Toothbrush Care

Brushing your teeth plays an important everyday role for personal oral hygiene and effective plaque removal. You may not give much thought to cleaning your toothbrush; however appropriate toothbrush care and maintenance are important considerations for oral hygiene. At the dental practice of Dr. Dipika Shah, DDS, we want you to know how and when to replace, clean, and store your toothbrush.

The American Dental Association recommends replacing your toothbrush approximately every three to four months or sooner if bristles are frayed. However, toothbrushes will wear out more rapidly depending on factors unique to each patient. It is also important to never share a toothbrush because this practice could be a concern for people with compromised immune systems or existing infectious diseases. If your toothbrush comes in contact with another, thoroughly rinse the brush with warm tap water to remove any remaining toothbrush and debris. When you are done using the toothbrush, store it in an upright position and allow the toothbrush to air-dry until used again.

If you have further questions regarding toothbrush care, give us a call. To learn more about the services we provide at the practice, visit www.dentistnj.com for more information. To schedule an appointment with Dr. Dipika Shah, DDS, here in our Holmdel, NJ office, call 732-264-8180. 

Wisdom Tooth Decay

As we age, we acquire wisdom, and the same goes for wisdom teeth. Wisdom teeth appear between the ages of 17-21 and are known as the third set of molars. When they erupt correctly, healthy wisdom teeth can help you chomp your food.  However, if they start to cause you pain and discomfort, you may need to schedule a consultation with Dr. Dipika Shah, DDS, to discuss extraction.

If you bite on a piece of food that is too hard or you experience a mouth injury, wisdom teeth may become troublesome. They can also become cracked, broken, and decayed. Decay can form on any tooth surface, but when the decay begins to attack the wisdom teeth, depending on the position of the tooth it becomes difficult to clean. Depending on the individual case, Dr. Shah may be able to fill the tooth, but even in cases where a filling could be successfully placed, if the wisdom tooth cannot be adequately maintained, recurrent decay can occur. Though many patients tend to procrastinate through the process, extraction may be the  best route to avoid infection.

If your wisdom teeth are still intact and you have questions about removal, please give us a call. To learn more about the services we provide at the practice, visit www.dentistnj.com for more information. To schedule an appointment with Dr. Dipika Shah, DDS, here in our Holmdel, NJ office, call 732-264-8180. 

Mini-Implants

At Dr. Dipika Shah’s Holmdel, New Jersey practice, we perform dental implants on patients who require tooth restorations. For people who cannot receive full-size implants for medical conditions or lack of jaw bone to support regular implants, mini-implants can substitute some of the functions.

Mini-implants are titanium screws or ceramic rods used as mini implants to support missing tooth. Because of this, they can be placed without Dr. Shah needing to make incisions in the patient’s gums, reducing recovery time. Though stabilizing the jaw bone is one of the benefits of full-size implants, they also require a significant amount of jaw bone tissue to be present to fuse with. Mini-implants obviously require less, and can be placed in situations where full-size implants would be too cumbersome or lead to complications.

While full-size implants replace individual teeth, mini-implants are most commonly used to anchor dentures. People who have lost a lot of jaw bone tissue tend to have also lost a lot of teeth, and it makes more sense for all the teeth in a jaw to all be replaced at once with a less invasive procedure than to do it one-by-one in a multi-step process. Mini-implants used in this way provide a mild amount of reinforcement to the jaw bone, which could make it less likely to shift and warp the patient’s face around the dentures.

Dr. Dipika Shah, MAGD, operates at 723 North Beers Street, Suite 2F, Holmdel, New Jersey, 07733-1512. To schedule an appointment, call 732-264-8180 or visit DentistNJ.com and fill out a contact sheet.

 

Oral Cancers and HPV

As a Master in the Academy of General Dentistry, Dr. Dipika Shah has maintained an up-to-date knowledge of trends in oral health and dentistry. As such, she is concerned with recent studies finding that the rate of new oral cancer diagnoses has remained steady despite progress in educating the public about the dangers of tobacco. It is likely that the continued commonality of oral cancers, even while the frequency of most other cancers is declining, is due to a particular strain of the human papilloma virus (HPV).

While oral cancers resulting from nicotine and alcohol use are most commonly found in elderly men, cancers of the mouth and throat with HPV DNA occur most often in men between the ages of thirty and fifty. It is likely that people who are sexually active but are not smokers or heavy drinkers are unaware that they are in a high-risk group. Most HPV infections heal without the host having ever been aware of them, and HPV-related oral cancers tend to occur far back in the throat, where patients are unlikely to notice them until they are experiencing problems from tumors or lesions. However, HPV-related oral cancers are responsive to treatment if caught early, so it is greatly beneficial for younger people to undergo oral cancer screenings.

Dr. Dipika Shah, MAGD, operates at 723 North Beers Street, Suite 2F, Holmdel, New Jersey, 07733-1512. To schedule an appointment, call 732-264-8180 or visit DentistNJ.com and fill out a contact sheet.