Category Archives: Blog

Is Gum Disease Linked to Pancreatic Cancer?

Since your mouth serves as the gateway to the rest of your body, poor oral hygiene can manifest in ways that go far beyond tooth decay or gingivitis. Bad dental health can cause a long list of diseases elsewhere in your body, one of which may be pancreatic cancer.

This information is coming from a research team at the Harvard School of Public Health. According to their study, there is evidence that gum disease may be linked to pancreatic cancer. Specifically, there appears to be a relationship between the cancer and a form of gum disease known as periodontitis. This is the form of gum disease that afflicts the tissues supporting your teeth and leads to a loss of bone structure in your jaw. The group’s study indicated that men with a history of periodontitis were 64% more likely to develop malignant growths in the pancreas, compared to men who never had such gum disease. It remains whether this represents causation or correlation.

In either case, you can’t go wrong maintaining good oral health. Contact our South Seattle dentist to schedule your regular check up today.

Crown Problems

If you have a crown on your tooth, you may periodically run into certain problems. Perhaps your crown hasn’t been properly fitted to your natural tooth structure, or maybe you have suffered some degree of decay or similar wear and tear that has compromised the integrity of your fixture. Fortunately, most problems with crowns are fairly easy to remedy.

One of the more common problems is sensitivity on the crowned tooth. You may only need to brush with a toothpaste designed for sensitive teeth. If your pain is limited to when you bite down, the problem may be that your crown is fitted too high up, and you should alert your dentist.

If your crown comes loose or falls off, you will want to bring it to your dentist as soon as possible. The delicate insides of your tooth are now fully exposed, inviting serious decay. If you cannot get to your dentist in short order, clean off your tooth and the crown and replace it with temporary tooth cement.

Is Your Tea Giving You Throat Cancer?

You’ve probably read a lot about the benefits of drinking tea. Indeed, most types of tea boast a long list of valuable health benefits. Knowing this, it will probably come as a surprise that you may also be increasing your risks of throat cancer with your daily tea time.

This information is coming to us from a study on esophageal cancer patients. It was found that those who claimed to regularly drink more than a liter of hot tea were more likely to suffer from the disease. The culprit appears to be the high temperature of the drink, which harms the delicate tissues of your throat and puts you at risk of developing malignant growths.

If you like drinking tea, there’s no reason that you can’t enjoy its benefits and simultaneously avoiding an increased cancer risk. All you need to do is watch the temperature of what you drink. Tea of above sixty five degrees is responsible for giving you an substantially higher risk, and tea over seventy degrees is even worse. To get your tea into the safe level, allow it to sit for at least four minutes after the water is done boiling. Meanwhile, be sure to have your regular checkups with 6th Avenue Dentistry in the South Seattle district to watch out for harmful developments in your mouth and throat.

Do I Need a Wisdom Tooth Extraction?

Not everybody needs to have their wisdom teeth extracted. Indeed, it’s not everybody who develops wisdom teeth at all. If you do develop them, they will generally erupt in early adulthood; if you don’t experience any new tooth eruptions during this period, you’re probably in the clear.

Even if you have wisdom teeth, you may not necessarily need to have them extracted. Some people are able to go their whole lives with a full set of wisdom teeth, never experiencing any special problems for them. Your wisdom teeth only need to be removed if they serve to crowd your other teeth, pushing them out of alignment or bringing about TMD’s. The average mouth is simply not big enough to accommodate wisdom teeth, but the occasional lucky individual has more space than the average person.

If our dentist determines that you require a wisdom tooth extraction, there is no reason to dread. Modern dental technology allows that such extractions are a reasonably simple and painless process. Talk to Sixth Avenue Dentistry for more information.

Warning Signs of TMD

Many people overlook the importance of their jawbone as it relates to their oral health. The two are very closely related, with problems in one often leading to problems in the other. This is why it is important to watch out for the warning signs of temporomandibular disorders, commonly known as TMD’s. TMD’s come in the form of a wide range of irregularities in the jaw bone, the warning signs of which can include any of the following:

  • Pain or tenderness in the area of your face, mandibular joint, neck, or shoulders, particularly when you are exercising your jaw
  • Bruxism, or tooth grinding
  • A decreased ability to open the mouth wide
  • Your jaw occasionally locks into position
  • Clicking, popping, or grating in the jaw joint when you open or close your mouth
  • Tired facial muscles
  • Dizziness
  • Toothaches
  • Headaches
  • Swelling on either side of your face
  • A change in the way your teeth fit together
  • 2828Earaches, tinnitus, or similar hearing problems

If you have reason to believe that you might have a TMD, consult our dentist at Sixth Avenue Dentistry.