Dental Blog for Charlotte NC Dentist

Kids Tooth Tip #2: Electric Toothbrushes Rule

So last week I posted the first of my Kids Tooth Tips, and Tip #1 was this: Help Your Child Brush His/Her Teeth Until Age 10. The simple reason for this was that kids usually lack the hand-eye coordination and manual dexterity to do a good job all on their own. We all wish they could do it on their own, but for all intents and purposes, they just can’t. It’s not their fault – they just haven’t developed enough yet. And yes, I certainly found this with my own daughter, and heck, if a dentist’s own daughter has trouble…..ANYONE’S kid can have trouble alone. Electric Toothbrushes are DA BOMB for All Ages While this article is mostly intended for kids, I’m a huge believer in electric toothbrushes for everyone. And while most electric toothbrushes work fine, my personal recommendation is the Sonicare Electric Toothbrush, both for kids and adults. Here’s why: […]

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By Charles Payet| 2017-06-09T20:32:25-04:00 June 18th, 2014|Family dentistry, Taking Care of Your Teeth|0 Comments

Easy Tips to Clean Your Kids Teeth

So not too long ago, I posed this question on Google+ to a number of "Mommy Bloggers." What Do Mom's Want to Know About Dentistry? One of the questions was from Jennifer Daugherty, who asked: Is it a big deal if a child uses an adult toothbrush? Two more questions were asked by Sherrill Duce: Is there a difference between regular toothpaste and the bubblegum flavored kids toothpaste? At what age should you start them flossing? So I put my writing cap on and decided that I should start a series of posts about a really important, but apparently not well-addressed, set of questions: How To Take Care of Your Kids' Teeth And with no further ado, I introduce to you my new series: Kids' Tooth Tips. In this series (no idea how many there will be - the more questions I get asked, the more I'll do!), I'll pick one important tip you can use to keep your children cavity-free. This may take the form of any one of the following: Myth-busting Recommended products Recommended techniques Video demonstrations with my 7 year old daughter, Elizabeth (shown here with me) Important questions to ask your dentist Anything else I can think of :-) Kid's Tooth Tip #1: Help Your Child Until Age 10 This is one that actually surprised me when I learned in last year - when my own daughter was nearly 7. My wife and I had been letting Elizabeth pretty much do her own brushing for a least a year, mostly focusing on making sure that she was brushing long enough to do a good job. However, in discussions with a pediatric dentist colleague, I learned this was NOT [...]

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By Charles Payet| 2017-06-09T20:32:34-04:00 June 2nd, 2014|Taking Care of Your Teeth|0 Comments

Whom Do You Trust? Why? Do You Trust Your Dentist?

Before you sit down to read, might I suggest a strong cup of coffee and a favorite snack? I'm about to take you on a journey like Alice in Wonderland, and you'll want to be well fortified for the journey in a discussion of trust, authority, and reputation as it relates to how you choose a dentist (and maybe a few other things in life, too......). BTW - I do strongly suggest you follow the links scattered throughout the article, as each will go into more detail on whatever point I'm making. It helps keep this particular article from becoming a book :-) Inspiration for A Trip Down the Rabbit Hole I'm waxing a little philosophical today, rather than the more purely scientific tone of several recent blog posts such as my last one on the difference between real medicine and holistic "alternatives". This journey is one inspired by several books and people with which, and whom, I've been engaged over the last 6-8 months. First I'll give you a quick list, and then I'm going to dive deep down the hole. Are you ready? Google Semantic Search by David Amerland Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman And me, Dr. Charles Payet, in several blog posts over the past few years Whom Do You Trust? This may seem like a relatively simple question, but if you'll ponder for a moment, really think about whom you trust. Your teachers? Boss? Doctor? Friends? Facebook "friends" whom you've never met? Celebrities? Newscasters? Church? Government? It's a given that, in any one of those groups, you will trust some of them, but not all of them, and of the ones you trust, there are different degrees of trust. Some you'd trust [...]

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By Charles Payet| 2017-06-09T20:32:51-04:00 May 16th, 2014|Dental Philosophy of Care|0 Comments

Holistic, Alternative Medicine is Usually Wrong

As a general rule, when I'm writing for our dental blog, I try to keep my personal feelings out of it; "....just the facts, ma'am," as it were. But when it comes to pseudo-science and pseudo-medicine, as I discussed recently in my article Can Cavities Be Cured? and Do Silver Fillings Poison You?, it's hard to stay purely objective and informative, because it's not easy to keep my cool in the face of total BS. And today I'm going to talk about that BS a little, but I promise I'll keep my cool while doing so. BTW - I do apologize in advance to any grammar purists out there, because I'm going to use a lot of quotation marks in this article. ;-) Why Real Science Matters To be honest, I'm not really sure why people have so many problems with genuine science and research in medicine, and why they spend so much time looking for "alternative" medicine solutions. I think that is has to do with the rather normal human desires to avoid pain and to find the easiest possible solution. Heck, I don't like pain either, and I would ideally like the easiest possible solution, too, but the problem is, in medicine and science, those usually aren't how things work. The foundational principles of science are simple yet profound: It must be measurable It must be testable It must be repeatable It must be falsifiable (this is really a critical one that is often misunderstood). This means that there must be a way to determine if it's false or incorrect. In other words, if you can't consistently do the exact same thing and get the exact same results, then you falsified it - you proved the idea was wrong. [...]

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By Charles Payet| 2017-06-09T20:32:54-04:00 April 29th, 2014|Dental Philosophy of Care, Holistic dentist|0 Comments

Google+ Is BETTER Than Facebook

Perhaps you've heard the rumors about the demise of Google+ once again? If so, I'm not terribly surprised, because sadly, there's no law in place that requires that reporters actually check their facts or report accurately, as was the case with TechCrunch's article this week titled boringly, Google+ is Walking Dead. I'm not going to bother putting a hyperlink, because it's such tabloid journalism, it doesn't really deserve to be called journalism at all, and it certainly doesn't deserve a link. Yes yes, I know......all your friends and family are on Facebook. Heck, we have a Facebook Page, too: TheCharlotteDentist. But you know what? You've probably never seen anything posted on it, and you know why? Ok, well one reason is that I don't post on it much anymore, but the reason for THAT is very simple: Facebook's algorithms currently mean that no matter what I post there, only 2-3% of you will ever see it unless I pay to "Promote" that post. Seriously! 2-3 % - that's it. So if someone can tell me why I should bother posting anything, since only 2-3% of you will see it unless I pay for you to see it, I'm interested to hear. My last post? NINE (9) people saw it out of 300. Yeesh! For businesses, you'd think Facebook is the ghost town. Why Google+ is AWESOME The Huffington Post ran an article the other day about why G+ isn't so bad. Personally, I agree with my G+ friend Dustin W. Stout that HuffPost actually should have called it 12 Reasons Why Google+ is Awesome. Since the author, Matthew Rappaport, actually uses Google+ (unlike the author of that useless TechCrunch article, who last posted to G+ in mid-2012), so he [...]

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By Charles Payet| 2017-06-09T20:32:58-04:00 April 27th, 2014|ANNOUNCEMENTS|0 Comments

Six Month Braces Give You Straight Teeth Fast

If there’s a common theme to most of the adult patients who come see us to learn about Powerprox Six Month Braces Technique, which we’ve been using with great results for over 10 years now, it’s this: “I want a straight smile, but I really don’t want to wear braces for 2-3 years!” Patients Love Six Month Braces – Seriously Most of the time, patients don’t like to see the dentist. However, if there’s one procedure they actually WANT to come see us for, hands-down, it is Six Month Braces. And if there’s one thing that we LOVE to do for our patients, it’s to make that dream come true. We had a patient in today, who started his braces on January 15th, 2014, so just barely over 3 months ago, and you can see how quickly he’s almost finished. We anticipate finishing him in just 6-8 more weeks, so he’ll actually be done FASTER than six months. It was fun showing him his “Before” photo today, and he’d already forgotten just how crooked those lower eye teeth were. […]

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By Charles Payet| 2017-06-09T20:33:04-04:00 April 22nd, 2014|Cosmetic dentistry, Six-Month Braces|0 Comments

Who Else Hates Daylight Savings Time?

Seriously - can someone tell me why we continue to inflict this pain and suffering on our country year after year? And if you have young children, you REALLY know what I'm talking about, don't you? Trying to drag your 7yo daughter out of bed at 6:30am every day for school is hard enough, but now you have to do it when their bodies think it's only 5:30am. I found this meme in my Google+ Stream, and as a Princess Bride fan, thought it absolutely perfectly appropriate!

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By Charles Payet| 2017-06-09T20:33:07-04:00 March 11th, 2014|ANNOUNCEMENTS|0 Comments

Laser Cosmetic Dentistry: Fixing a Gummy Smile

As I discussed in my last post about Cosmetic Dentistry: Invisalign and a Dental Implant, you don’t always need teeth whitening or porcelain veneers to make a smile more beautiful, nor does it have super expensive, take a long time, or require drilling on your teeth. Sometimes, cosmetic dentistry can be as simple as fixing a gummy smile with laser dentistry. Gummy Smiles Don’t Need Veneers – They Need Less Gums! This is honestly one of my favorite kinds of cosmetic dental treatment, but it’s one that many dentists aren’t aware can be done so easily. I wrote about another one of our patients, who still comes in for her check-ups every 6 months like clockwork for the last 5 years), and her Cosmetic Gum Lift, back in 2009. She still can’t believe just how much of a difference it made, and this young lady now feels much the same way. […]

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By Charles Payet| 2017-06-09T20:33:09-04:00 March 6th, 2014|Cosmetic dentistry, Laser Dentistry|0 Comments

Cosmetic Dentistry: Invisalign and a Dental Implant

In cosmetic dentistry, matching a single front crown or veneer to the natural teeth around it is considered the single most difficult cosmetic challenge there is. And when that crown is on a dental implant, it's even harder. This is when you want a dentist with lots of experience to put together the right plan and the right team for the best possible result. Here at Smiles by Payet Family Dentistry, that's exactly what you'll find, and here's a perfect example of how it can be done. A Smile Makeover in Stages When Griffin first came to us in 2011, his main concern was to replace his missing front tooth. While we could have finished his case fairly quickly with a dental bridge, or even with just the dental implant and crown, there were a couple other things about his smile that could be improved, too. The spacing wasn't ideal, and the teeth on the left side were slanted wrong; if we'd left them as is, it would have been almost impossible to change after the implant. While a dental bridge could have fixed those concerns, Griffin wisely avoided that choice because the neighboring teeth were perfectly healthy, and there was no good reason to drill on them. The final plan for Griffin was as follows: Invisalign to straighten his teeth and fix some minor bite issues Bone grafting since there wasn't enough for the implant The dental implant Teeth Whitening Final dental crown Step 1: Invisalign and the Implant The Invisalign treatment was fairly minor and took less than 6 months. Next we referred him to Dr. Mehul Gadhia of PerioCare Carolinas for the bone augmentation; after the necessary 3 months of healing, a [...]

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By Charles Payet| 2017-06-09T20:33:12-04:00 March 4th, 2014|Cosmetic dentistry, Dental implant(s), Invisalign|0 Comments

Do You Need a Crown on a Cracked Tooth?

We recently had a new patient see us with no tooth complaints, she just needed a check up and wanted to discuss her headaches to see if we could help. During her exam, I noticed that several of her molars were severely worn down (which she already knew about) and had cracks visible. We didn’t take photos at her appointment (should have!) to show her, but she seemed comfortable with my recommendation of doing crowns on those 4 teeth to catch and contain the cracks before the teeth break. Since she decided on a second opinion for those teeth, which I fully respect, I decided this is a good opportunity to review cracks in teeth, and what (if anything) to do about them. Tooth Cracks Don’t Show Up on X-Rays One difficulty with diagnosing cracks in teeth, is that they almost never show up on x-rays. Why, you ask? Good question! It’s because x-rays are traveling perpendicular to the cracks, and the cracks are so narrow, there’s not enough change in the tooth density for the x-rays to show it. To show up on an x-ray, a crack in a tooth would have to be so wide, you could stick a fork in it, and then you’d already know there was a problem. The x-ray shown here is from another patient we recently treated, and while you can’t see anything on the x-ray, want until you see how it looked inside the tooth (on below). […]

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By Charles Payet| 2017-06-09T20:33:15-04:00 February 27th, 2014|Bruxism & Parafunction, Cracked tooth, Family dentistry|0 Comments