This New Year, Resolve to Floss

Each year, people across America make resolutions on New Year’s Eve. Many of those resolutions have to do with some aspect of health. But while people often focus on weight loss or incorporating more exercise into their life, they overlook one small thing they could do each day to prolong their life – flossing!

Flossing takes just minutes per day and is an effective way to help ward off a myriad of diseases. So why don’t more people floss each day? Research shows that roughly 20 percent of men and 10 percent of women floss each day. The top reason that people cite for not flossing is being too lazy.

The problem with not flossing each day is that, when you don’t floss, you miss cleaning about 40 percent of your tooth surface. It would be much like watching the palms of your hands but never cleaning your fingers! By skipping the flossing routine, you are giving plaque the perfect breeding ground.

Oral health aside, flossing regularly is also believed to help keep your heart healthy. That’s because the bacteria that flourish between your teeth can make their way to your blood stream and, ultimately, to your heart, which can lead to clogging and inflammation.

So, in 2011, make it a resolution to floss every day. If you do it daily for a month, it will forever be a habit. You won’t want to go a day without doing it. Simply make it a daily part of your hygiene routine. Your mouth and heart will benefit!

If you have questions about flossing, or other dental issues, contact us at Guerra Dental. Many people in the Colorado Springs area turn to Dr. Guerra for all their dental care needs. We specialize in providing both general dentistry and cosmetic dentistry care.

Root Canals Just as Effective as Dental Implants

Root Canals Just as Effective as Dental Implants
Dr. Guerra Recommends Saving Natural Teeth When Possible

For Patients torn between the best way to treat a compromised tooth, the choice just got clearer. A recent systematic review comparing two of the most common treatment options- root canals and implants- found virtually equal success, or survival rates, between both treatments. However, despite this similarity, it was concluded that the priority should always be to preserve the natural tooth before extracting and replacing with an implant. Root canal treatment saves more than 17 million teeth a year.
The results of the treatment analysis were published by The International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Implants, the official publication of the Academy of Osseo integration, an organization committed to advancing dental implants. The Academy also published a consensus statement developed by experts from several dental disciplines that supports the comparison’s findings and stresses the importance of patient-specific considerations.
There are several notable differences between the two procedures. Dental implants require extracting the tooth followed by surgery to insert a metal post in the jaw and affix a porcelain crown to the post. This procedure can take three or more visits to complete and can be timely and costly. During root canal treatment, the source of tooth pain- inflamed pulp- is removed and the inside of the tooth is then cleaned, filled and sealed. In Dr. Guerra’s office, most root canals can be completed in one visit and are virtually painless.