McCarl Dental Group Blog

If you’ve always visited your dentist every six months like clockwork, you may be feeling a little nervous with your dental office closed for non-emergency care during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We want our patients to be able to maintain their optimal level of oral health at this difficult time, and we also want to protect the health and safety of every member of our community. We are hopeful that your Greenbelt dentist will be ready to see your smile for regular dental checkups soon because, as always, we believe in the essential benefits of preventive dentistry to keep smiles healthy. Until we can safely offer preventive dental appointments again, read our blog to learn some of the ways you can protect your smile with good oral hygiene at-home.

Tooth enamel erosion and wear weakens the overall structure of your smile, exposing you to an increased risk for tooth decay (cavities), dental chips and cracks, and infection in or around the tooth. In this blog, we discuss the most common causes of tooth enamel erosion and how we can help you protect and repair damaged smiles.

Conventional bridges offer a tooth replacement solution for one or a few consecutive missing teeth. However, there are several reasons that these restorations may not be ideal for every patient, including the potential for the supporting teeth to be damaged, decayed, or infected. In this blog, we’ll walk through some of the possible ways that traditional bridges can fail, how our team can repair these restorations, and what alternative restorative dentistry options are available.

Bleeding when you floss can occur for a number of reasons. You may be moving the floss a little too aggressively, which can injure the soft tissue. You may have a soft tissue sore or cut that is irritated by flossing, or you may have an infected (abscessed) tooth that is impacting your gum tissue. However, periodontal (gum) disease is, by far, the most common reason for gums to bleed while flossing. Actually, gum disease is one of the most common oral health conditions in the world, and it is the leading cause of tooth loss in U.S. adults. February is Gum Disease Awareness Month, and in this blog, we’ll take a closer look at what gum disease is, who’s at risk, and how to keep your smile whole and healthy with periodontal therapy from your trusted family dentist in Greenbelt, MD.

If you brush your teeth twice a day, floss daily, and visit your dentist for preventive dentistry appointments every six months, you’re already doing a lot to keep your smile healthy, but if you’re not using the right oral hygiene products, you still may not be doing enough to keep your smile, and whole body, healthy. The American Dental Association recommends changing toothbrushes at least once every three months to ensure the toothbrush works well and you avoid unnecessary damage to your smile. In this blog, we discuss the top five reasons it’s important to get a new toothbrush regularly.

New Year’s resolutions may actually go all the way back to the time of Julius Caesar. It makes sense that, at the beginning of a new year, we would want to start fresh with a clean slate, and while many people in the US focus resolutions on improving their health, few consider making changes to keep their smiles healthy. If you’re looking for a new year’s resolution you can keep, consider one of the following oral health related resolutions that you can start on right away.

If you’re working with a physician to get your diabetes under control, you have probably already heard about the whole body health issues that can occur due to uncontrolled blood sugar levels, including organ failure and severe infection. What many doctors neglect to tell their patients is that diabetes can also lead to numerous oral health concerns that dramatically increase risk for tooth loss. In this blog, we walk through some of the basics, but if you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes, you should talk to your dentist about how best to care for your smile.

When you visit the dentist and receive an oral exam, your dental hygienist and dentist will evaluate the health of your gums and teeth. If there are signs of gum disease, most commonly gingivitis or periodontitis, you will need a complete periodontal exam which includes evaluation of plaque, marginal bleeding, gum attachment loss or dental pockets and number of teeth present. Periodontitis is an infection caused by bacteria in the dental biofilm which leads to chronic inflammation and causes destruction of both connective tissues surrounding your teeth and resulting bone loss.

Periodontitis and other common chronic inflammatory diseases, including arthritis, share many modifiable risk factors. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease, also characterized by chronic inflammation, that is also associated with deterioration of joint connective tissue and bone.

In this blog, we explore the connection between periodontal (gum) disease or periodontitis and arthritis. Many of the lifestyle changes that improve oral health and hygiene can also improve your rheumatoid arthritis (RA).  

For decades, the link between poor oral health and heart disease has been a subject of extensive research. While even the most recent research is still inconclusive, there are some indications that maintaining your oral health could decrease risk of heart disease. In this blog, we take a closer look at how poor oral health may indicate risk for heart disease and discuss some of the warning signs your dentist may see when they look at your smile.