Is Diabetes Jeopardizing Your Oral Health?

Good oral health is crucial for people living with diabetes.

Millions of Americans are affected each year by this disease. But how can diabetes affect your oral health? Diabetes can cause serious health complications, including heart disease, blindness, kidney failure and lower extremity amputations, and it is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. Some classic signs of diabetes are excessive appetite, excessive thirst, and excessive urination, but the condition may also cause weight loss, irritability, drowsiness, and fatigue. Diabetes, as well as any other medical condition, should be reported to your dentist so that proper care can be delivered.

Uncontrolled diabetes can lead to a number of dental complications because the high glucose levels in saliva may help bacteria thrive in the mouth. Diabetes also reduces the body’s resistance to infection, and the body’s tissues, including the gums, are likely to be affected. The most common and potentially harmful oral health problems associated with diabetes are gingivitis, Periodontitis and rapid loss of the bone that supports the teeth. According to the American Dental Association Periodontitis is often linked to the control of diabetes. Patients who have inadequate blood sugar control appear to develop Periodontitis more often and with greater severity. These patients also lose more teeth than patients who have good control of their diabetes.

Patients with poorly controlled diabetes are at an increased risk of other complications, such as infections and reduced healing. This may make it necessary for them to take antibiotics prior to certain dental procedures including oral surgery – it is important to consult with your dentist if you take insulin.

So, if you have diabetes, make sure you take care of your teeth and gums. You may require more frequent visits to the dentist and more rigorous follow-up treatment to ensure optimum dental health. To offset the greater risk of gingival and periodontal problems, it is vital to control your blood glucose levels and to brush and floss daily. Finally, seek regular dental care to help keep your mouth healthy and to obtain advice on how to manage your diabetes.

Yours in good dental health,

Jeffrey Corbett, DDS

Worried About Braces?

You may have good reason to be worried! More than 50% of children have one or more problems with their teeth or jaws. Typical trouble includes front teeth that protrude because of thumb-sucking or prolonged bottle use, spaces between teeth, badly aligned bites, clicking jaws, and crowded or missing teeth. However, even though not all problems can be prevented, they can all be corrected. The key is early orthodontic care. Between the ages of five and ten, permanent teeth begin to appear, and bones and muscles develop rapidly. This is when we can best influence growth to create the best bite. We can actually prevent some problems from ever developing. That’s why it’s important to bring your child in for a first dental evaluation early. We can do a thorough check.

In recent years, the dental profession has realized that many bite problems can be recognized and treated earlier than was once thought...proving that expensive and lengthy orthodontic treatment in teen years can be avoided by taking early preventive steps when the child is young. The idea is to create an ideal setting for adult teeth to grow into. At North Shore Smiles, we believe in a health centered approach by helping to guide the growth of your child’s jaws. I have completed extensive research and study on craniofacial growth and development. Our staff is committed to the prevention and treatment of malocclusions, or “bad bites” through non-intrusive retraining of the oral musculature and elimination of bad oral habits. We welcome you to call our office at 781-592-9779 to arrange a free consultation or get a second opinion for your child’s orthodontic needs.

Mouth Breathing: Why it can be Detrimental to Your Child’s Health and Facial Growth

Mouth breathers are tongue thrusters and have poor tongue coordination. In tongue thrusting, the tongue pushes against the back of the teeth during swallowing. Abnormal swallowing patterns cause major problems in the cranio-facial development in children.
The nose and the mouth serve very different functions. Each nostril is innervated by five cranial nerves from a different side of the brain. Each nostril functions independently and synergistically in filtering, warming, moisturizing, dehumidifying, and smelling the air. It's like having two noses housed in one shelter. The respiratory system of carbon dioxide and oxygen exchange occurs in the alveoli of the lungs. When there is proper oxygen-carbon dioxide exchange, the blood will maintain a balanced pH. If carbon dioxide is lost too quickly, as in mouth breathing, oxygen absorption is decreased. There is a negative pressure built in the lungs, thereby decreasing the blood absorption of oxygen. Because the breathing mechanism (nerve innervations) is situated in the nose and not in the mouth, the brain thinks carbon dioxide is being lost too quickly through the nose. When the brain senses this, it will stimulate the goblet cells to produce mucous and slow the breathing.
Many dentists and orthodontists have known for years that there is a direct relationship between the degree of mouth breathing and the severity of the malocclusion in a patient. We are now beginning to realize the magnitude of health issues that are associated with incorrect breathing. Incorrect breathing has affected almost every facet of our society. Mouth breathing is a huge problem and has a major influence in the quality of our daily lives. Each of our bodies' 3,000,000,000,000 (trillion) cells need oxygen, otherwise they will die.

The Benefits of Nose Breathing
• Reduces snoring
• Corrects the tongue thrust (for orthodontic retention and prevention of poor cranio-facial development in children)
• Improves the coordination of orofacial musculatures (for speech improvement)
• Increases stamina and endurance
• Prevents over training
• Decreases mucous production
• Reduces pulse rate
• Places less stress on the heart
• Improves oxygenation of the blood

Early Detection Saves Lives

Oral cancer is not a rare disease. Approximately 37, 000 people will be diagnosed with oral cancer every year in the US. It kills one person every hour of every day and over 100 new individuals will be diagnosed with it each day. The good news is that it can often be found early in its development, through a simple, painless, and quick screening.

Who should get screened? Every adult. Oral cancer can often be caught early, even as a pre-cancer. With early detection, survival rates are high and the side effects are from treatment are at their lowest. Like other screenings
you engage in such as cervical, skin, prostate, colon and breast examinations, oral cancer screenings are an effective means of finding cancer at its early, highly curable stages. Make them part of your annual health check-ups.
What are the risk factors? There are two distinct pathways by which most people come to oral cancer. One is through the use of tobacco and alcohol, a long term historic problem and cause. The other is through exposure to the HPV16 virus (human papilloma virus version 16), a newly identified etiology, and the same one which is responsible for the vast majority of cervical cancers in women. The quickest growing segment of the oral cancer population are young, healthy, non-smokers due to the connection to this virus.

Early Indicators:• Red and/or white discolorations of the soft tissues of the mouth.
• Any sore which does not heal within 14 days.
• Hoarseness which lasts for a prolonged period of time.

Advanced Indicators:• A sensation that something is stuck in your throat.
• Numbness in the oral region.
• Difficulty in moving the jaw or tongue.
• Difficulty in swallowing.
• Ear pain which occurs on one side only
• A sore under a denture, which even after adjustment of the denture, still does not heal.
• A lump or thickening which develops in the mouth or on the neck.