Dental and/or oral health (the health of your teeth, gums, tongue, jaw muscles, jaw joint, etc.) is largely influenced by our daily habits. Most of the problems that affect your mouth and jaw joints are BEHAVIORAL diseases and injuries. That means that they are PREVENTABLE if you know the right habits to use in your life. You don’t have “bad teeth.” Establishing the right HABITS for dental health EARLY IN LIFE is key. Parents have the power to empower their children to experience a lifetime of dental health. PARENTS are by far MORE IMPORTANT than dental care providers in influencing their child toward a healthy mouth lifestyle.

Pregnancy does wild stuff to the human body. Puberty was weird enough for me. I don’t know from experience, but pregnancy is almost like round two of puberty or something. On top of everything else, there’s a whole ‘nother human involved? Of course, they’re just getting geared up to experience consciousness for the first time, so that can’t be easy for them either. So yea, it’s a miracle and a mystery and all that, and surprise, surprise, just as it can change-a-roo many other areas of the body, that little mystery miracle metamorphosis can affect your teeth.

There are LOTS of potential reasons to use a night guard. There are TONS of options for what night guard to use and how long to use it. Every patient is unique and different.

When you put a guard in your mouth, it can influence four primary structures:

1. Your Teeth

2. Your Jaw Muscles

3. Your Jaw Joint

4. Your Airway

Your teeth can look the bomb.com in terms of being bright and white, but that doesn’t mean they are healthy. Therefore, let it clearly be stated: I strongly advise seeing a dentist to make sure you have a clean bill of health before whitening your teeth. You don’t have to see me. In fact, I would prefer you don’t see me. I can kinda already tell that I don’t like you. You probably smell weird.

Is it sage advice to remove your wisdom teeth, or not so much? This is a hotly debated issue within the dental community. It divides families and eviscerates friendships. You could lose a tooth getting walloped by a dentist if you blaspheme in the wrong company. Currently, most American oral surgeons strongly recommend the prophylactic (meaning pre-emptive strike; get it out of there before it causes a problem later) removal of wisdom teeth for the majority of patients. It’s sort of a right of passage in our culture. But should it be?

I’m here to protect your chompers from the tobacco and sugar industries if it’s the last thing I do. I found out about a great book that helped a bunch of degenerate comedians quit smoking, and if a bunch of no good bottom of the societal barrel low-brow “artist” degenerate comedians can quit smoking, then so can you. The author of the book is Allen Carr. He was a smoker for 33 years. He typically smoked between 60 and 100 cigarettes each day during that time. I’m not a smoker, but that seems like a lot of cigarettes to me. I think he has some credibility considering he was able to rid his life of smoking and live happily tobacco-free for 23 years.

“Floss Like a Boss” is a common catchphrase you will hear among dentists and hygienists. We’re strange people. Apparently, it is also the title of a hot new single from a Berlin-based pop star. Never be surprised by how bizarre our world is. It’s infinitely strange and full of serendipity if you’re willing to look around. She’ll even teach you how to brush your teeth. What do you need me for? There’s also this, so I don’t even know why I’m trying. The rest of the internet seems to have this covered.

If you spend any time googling “fluoride,” you will come across lots of information about how you are being lied to by people like me.¹ As a dentist, I’m a drug pusher for the corporations and the government. I want to trick you into ruining your children’s teeth with fluoride poison so that you have to pay the big bucks for me to white knight in and save the day. Maybe you’ve protested the fluoridation of the water supply in your city. “Government overreach! What’s next? Microchips in my brain to tell me to quit smoking cigarettes?!”

You’ve probably read online that you can swish coconut oil around in your mouth, and it will cure all your dental ills. No more cavities. No more gingivitis. No more bacteria. Huzzah! Just spend 10–20 minutes 3–5 times a week oil pulling (at first, I thought it was “pooling” as in a swimming pool in your mouth, oh well), and your teeth will be beautiful and perfect. No more need to listen to awful nasty dentists like me about brushing and flossing, right?

If you expose teeth to acid, they will dissolve. The surface of the teeth breaks down into little particles that erode away. The teeth lose their color and shape. If you look at many older peoples’ teeth, you will often notice they have lost their luster. They are:

• More yellow

• Shorter

• Rounded off/flattened at the edges or even chipped/cracked

• More transparent/thin looking

• Scooped out/worn/dented

What happened to those beautiful pearly whites of our youth? ACID.

Dry mouth can:

• Increase the chance you get cavities by A LOT

• Increase acidic erosion of your teeth

• Reduce taste and enjoyment of food

• Contribute to bad breath

• Cause all kinds of difficulty chewing, breaking down food, and swallowing

• Lead to mouth sores, sore tongue, sore throat, cracked and chapped lips

• Disrupt your ability to speak clearly.

• Make you susceptible to infections

• Disrupt sleep due to a lack of comfort

• Impair proper fit of your dentures

• Make it really difficult to win loogie hocking contests.

When you leave food in your mouth for bacteria to munch on, they go poo poo in your mouth after they are done eating. Bacteria are very inconsiderate, much like a newborn baby. Except they don’t have any diapers. Your mouth is their diaper. Some of the bacterial poo poo includes volatile sulfur compounds. Volatile sulfur compounds smell like rotten eggs.

There is so much effort being put into toothpaste in our world. Ready to read something wild? Here is a 2016 systemic review (that means a bunch of science folk looked at lots of studies for evidence of something) that explains that toothpaste does not enhance plaque removal. If brushing and flossing are so awesome, why even bother buying toothpaste?