrust routinely pushes the tongue between the top and bottom front teeth when swallowing.

This habit, which is also known as reverse swallowing, might sound harmless, but it can lead to various health problems. If left untreated, teeth can become misaligned, jaw development can be negatively impacted, a lisp might develop, and swallowing patterns can become abnormal. With those complications in mind, it’s best to try to identify the problem as soon as possible.

Signs and Causes of Tongue Thrust

Some commons signs of tongue thrust include:

  • Lips rest in open position

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  • Tongue rests against or between teeth
  • Difficulty breathing through the nose
  • Speech production issues
  • Messy or noisy eating
  • Snoring

The causes of tongue thrust range from hereditary factors to daily habits. For example, tongue-tie, an enlarged tongue, or enlarged tonsils can lead a child to thrust his or her tongue forward while swallowing.

Children who continue to suck on their thumbs or on a bottle beyond the usual timeframe can also develop tongue thrust. It’s normal for an infant to have tongue thrust while breastfeeding or bottle-feeding, but the baby’s swallowing patterns need to eventually change as he or she grows.

Obstructed breathing, whether in the form of nasal congestion or allergies, can also cause tongue thrust, as the tongue is forced into a new position to make mouth breathing easier.

Treatment

It’s possible to correct tongue thrust with the help of Dr. Korous and some cooperation from the patient. Myofunctional therapy, a series of oral exercises, can retrain the tongue to move and rest in healthier ways. In some cases, a Myrobrace appliance is also used to correct the problem, but it is often still accompanied by the therapy exercises.

If you think your child may have tongue thrust or want to learn more about Myobrace and myofunctional therapy, call to schedule a consultation by calling our Frisco dental office today.

Video

Watch the video below to see how tongue thrust impacts jaw development and tooth alignment.

What is Lip-Tie?

Posted on by MillenSmiles_aDmEEN

Tissue called frenulum tethers the upper lip and upper gum area together. The tissue is supposed to be thin and fairly loose, but in some cases, babies are born with frenulum that is too tight and thick. Known as a lip-tie, this condition is believed to be heredity and can cause a variety of problems for both newborns and nursing mothers.

The location and severity of a lip-tie determines its classification. There are four classes:

A class IV lip-tie connects the lip to the palate. This is the most severe form of tip-tie.

A class III lip-tie connects the lip to the area where the two front teeth will later grow.

A class II lip-tie connects the lip to the gingival tissue.

A class I lip-tie connects the lip to the area above the gingival tissue.

Like tongue-tie classifications, the classifications were developed by Dr. Lawrence Kotlow. The sample images above are from his research.

Eventual Complications Due to Lip-Tie

As is often the case with tongue-tie, lip-tie might seem relatively harmless until you consider its impact on the infant’s early stages of development.

During breastfeeding, a baby creates a seal with his or her lips to suckle the breast. A lip-tie limits the baby’s ability to flange the lips, resulting in pain for the mother and possibly a callus on the baby’s upper lip. Some other immediate effects of a lip-tie, often resulting from the baby’s inability to suckle effectively, include gassiness and shorter but more frequent breastfeeding sessions.

The negative effects of a lip-tie continue when the baby is spoon and finger feeding. A baby with a lip-tie might fail to consume sufficient calories and begin to develop unusual chewing, swallowing, and breathing patterns.

Once the teeth come in, more issues can arise. A gap can form between the front two teeth if this is where the frenulum connects. If leftover food or drink frequently gets stuck near the lip-tie, this condition can lead to erosion of the teeth as well as periodontal disease.

Lip-Tie Removal

A dentist or oral surgeon can easily remove a lip-tie, restoring the baby’s ability to naturally feed. This simple procedure will also help avoid further oral complications as the child grows. Recovery is fairly quick, but stretching exercises might be necessary to prevent the lip-tie from reforming.

If you think your child could have a lip-tie, call today 972-987-4899  to schedule a consultation and learn about how we can help.

Orthodontic Relapse and Myofunctional Disorders

Posted on by MillenSmiles_aDmEEN

Imagine this situation: A teenager spends several months wearing braces or Invisalign to correct misaligned teeth. Roughly a year after the orthodontic treatment ends, the teeth begin to shift back into their problematic spaces.

This sort of relapse often occurs when the underlying causes of the original misalignment are never fully addressed. Under constant pressure from a myofunctional disorder, the teeth will become crooked again, and the patient is back to where he or she started.

Cause of Relapse

Many people believe that orthodontic relapse is the result of tongue thrust – routinely thrusting the tongue between the top and bottom front teeth when swallowing. However, the shift in teeth can be also related to the tongue’s resting position, rather than its movements. The same applies to the resting positions of the mandible and the lips.

Unresolved myofunctional conditions, such as tongue-tie, lip-tie, airway obstruction, and unusual swallowing patterns, can all indicate that the tongue, lips, and mandible aren’t resting properly. In addition to reversing the effects of previous orthodontic treatments, these disorders also come with other unpleasant symptoms that a patient might want to reduce. For example, obstructed airways often lead to sleep apnea, which is characterized by difficulty breathing when sleeping. So the patient will find multiple health benefits to resolving the issue.

Dr. Korous recently met with a teen who was experiencing orthodontic relapse. The spacing returned to his upper teeth, and on the bottom his front teeth shifted forward creating spaces behind the canines on either side. Dr. Korous recognized this was due to an unresolved myofunctional disorder. His tongue was pushing his teeth forward.

He also experienced snoring and teeth grinding – signs of a breathing obstruction. Another indication was that when he was younger, his tonsils and adenoids were removed. Many children have their tonsils and adenoids removed, but no one asks why they got enlarged to being with and what is the underlying cause? A breathing issue, most often an obstruction in airway, can lead to the enlargement.

Dr. Korous confirmed an airway blockage by observing a Mallampati score of 4 in the patient.

Treatment

Myofunctional therapy is typically the key to changing the resting position of the tongue and other parts of the mouth. In some cases, such as with tongue-tie, minor surgery is required, but even that step should be followed up with therapy. The exercises a patient performs during myofunctional therapy will train the structures of the oral cavity to not only move correctly, but to rest properly when not in use.

For the teen mentioned above, Dr, Korous will propose a multi-step treatment plan that could include:

  • Sleep test to diagnose sleep apnea,
  • Myofunctional therapy with Myobrace
  • Laser tongue-tie procedure
  • Myofunctional therapy after the procedure
  • Second-phase orthodontic treatment to realign teeth.

A patient should only consider braces, Invisalign, or other orthodontic treatment after all underlying conditions have been corrected. Otherwise, he or she risks having to spend more time and money trying to fix the orthodontic relapse.

If you are living in Frisco or Little Elm, and think you’re experiencing orthodontic relapse or may have an myofunctional disorder, call Millennium Smiles today to schedule a consultation with Dr. Korous.

Talking About Tongue-Ties

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Do you know what it means to be “tongue-tied”?

There’s one figurative meaning that means to stumble over words, and then there is a literal definition that means the tongue is physically tied to the lower jaw as a result of development in utero. Although statistics show that about four percent of babies born in the United States are born with a tongue-tie, the number is actually much higher because the condition is often undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. While it may seem odd that a dentist is writing about tongue-ties in babies, the condition has consequences for jaw development and the palate. Learn more about how Dr. Korous is your Frisco dental expert in treating patients with tongue-ties.

What Is a Tongue-tie?

A tongue-tie is a malformation of the lingual frenulum, the skin that connects the tongue to the bottom of the mouth. This malformation causes a restriction in the movement of the tongue and can lead to a speech impediment. If left untreated, a tongue-tie can also cause problems in newborn babies in latching during breastfeeding, which can mean more air is swallowed during nursing causing painful gas, acid reflux, nutritional deficiencies and failure to thrive. The condition, also known as ankyloglossia, can lead to increased rates of ear infections, speech delays or speaking difficulties and difficulty in cleaning the teeth.

Tongue-ties can also restrict the growth of the lower jaw, which can lead to misalignment of the teeth and malocclusion of the bite. These conditions cause wear and tear on the teeth over time and may mean more dental care is needed.

As a result of the complications related to an untreated tongue-tie, it is important that the condition is diagnosed early, and interventions are started.

How Does Dr. Korous Treat a Tongue-tie?

The most common way to treat a tongue-tie is by cutting the tissue to release the tongue. This can be done surgically or with a laser. However, there is another treatment that can be performed before and after cutting the tissue to maximize results. This treatment is known as myofunctional therapy.

What is Myofunctional Therapy?

Myofunctional therapy is a treatment designed to make tongue-tie surgery more successful. After the tissue under the tongue is cut and the tongue is released, myofunctional treatment can help prevent the tissue from reattaching. Dr. Korous begins myofunctional treatment for two to three weeks before the tissue is cut, and the treatment lasts for a few weeks after the procedure to make sure the muscles of the mouth are functioning correctly.

When Should Children Have Myofunctional Therapy?

As with many oral health concerns, the earlier, the better. Early intervention is critical because of the serious nature of tongue-ties and the related conditions they cause. Ideally, once your child is diagnosed with a tongue, or you suspect your child has a tongue-tie, you should call Millennium Smiles to schedule a consultation for myofunctional treatment.

Want to learn more about how we treat tongue-ties in Frisco or Little Elm? Call 972-987-4899 today to schedule a consultation.

Mind Your Mouthguard

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April is National Facial Protection Month, and this means that March is a great time to talk about not only making sure you or your child wear a mouthguard for sports, but it is also time to talk about cleaning your mouthguard.

Why Is Wearing a Mouthguard Important?

Wearing a mouthguard in sports is important because it can protect your teeth from damaging impacts. Each year, dentists across the country see patients in pain from taking a blow, hit or ball to the face. Dr. Korous does not want to see this happen to you. So, pack your mouthguard along with the rest of your gear and be sure to put it on before heading into the game.

Now, Let’s Talk About Cleaning Your Mouthguard

Wearing a mouthguard can protect your teeth and mouth from damage, but cleaning your mouthguard helps to protect your teeth and mouth in another way: from bacteria. Think about it, you eat a snack before the game and don’t a chance to brush your teeth (which decay-causing bacteria love), then you put in your mouthguard.

Those decay-causing bacteria transfer to your mouthguard. After the game, when you toss your mouthguard into its case or your locker, the bacteria get a chance to grow in a dark environment. Then, the next time you put your mouthguard in, you’re exposed to more bacteria.

Sounds yucky, right? That’s because it is!

Take the time to brush your teeth whenever possible before wearing your mouthguard and spend a few minutes after your game or practice sanitizing your mouthguard to protect from illness or tooth decay.

Dr. Korous recommends that you:

  • Rinse your mouthguard immediately after wearing with warm water
  • Brush your mouthguard with a toothbrush to remove bacteria, saliva and food particles
  • Let your mouthguard dry thoroughly on a clean surface
  • Once your mouthguard is completely dry, store it in a case
  • Deep clean your mouthguard regularly by soaking it in over-the-counter denture cleaner or a hydrogen peroxide and vinegar mix for 30 minutes. Let dry completely after deep cleaning

Dr. Korous also recommends cleaning your mouthguard case regularly, too.

Finally, NEVER share your mouthguard with anyone else!

Learn more about taking care of your mouthguard and your teeth by scheduling a consultation with Dr. Korous today by calling 972-987-4899.

Early Dental Care For A Lifetime Of Smiles

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Taking your child to the dentist as a baby or toddler allows his or her oral health to be monitored for early problems and abnormalities. Early dental visits can reduce anxiety and encourage healthy oral habits for a lifetime of good dental health.

Between 3 and 9 months, your infant’s primary teeth will begin to emerge. As a local family dentist, Millennium Smiles recommends bringing children in for routine dental visits around the age of 3, when typically all primary teeth have erupted. Early routine dental visits allow your Frisco family dentist to monitor your child’s oral health and spot developing dental concerns. Patient education and regular visits will reduce risk of cavities and other dental problems.

Even baby teeth are at risk for decay, especially since the teeth are regularly covered with milk or juice, often for extended periods of time. Research shows that children who develop cavities in their baby teeth are more likely to develop cavities as an adult. Your Frisco dentist will advise you on good oral hygiene for your child, including the best time to transition away from the bottle or sippy cup.

Taking good care of your child’s baby teeth is important. Although primary teeth do eventually fall out, they play an important role in helping your child bite, chew, and speak clearly. Not only do primary teeth help children develop proper speech, they also hold space in the jaws for permanent teeth that are growing under the gums. When a baby tooth is lost too early, permanent teeth can drift into the empty space and cause crooked and/or crowded adult teeth. Starting infants with good oral care can help protect their teeth for decades to come.

As your child grows, your Frisco family dentist will introduce and reinforce important treatments and habits for preventing decay, tooth loss and gingivitis. Preventative dental exams, teeth cleaning and fluoride treatments are important tools used to maintain good dental health throughout your child’s life. As their permanent teeth grow in, we offer dental sealants and sports mouth guards to protect them.

Starting dental visits at an early age will allow your child to become comfortable with the dentist. The staff at Millennium Smiles will take the time to teach your child how to properly brush and floss their teeth.

Millennium Smiles, serving Frisco and Little Elm, provides dental services for your growing family to keep everyone smiling! Schedule your child’s appointment to start their lifelong dental care!

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