Category: Oral Hygiene

Blog posts and articles about oral hygiene and looking after your mouth to ensure you have teeth and gums which are healthy

Helping Harrow prevent tooth decay

Dr Nishan Dixit

Dr Nishan Dixit

Dr Nishan Dixit is the founder and principal dentist of Blue Court Dental. Patients enjoy his relaxed, friendly and gentle approach while experiencing his meticulous attention to detail. He has a special interest in providing smile makeovers, natural-looking white fillings and cosmetic braces, but also provides a range of treatments from preventative and general dental care to complex dental rehabilitation.
Dr Nishan Dixit

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Preventing tooth decay is a major part of the work of any dental practice. Tooth decay can cause problems with the aesthetics of your smile, pain,  tooth loss and subsequent problems with your bite if the whole tooth all parts of the tooth are lost due to the tooth decay.

How to detect tooth decay

Detecting tooth decay there is done with a visual examination of your teeth, however a very common part of your tooth  to become affected by decay is the contact point between each tooth. This area is not so easy to keep clean with regular toothbrushing, and is more prone to bacteria buildup and therefore tooth decay. Your dentist in the Harrow area will take x-rays to view this area between your teeth, to see if there has been any form of tooth decay.

Preventing tooth decay.

One of the best ways of preventing tooth decay is to ensure that you clean your teeth properly each day. Regular brushing with an electric toothbrush, flossing with either take or floss and then a quality fluoride mouth rinse will ensure that your chances of tooth decay arising are lowered.

As tooth decay often happens in the areas between your teeth, we also recommend visiting your dentist at least every six months. Doing this allows your dentist to monitor any areas where tooth decay may be taking hold, and then to decide if remedial treatment to prevent the decay from worsening is required. If you do not visit your dentist, you will not be able to see this progression of decay in your tooth possibly until you are faced with a great deal of pain. It may then be too late to save the tooth!

Dental hygiene and tooth decay.

Within each dental practice there are specially trained people to look after various aspects of your dentistry needs. This dental practice in Harrow uses a dental hygienist to ensure that your teeth are adequately cleaned and that your oral health care routine is such that tooth decay is much less able to take hold. Visiting the dental hygienist is a vital an integral part of preventing tooth decay health. and ensuring that you keep your teeth fit and healthy for life..

Blue court dental practice is keen to ensure that the people of Harrow have the least amount of tooth decay possible, and so all patients are recommended to our dental hygienist to help maintain your oral and dental health.

The sugar factor…

Dr Nishan Dixit

Dr Nishan Dixit

Dr Nishan Dixit is the founder and principal dentist of Blue Court Dental. Patients enjoy his relaxed, friendly and gentle approach while experiencing his meticulous attention to detail. He has a special interest in providing smile makeovers, natural-looking white fillings and cosmetic braces, but also provides a range of treatments from preventative and general dental care to complex dental rehabilitation.
Dr Nishan Dixit

Latest posts by Dr Nishan Dixit (see all)

To help keep your teeth healthy, it is advised that you eat only three or four times a day, avoiding the temptation to snack in between – and if you must snack, then choose something that has no or minimal amounts of sugar in it, such as cheese, nuts, raw vegetables or breadsticks.

This is because every time you eat or drink something with sugar, the bacteria in your mouth reacts with the sugar which produces acid that attacks your teeth.  If these attacks happen too often, your teeth will suffer decay.

In addition, you should avoid acidic or fizzy drinks, as these can cause tooth erosion, where the hard outer coating (enamel) of your teeth is gradually worn away by repeated acid attacks.

If you must eat or drink sweet stuff, either ensure it is sugar free ( low sugar or no added sugar still contains sugar!), or indulge less often – at or immediately after mealtimes is ideal.  You can also chew sugar-free gum with xylitol after eating or drinking to help boost saliva production and neutralise decay.

Below you can see a couple of pictures of common snacks and drinks with their equivalent sugar content.

 

Are your gums healthy

Dr Nishan Dixit

Dr Nishan Dixit

Dr Nishan Dixit is the founder and principal dentist of Blue Court Dental. Patients enjoy his relaxed, friendly and gentle approach while experiencing his meticulous attention to detail. He has a special interest in providing smile makeovers, natural-looking white fillings and cosmetic braces, but also provides a range of treatments from preventative and general dental care to complex dental rehabilitation.
Dr Nishan Dixit

Latest posts by Dr Nishan Dixit (see all)

Gum infections are the most common cause of adult tooth loss but often go unnoticed as they progress without pain.  However, the following are warning signs that shouldn’t be ignored:

  • Gums that bleed when brushing/flossing
  • Bad breath or bad tastes in the mouth
  • Loosening of teeth
  • Loss of teeth
  • Gums that are red, swollen, or tender
  • Gum recession
  • Teeth that drift from their original position

In order to prevent gum disease and keep your teeth and gums healthy, we advise:

Brush your teeth twice a day with fluoride toothpaste, especially at bedtime.  You should clean them for 2 minutes, making sure you brush every surface of each tooth – be thorough but not forceful as you can cause damage to your teeth and gums.

Make sure youclean between your teeth and under your gumline.  We advise you on the best method for your teeth.

Eat a healthy diet.  In particular, don’t eat too much sugar, and dont consume sugary foods or drinks too often – we recommend limiting sugar intake to mealtimes only.

Don’t smoke! Smoking has a particulary damaging effect on your oral health.  Smokers are four times as likely to suffer gum disease ( the biggest cause of tooth loss among UK adults ).

Visit the practice regulary so we can check your mouth for signs of potential problems and treat them early.  Having your teeth professionally cleaned by us also helps protect you from gum disease by removing any hardened plaque and flushing away plaque bio-films.

If you are overdue for a check-up or have any concerns, please give us a call and book an appointment, and let us help you to enjoy healthy teeth and gums for life!

Mercury Amalgam Removal

Dr Nishan Dixit

Dr Nishan Dixit

Dr Nishan Dixit is the founder and principal dentist of Blue Court Dental. Patients enjoy his relaxed, friendly and gentle approach while experiencing his meticulous attention to detail. He has a special interest in providing smile makeovers, natural-looking white fillings and cosmetic braces, but also provides a range of treatments from preventative and general dental care to complex dental rehabilitation.
Dr Nishan Dixit

Latest posts by Dr Nishan Dixit (see all)

A routine treatment for dental decay is to use fill the area with an amalgam filling. But what is decay?

Using higher magnification and powerful lighting, it is easier to detect decay at an early stage to prevent excessive tooth damage. When cavities are small, they are much easier and less expensive to treat.

Early tooth decay does not tend to show many physical signs. Sometimes the tooth looks healthy, but we may be able to see from an x-ray whether you have any decay under the enamel, any possible infections in the roots, or any bone loss around the tooth.

If the decay is not too serious, our cosmetic dentist will remove all the decay and restore the tooth with a white (tooth coloured) filling.

We can also safely replace silver amalgam fillings with white tooth coloured fillings. Here’s a video that shows this process and the possible results:

Click to watch on YouTube







Dr Nishan Dixit

Find out how to go keep your teeth fresh and healthy for life.

Grab your free guide to life long dental health here…

Dr Nishan Dixit BDS (Lond) 1994 ,LDS RCS (ENG) 1994 GDC Reg No. 70208



What do Gum Disease and Whoopi Goldberg have in common?

Dr Nishan Dixit

Dr Nishan Dixit

Dr Nishan Dixit is the founder and principal dentist of Blue Court Dental. Patients enjoy his relaxed, friendly and gentle approach while experiencing his meticulous attention to detail. He has a special interest in providing smile makeovers, natural-looking white fillings and cosmetic braces, but also provides a range of treatments from preventative and general dental care to complex dental rehabilitation.
Dr Nishan Dixit

Latest posts by Dr Nishan Dixit (see all)

Gum disease can progress painlessly on the whole which means you might not notice the damage it is causing to your gums and bone.

However, active bacteria can make your gums quite sore which can lead to gum abscesses. If Gum Disease is not treated over a number of years, the bone supporting the teeth can be lost. If the disease is left untreated for a long time, treatment can become more difficult.

There are now also links between gum disease and your overall health, as Whoopi Goldberg discusses in this videoi

If you can’t see the video above, click here to watch on YouTube.

To help you keep your body, teeth and gums healthy I’ve also written a free guide on the subject – you can download your free copy here.

Brushing with poor oral health

Dr Nishan Dixit

Dr Nishan Dixit

Dr Nishan Dixit is the founder and principal dentist of Blue Court Dental. Patients enjoy his relaxed, friendly and gentle approach while experiencing his meticulous attention to detail. He has a special interest in providing smile makeovers, natural-looking white fillings and cosmetic braces, but also provides a range of treatments from preventative and general dental care to complex dental rehabilitation.
Dr Nishan Dixit

Latest posts by Dr Nishan Dixit (see all)

Nearly half the population regularly fails to brush its teeth before bedtime, according to a survey for National Smile Month. The research carried out by the British Dental Health Foundation (BDHF) earlier this year, found that more than a third of men and almost 60 per cent of women questioned did not always brush their teeth before bedtime. A small number of those questioned, just 11 per cent, said they regulary skipped brushing in the morning.