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Dr. Dinah Abioro and our staff rely on digital X-rays to help us diagnose oral conditions and process images at incredibly high speeds. You can also view digital X-rays in real time while we examine your mouth with an intraoral camera and upload the images to a software program. A chairside computer monitor lets you see these images as we refine areas of concern to ensure an accurate diagnosis.

But are dental X-rays safe?

Yes! They emit 80 percent less radiation than exposure-type X-rays and provide detailed images to improve diagnosis and treatment. We can now detect dental problems in their earliest stages without subjecting you to unnecessary radiation. The amount of radiation released by digital X-rays is “negligible,” which means the amount is so small, that it can be safely disregarded.

Safe enough for children and pregnant women, digital X-rays detect microscopic pitting in tooth enamel and other abnormalities in the oral tissues that might have remained undetected with traditional X-rays. When Dr. Dinah Abioro and our staff discover dental caries in their earliest stages, we can initiate treatment measures that will effectively prevent cavity development, tooth decay, and potential tooth loss.

Patient appointment lengths are shortened with digital X-rays as well, because images are immediately viewable and do not require the exposure time associated with old-style X-rays.

How Digital X-Rays Differ from Traditional X-Rays

Instead of using cardboard-contained film, we insert a small sensing device about the size of a pen in your mouth and engage the digital X-ray machine by manually manipulating control buttons. Within seconds, images appear on the monitor that can later be stored in your file or sent to another doctor for further examination.

The increased resolution afforded by digital X-rays means that patients are able to understand the seriousness of their dental issues better, and are more inclined to follow through with procedures recommended by Dr. Dinah Abioro.

Safer, Better and Faster

For detection of cancerous tumors in their early states, digital X-ray technology offers vast improvements over film X-rays because of its cutting-edge image processing capability. Early detection of oral cancer and dental caries is the best way to prevent any type of oral health problem from exceeding the treatable stage.

If the scariest part of Halloween in Bowie is trying to figure out which treats are braces-friendly and which treats are braces-frightful, we have a fiendishly simple suggestion to help keep your brackets and wires safe from harm: ghost any treats which are chewy, crunchy, hard, or sticky!

It’s no mystery how certain candies and treats can cause trouble for your braces. The pulling effect of chewy candies like caramels can pull a bracket right off your tooth. Biting into a hard candy can break a wire. Crunchy treats can get stuck under wires and damage braces. Sticky foods pull on your wires and brackets.

Broken braces are no fun. Loose or detached brackets can be uncomfortable. Bent or broken wires can cause sores and cuts inside your mouth. Damaged braces mean extra trips to the orthodontist for repairs, and can even delay your treatment if the damage is significant or you can’t see your orthodontist right away. 

And chewy, crunchy, hard, and sticky treats have a haunting effect on your dental health as well. These foods stick to brackets and wires and can be difficult to brush or floss away. Cavity-causing bacteria feast on the sugars and food particles left behind, putting you at greater risk for cavities.

So, what specific treats should *vanish* from your candy collection this Halloween? Here are some of the most damaging to braces: 

• Chewy caramels, taffy, fruit chews, gum, and licorice
• Crunchy candied apples, caramel popcorn, peanut brittle, nuts, and popcorn balls 
• Hard and hard-shelled candies, lollipops (especially with gum centers), and jawbreakers
• Sticky gummies, jellybeans, and candy corn

But it’s not all frightful news! There are many spook-tacularly good treats which you can enjoy without putting your braces in jeopardy:

• Peanut butter cups
• Soft chocolate bars (with no nuts or caramel hiding inside!)
• Soft cupcakes
• Pudding cups
• Mint patties
• Ice cream
• Sugar-free gum (if it’s okay with Dr. Dinah Abioro and your orthodontist)

And here are a few good tricks for keeping your teeth and gums healthy, whether or not you wear braces:

• Brush and floss after treats. 
• Enjoy sweets in moderation. 
• Skip the sour candies. Acidic foods can damage tooth enamel.
• Eat treats with a meal. Eating increases saliva production, which helps neutralize acids and wash away food particles.

Don’t let a damaged bracket or wire spoil your Halloween fun. Talk to the team at Dental Land Pediatrics to learn which candies are a treat for both you and your braces and you’ll stay on the fast track to a boo-tiful, healthy smile!

First word, first step, first day of school—these firsts are milestones every parent celebrates. And one of the earliest and most precious milestones is your baby’s first real smile! 

Keep that smile beaming and healthy from infancy to young adulthood with the help of dental milestones. These breakthrough events mark significant stages in oral development, and are a great guide to understanding, protecting, and supporting your child’s path to adult oral health.

• First Tooth

The first tooth often arrives around the age of six months. And this is the time to start cavity prevention, with twice daily gentle brushing with a soft-bristled, child-sized toothbrush. Talk to Dr. Dinah Abioro or your child's pediatrician to learn how and when to brush and how much and what kind of toothpaste to use.

By the age of three, toddlers typically have all of their 20 baby teeth, and these little teeth are essential to children’s health. They help kids chew and eat, assist speech development and pronunciation, and act as placeholders so adult teeth can erupt in the proper place. Keep your child’s baby teeth their healthiest by partnering with the dental team at Dental Land Pediatrics in Bowie.

• First Visit to the Dentist

Once that first tooth has come in, or around age one, it’s time to bring your little one to the dentist for a first visit. Your pediatric dentist will do a careful exam to see if your child’s teeth and jaws are developing as they should, check the health of the teeth, and answer your questions about brushing, flossing, toothpaste, teething, pacifiers, thumb-sucking, or any other concerns. 

Why choose a pediatric dentist? Your pediatric dental team are experts at creating a “dental home,” a welcoming place which provides comforting continuity and specialized, child-oriented preventative care and treatment from infancy through the teen years.

• First Lost Tooth/First Permanent Tooth

Around age six, most children start to lose baby teeth, typically in the order in which they arrived. Losing a baby tooth is a big step for children, and might be a bit scary. You can celebrate this milestone with a visit from the Tooth Fairy, or a certificate, or a new toothbrush in your child’s favorite color. 

And as the permanent teeth come in, continue to encourage twice daily brushing and flossing, and consider proactive treatment with dental sealants. Even when children have learned to brush properly, and brush twice each day, it can be hard for kids to remove all the plaque and food particles from the grooved chewing surfaces on top of molars. That’s why molars are much more vulnerable to decay than any other teeth. 

Around the time your child’s first permanent molars erupt, the team at Dental Land Pediatrics might suggest sealants. Sealants protect the chewing surfaces of the molars from food particle and plaque buildup. This safe and invisible protective coating, usually a plastic resin, is applied in the office and typically lasts from three to five years. 

• First Orthodontic Visit

Pediatric dentists and orthodontists recommend an orthodontic examination by age seven (or earlier, if you have any concerns). At this point, children have a mix of primary and permanent teeth, allowing an orthodontist to assess tooth spacing and alignment and the way the jaws fit together. 

Your orthodontist might find no issues with your child’s teeth or bite. Or, perhaps, follow-up appointments might be scheduled to determine if and when future treatment is advisable. Sometimes, because some problems can be treated more easily when your child is young, early intervention with a fixed or removeable appliance is recommended right away. 

Having an orthodontic plan in place helps ensure that children benefit from the most effective and timely treatment at any stage of their development.

• Orthodontic Treatment

Orthodontic treatment commonly begins in early adolescence (ten to 14) when most or all of the permanent teeth have erupted. The facial and jaw bones are still growing in preteens and young teens, which makes it easier to reposition teeth and guide jaw alignment.

More treatment options are available than ever before—and today’s braces, clear aligners, smaller and more comfortable appliances, and even 3D technology make treating malocclusions and misalignments more efficient than ever before.

A healthy bite and properly aligned teeth are a foundation of lasting oral health. Orthodontic treatment helps prevent decay, gum disease, jaw pain, and even early tooth loss. And, of course, the value of your child’s increased self-confidence is impossible to overestimate!

• Wisdom Teeth

Wisdom teeth, or third molars, generally start to erupt in the late teens or early twenties and often have a harmful effect on oral health.

Erupting or impacted wisdom teeth can push neighboring teeth out of position, damage adjacent tooth roots, and cause inflammation and infection in gum and bone around the wisdom tooth. For these reasons, preventative extraction is often recommended. 

If your teen shows any symptoms of erupting or impacted wisdom teeth—irritated, swollen, or bleeding gums, bad breath, jaw pain or swelling—a visit to the dentist is in order.

As parents, you do your best to guide your child’s journey from infancy to healthy adulthood. Each dental milestone marks a new stage in your child’s oral health journey, and new ways for you to encourage and protect that oral health. Use these milestones to set your child up for a lifetime of good dental habits—and a lifetime of healthy smiles!

Sometimes the reason for a poor night’s sleep is obvious. Maybe your child watched a scary movie. Or loaded up on sugar before bed. Or can’t get to sleep after a night of computer screens or video games. Not much we can do about these problems.

Sometimes, though, the cause of your child’s sleep difficulties is dental in origin, and that is something Dr. Dinah Abioro can help with.

Teeth grinding, or bruxism, is a very common childhood dental problem. While children with this condition sleep, their jaws clench and their teeth grind against each other throughout the night. When to suspect children might suffer from bruxism? When they experience:

• Frequent headaches or facial pain
• Waking with a sore jaw, or popping or clicking jaw sounds through the day
• Teeth which are chipped, cracked, flattened, worn down, or sensitive
• Waking up tired, because grinding affects the quality of sleep
• Siblings who complain about nocturnal grinding noises, which affect the quality of their

Pain and fatigue are unpleasant enough, but there are additional serious consequences for those who suffer from bruxism. Our jaws are extremely powerful, and clenching and grinding can put hundreds of pounds on pressure on teeth and jaws over a few hours of sleep.

These forces can lead to damaged teeth and dental work, and problems with the temporomandibular joint, or TMJ, the complex hinge that allows our jaws to move up and down, back and forth, and side to side.

Clearly, prevention is clearly a much better option for a healthy smile. And one of the simplest and most effective treatments for preventing the damage caused by bruxism is a night guard.

Night guards fit over the affected teeth to prevent them from touching directly, saving tooth and enamel from injury and wear. Not only do night guards prevent contact, they spread the biting forces of the jaw over the surface of the guard to greatly reduce their impact. And because they also stop the jaw muscles from clenching tightly, there’s no excess stress placed on the temporomandibular joint.

For all these reasons, a night guard is pretty much a slam dunk for adults who grind their teeth. But for children, it’s not necessarily an automatic decision. Why?

• If tooth grinding is mild and appears to be limited to baby teeth, children often outgrow the condition. Your dentist can let you know if you need to do more than monitor the situation.
• Sometimes it seems like your child’s smile changes from day to day. Between losing baby teeth and erupting adult teeth, this beautiful smile is a work in progress. A fitted night guard might not be a perfect fit while your child’s teeth are still coming in and shifting position.
• Finally, jaw and facial pain can also be caused by problems with your child’s bite or misaligned teeth, and that might mean that an orthodontic consultation is in order.

But if you suspect your child is suffering the effects of night time grinding and clenching, give our Bowie office a call. A thorough examination will provide you with the best diagnosis and solutions for helping your child retain a healthy smile and regain a healthy night’s sleep.

And if a night guard is recommended, a dental professional is the best person to see for the most effective night guard.

While over-the-counter products are available, a custom night guard is designed to fit your child’s individual teeth and mouth perfectly. Impressions or 3D scans are taken in the office, and a guard is fabricated with the precise shape, strength, and thickness needed to protect young teeth. And, as a bonus, custom night guards offer the most comfortable fit for the most comfortable night’s sleep.

Scary movies, a late night sugar rush, mesmerizing video screens—not much we can do about those! But if your child is suffering lost sleep and painful mornings because of tooth grinding, give us a call. A night guard just might be the key to sweet dreams.