March 25, 2024 • 24 mins
Evelyn Erives talks with Dr. Daniel Morgan, aka Dr. Dan, a pediatric dentist and owner of Lil Smile Builders in San Bernardino and Riverside Childrens Dentistry about the benefits of staying on top of your family's dental health.
For more information on this show's topic visit IEHP.org and to contact Dr. Dan visit LilSmileBuilders.com or RiversideChildrensDentistry.com.
Reach out to Evelyn via Instagram @evelynerives or email her at EvelynErives@iHeartMedia.com
For more information on this show's topic visit IEHP.org and to contact Dr. Dan visit LilSmileBuilders.com or RiversideChildrensDentistry.com.
Reach out to Evelyn via Instagram @evelynerives or email her at EvelynErives@iHeartMedia.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to Covering Your Health, awellness podcast dedicated to covering all areas of
living a healthy and happy lifestyle,from healthy hearts to understanding health plans and
everything in between. Each episode willprovide you with a better understanding of managing
your health, preventative care, andstaying on the right path for your family's
wellness journey. The Covering Your Healthpodcast is presented by i EhP. Now
(00:26):
your host Evelina Revez. Hey there, Yes, Evelinarivet's here, excited for
another episode of Covering Your Health withEvelina Reves, presented by my friends at
IEHP. This topic in particular todayis kind of fun because I feel like
I know a little bit about itbecause I've had children who have all had
(00:49):
these things teeth, and I myselfhave teeth as well. We're going to
talk a little bit about oral healthtoday. It actually is such an important
topic. Brushing your teeth for twominutes a day can make a huge,
huge difference. And today I'm joinedby an expert in the matter, Doctor
(01:10):
Daniel Morgan, also known as DoctorDan, a pediatric dentist and owner operator
of Little Smile Builders in San Bernardinoand a Riverside Children's Dentistry. Thank you
for joining us, doctor Dan.How are you today doing well? Evelyn?
Thank you? And I'm really excitedto be able to speak with you
and with your audience. Oh,this is going to be a ton of
(01:30):
fun. It's a topic I lovetalking to my own children about their oral
health. Every single day we'd havethis discussion. It's one of those things,
you know, did you brush yourteeth this morning? Did you brush
your teeth before bed? But beforewe get into this whole thing, I
want to know a little bit moreabout you. Tell me what made you
(01:52):
decide to go into this field.Yes, Evelyn, you know one thing
I would say is some people thinkthat dentists or pediatric dennist children's dentists have
this magic pill that we don't havethese same battles with our children. We
do, and you know, it'sa fun thing. So not only do
we get to have fun with ourpatients trying to bring about oral health with
(02:13):
them, but we also get topractice this at home as well. But
to answer your other question, asfar as worth, how I got into
dentistry and in this line of work. My sister was a trailblazer in my
family and was one of the firstpeople to go to college and became a
dental hygienist against all odds. Andshe really opened the doors and planning seats
for me. I struggled, camefrom, you know, from a simple
(02:35):
background, and she opened the doorand planted the seats to where I just
you know, and she gave methe encouragement and it built me up to
where I had enough enough encouragement fromher and enough thought and courage to say,
hey, let's just go for this. And I went for it and
became a dentist and eventually became apediatric dentist. If you come from a
(02:57):
family that maybe there's not a lotof persons or something that you're looking to
aspire to, look for somebody thatcould just provide some encouragement for you and
can maybe give you some help openthose doors to be able to get into
places, to be able to dothings that may not be as easy as
it seems. No, Yes,I love to hear that it's your sister
that did that for you, Thatwas the encouragement that gave you that and
(03:20):
inspired you. Yes, Yes,she played a big role in my upbringing.
That's that's wonderful to hear that.I love siblings. My brother and
I I feel like we're closer nowthan we were when we were younger,
but we definitely rooted for each other. We always had each other's back.
We were the biggest cheerleaders. Soit's good to have that in your own
(03:40):
family. Let's get into what we'rechatting about today, oral health. Why
is it so dang important? Youknow, that's a great question in life.
There's some diseases or health problems thatyou know, we're just genetically bound
to have, it's going to happen. But there's some things in life that
we can actually do something to preventand make a huge difference. And when
(04:02):
it comes to oral health, whenit comes to cavities, most problems that
people face are preventable, and actuallyby taking just some few easy steps,
it can actually make a huge differencein the long run as far as a
person's oral health is concerned. SoI think to myself when I go to
visit my dentist, and my dentistis he's a really great guy, and
(04:24):
he would do the mouth check andI was wondering, like what was he
looking for. He's like, oh, you know, we can find signs
of cancer, we can find differentsigns of all kinds of things. The
mouth really is the gateway to somany diseases, right, Oh, it
is. It is. You know, just as the years have gone by,
we've found and are detecting and learningmore about how oral health is impacting
(04:47):
a lot of other general health problemsthat are popping up and rising in people.
And so it is, you know, not only from just a general
health standpoint, it's really important maybeone of those foundational things that if we
can get the oral health right,it might help to get other parts of
our general health right. But anotherside of it too, is just our
oral health is huge. I mean, it's what we're eating food with.
(05:10):
You know, we use our teethto eat, We use our teeth to
smile and to engage with people andto you know, make relationships with others,
and so I mean there's just awhole lot of things that are going
on that oral health. If wecan get it right, boy, it
just makes a huge difference. Andstarting them out really young too, right,
starting those habits at an early age, Yes, it does. And
that was actually one of the reasonswhy I decided to go to pediatric demistry.
(05:32):
I was, I have been,and still I'm just a huge believer
that if we can get things startedout right at initial stages of life,
you know, when kiddos are young, when patients or people are young,
boy, we could just affect suchso tremendously the life, the trajectory,
the health of a person. Andso starting out, you know, whether
(05:53):
you're young, whether you know somebodywho's young, whether whether you don't know
somebody who's young. I mean,just taking those steps now makes such a
huge difference. I mean, weall know that most of us have heard
maybe this good old Chinese proverb when'sthe best time to plan a tree?
Well up twenty years ago, when'sthe next best time to planet tree?
(06:14):
But today today would be a goodtime. And so same thing with your
oral health, Same thing with youroral health. If you can start making
some huge differences right now, tryingto focus in on prevention, on doing
those things that are going to helpcreate good oral health, voys going to
make such a huge positive difference foryou and for others around you. Yeah,
yeah, absolutely. Let's talk aboutthose most affected by poor oral health.
(06:39):
How can they seek out help?Another great question, you know,
a lot of pretty much everybody's well, all of us, because all of
us have teeth, all of ushave malds, so we're all affected by
it. And so it doesn't matter, you know, if you are at
the you're the president of the UnitedStates, or if you're you know,
just really dealing with a lot ofchallenges in your life. Everybody deals with
(07:02):
oral health issues. But with thatbeing said, there is the higher amount
of people in lower income, lowersocioeconomic lower education, you know, maybe
not having as much access to insurance, or you're just in a geographic spot
that it's harder to find. Dennis, you know, people in those types
of situations, it is they aremore affected. You know, we are
(07:26):
seeing that there's a higher percentage ofpatients that have oral disease, oral problems,
cavities, things of that nature.You know, again, though,
wherever you're at in your life,I would say take this point home.
It doesn't matter where you're at.You can still do things that are going
to make just a positive difference foryou. So, you know, while
(07:48):
the statistics say one thing, youstill have a huge opportunity to make a
positive difference for yourself. And Iwould say those are your family and your
friends, your children. So whatwould be some of those ways that they
could prevent some of these oral issues? Good question, Good question. Maybe
the first thing that comes to mindthat I like to talk about is snacking
(08:13):
habits. You know, a lotof us love to snack, and snacking
isn't necessarily bad, but one ofthe things that we're finding is that if
we're continuously eating food throughout the day, then our potential for cavity is going
to increase. And so one ofthe things that I like to encourage others
is try to minimize the amount oftimes that you're eating food. If you
(08:35):
are going to snack, because peopledo need to snack in certain situations,
try to find yourself a snack that'shealthier. Vegetables, especially things that are
just really fibery, some nuts,maybe some string cheese. Those things wouldn't
be as bad. But typically whatI see people snacking on is maybe you
know, a diet coke, maybesome chips or crackers, things of that
(08:56):
nature, things that just have alot of sugar or carbohydrate them. And
if we're eating that consistently throughout theday and just taking a you know,
our mouth really doesn't get a break, and so that's a huge thing.
There's actually a really cool thing thatour mouth does. And again I'm just
really excited about this because our mouthhas the ability to protect itself. And
(09:18):
so if we're say, if you'reeating really frequently, we're just taking a
lot of snacks, eating our breakfast, lunch, din and all of that,
the mouth is going to have foodor sugary things in your mouth for
a long period of time. Ifwe're able to do the opposite, where
we have good breaks during the day, so we're cleaning our teeth and now
we have a clean teeth maybe forexample, from breakfast to lunchtime, no
(09:41):
food, no sugary stuff, nocarbohydrates sitting around your teeth. If we
have that break, your saliva hasa chance to come in and help remineralize
or restrengthen your teeth. And sothere's this cool process that's happening that when
you eat, your teeth starts toget weakened because of acids and sugars and
things of that nature. But aswe have breaks where there's no food,
no sugary stuff hanging out around ourteeth, are slide is able to come
(10:05):
in and restore or restrength them ourteeth, and so having some breaks within
the day is a really really goodthing. Yeah, that's cool. So
it just gets to work right awaywhen you've got that break, your mouth
is not taking a break, it'sfixing things. Yes, yes, that
is cool. So what are someof the first signs that our listeners should
be looking out for, maybe ifthey don't even realize that their oral health
(10:28):
could be deteriorating. Oh, anothergreat question. You know. One of
the thoughts that I have with thisone is, yes, there's some signs
to look out for, but ifwe're seeing our dentists really consistently, we're
going in every six months for acheckup, then really those signs that could
potentially start popping up, you andyour dentists together are able to really catch
(10:48):
those. And ideally, and ina lot of situations, we're able to
catch them when they're small. Andif we catch them when they're small,
then actually the way to fix itis much easier than if you let that
turn into something big. You know. Maybe an example that comes to mind
or a patient that I saw,I had a kiddo that was embraces or
is embraces right now, and oneof the thoughts that I've or one of
(11:09):
the things that patients will tell mewhen they're embraces, well, I'm going
to the orthodonists. The orthodontist isthe dentists, and so I'm getting my
checkup when I go in and havemy adjustments done. But really the reality
is that the orthodonists when they're takinga look at patients while they're embraces,
they're not really looking out for thegeneral health of the patients. So they're
(11:30):
not necessarily looking for cavities. They'remore looking for how can we continue to
come out with the best alignment ofthese teeth and get the best smile possible.
And so just the dynamics of howthe orthodonis's office works, they're not
set up in a way to wherethey're really able to do a good job
looking for cavities. And so evenif you're embraces, you want to keep
going into the dentist office for yourregular checkup. And the specific examples at
(11:52):
a kiddo recently that is embraces andfortunately came in for his checkup because when
we had his checkup, we tooksome X rays, some pictures of his
teeth and we're able to find atooth that was starting to move off in
a direction that it wasn't supposed to. And so if we would have said,
well, you know what, let'swait until the orthodonist is done,
or would wait longer than what we'resupposed to, we could have really really
(12:15):
ended up with a very very badsituation, a situation where this patient could
have potentially lost one or two ofhis front permanent teeth. A big deal.
Yeah, Oh my goodness. Sothat's why it's so important that you're
still doing both of you know,if you're of course looking at an orthodonist
and also going to the dentist,keeping on track of both of those situations.
(12:39):
They kind of go side by sideparallel. Yes, Evel. And
if I could bring up another exampleof something that I've seen, and I
had a patient a couple of yearsback, well, and I do see
this every once in a while,but there was a patient that I had
who was I would say, aboutone years old, which is the time
that we want kiddos to start comingin to see the dentist. And this
kiddo came in at one years old. And when the women this's baby was
(13:01):
smiling, you know, beautiful smile, pearly white teeth, everything's just looking
great. And from a parent's perspective, you know, the natural thought is,
well, everything's good. We don'tneed to go see the dentist.
So when they came in to seeus, while we're doing our check,
if I looked behind these front teeth, oh boy, there's some big,
big cavities that we that we're startingto happen on this kiddo. And so
(13:24):
we really had a great opportunity tonot only try and provide some therapeutics,
some different therapies that we have toslow down this cavity process, but we
also had a great opportunity to starttalking to mom about how we can try
and get in front of this,try to use some other things at home,
try these educating her on these differenttechniques and things that we could do
(13:48):
to help slow this cavity process down. So we can, you know,
come up with the best solution,best way we're going about fixing these teeth.
If we would have waited and wewere able actually to get these teeth
taken care of without having to usidation, without having to hold this kiddo down,
without having to really do any majorwork like putting crowns or baby root
(14:09):
canals or anything like that. Wewere able to take care of tooth these
teeth in a pretty pretty simple,straightforward away, and that was because they
came into the dentists. They sawit while it was still in a preventable
type of situation, and we wereable to do some great work. And
also, you know, the parentas well was able to take home and
just was really active in trying todo her part as well from home.
(14:31):
Yeah, if you don't know better, you're not going to be able to
do better. Right, So thatactually leads into kind of my next question
for young parents or those who arebringing their new babies that are getting their
teeth at one years old, youknow, whatever the age might be,
Let's talk about what are the thingsyou're telling the parents specifically to keep the
(14:52):
teeth pristine and not have this negativeimpact. Are there foods that they should
stay away from when they're I don'tknow, one or two years, you
know, so at that age whenthey're really young, some kitters that will
have coming in to see us,they're still nursing or they're still bottle feeding,
and so one of the things thatI'd like to do personally is I'm
a huge fan of nursing, andI believe there's a lot of benefits with
(15:16):
nursing. But when kiddles start havingteeth coming in, we want to start
changing the frequency of how they're feeding. And this goes to whether they're nursing
or whether they're bottle feeding. Wewant to start creating some bricks, just
like we were talking about earlier ofhaving breaks in between meals. One of
the things that we'll do is ifthey have teeth coming in at night time,
(15:37):
we want to start transitioning them toa period where to a point where
we're able to get them to stopnursing or to summerson to go to bed,
or if they are nursing, togo to bed, figure out a
way that we can get in thereand clean their teeth after they fall asleep.
That way, we're not allowing milk, whether it's from nursing, whether
this is from bottle feeding. Wedon't want that to sit on their teeth.
(16:00):
So this would be a huge thingthat we're talking about. Brushing and
flossing are also some huge things.Brushing I think most people know that some
parents will look at me with aconfused look in their face when I tell
them, well, your kiddo needsto start flossing, and so even at
the young age, so a oneyear old, the two year old.
One of the things that I'm lookingout for is as their teeth start coming
(16:21):
in the front teeth, because thoseare typically the first ones that are coming
in. If the teeth are reallyclose together, and you like, you
can't see between the teeth at thatpoint, even if they're six months old,
we really want to start getting inthere with floss because food and bacteria
will get stuck in between those teeth. And another thing that I'm just a
really huge fan of is some parentswill tell me, well, doctor Dan,
(16:44):
I can't get my hands inside theirmouths to floss, you know,
putting the string around my fingers.So one of the great inventions that happened
ten twenty years ago, whenever itwas, was those flosters. There's little
plastic sticks that have the floss inthe end of it. It just makes
it so much easier to get inthere and floss, even the young kittee.
Yeah, I like using those still, and I'm not a baby.
I use them as well. Yeah, those are great. I buy them
(17:07):
for my teenagers and everybody. Youknow, there's no excuse. They're so
easy. They're just so easy.I remember going to the dentist with my
little ones when they were very little, and my son loved those little goldfish
crackers and oh and I remember mydentist going, you gotta limit those,
(17:30):
and I know it's so silly,but I'm like, oh really, and
he's like, yeah, those aregetting stuck and those are creating cavities.
And I was like, okay,understood, And it made sense to me
what you were saying about the bottlethrough the night. I mean, it's
so hard right when we're taking thebabies off the bottle or off of nursing.
They want that comfort when they laydown and then they want to go
(17:51):
to sleep with their bottle. Butwhat does that mean. It means their
teeth have something on them all nightlong. So I remember that. Yes,
Evelyn, if you don't mind,There's another scenario that just came to
mind right now as you were mentionedas the goldfish. You know, there's
a lot of times that I'll haveparents do something, Oh, kieths are
looking great. How we do thecheck up. We look inside their mouth
(18:12):
and there is like a gold platesitting on top of mush, sitting on
top of those back teeth, andso you know, again whether it's whether
it's chips, whether it's goldfish.As kiddos are chewing on them, they
get stuck on those back teeth,on the molars in the back, and
so you know, but they'll goin there and they'll figure out, how
(18:33):
can I pick this out. Letme get a toothpick, Let me use
my tongue, let me try andget it out. But you know,
kiddos don't really think about that,and they'll let those foods just sit on
those back teeth, which you knoweventually just leads has a high potential of
lead into cavities. Yes, Itotally remember that too, the little gold
plate just sitting right there. Iremember also there's those cute when the babies
(18:56):
were little and they were just kindof still just mostly gummy. They have
those little brushers that you put onyour finger that you can start, you
know, getting your child ready forbrushing, you know, with those little
bristles at the end of your finger. I can't think of what they're called,
but you know what I'm talking about, right, The things you put
over your finger so that you cankind of go around your kid's mouth.
(19:17):
I feel like that made my kidswant to be able to do it themselves,
when they were able to hold theirown toothbrush and learn that way little
habits. Yes, those those toothbrushtraders are great. They're they're really really
good. And you know, evenanother little tip for parents or you know,
people who know really young kids orbabies I should say is if you
(19:38):
can get the babies started with that, you're really stimulating the gums and you're
getting them used to you. You'rekind of training them to be used to
having, you know, a toothbrushthat you'll eventually use in the future,
and so they're stimulated with that.It's not a foreign thing once you start
to get in there with the toothbrush. So it's a great thing to use
to get in there and start cleaningeven before teeth come in. So I'm
(20:00):
thinking also with that saying that we'restarting this with the little ones, of
course, we're getting them active andnot afraid to do this on their own.
What advice can you give to ourlisteners who've been putting off going to
the dentists because, let's say,busy schedules. Maybe they haven't gotten back
on tracks since COVID. I feellike a lot of people got off track
(20:21):
when COVID happened, or maybe theyhave a fear associated with a dentist.
What do you do? How doyou handle this situation? You know,
if this is a young, youngkiddo, save again a one year old,
they're probably not going to know thedifference. Am I afraid of the
dentist or not? So I wouldjust say bring them in. We have
(20:44):
some techniques that we do to helpmake things as easy as possible. We
don't expect them to do the samething that an adult would do, so
we really try to make things aseasy as possible for kiddos as they start
getting older. I would say readingthem a book. You know, a
lot of local libraries will have somedental books that you can check out,
read or just go to the youknow, go on on a weekend date
to the library and you can goread some books to them and introduce them
(21:07):
in a fun, in a safe, in a relationship building type of way
of what it's going to look liketo go to the dentist, and that
can really help calm down the fearsand help them kind of think of it
kind of like it's almost a cartoonexperience that they're going into the dentist.
We're going to have mister mirror lookingat our teeth, or we're going to
have a little toothbrush going in therespinning a super powered spinning toothbrush brushing our
(21:33):
teeth while we go to the dentist. And so if you kind of put
it with a book, kind ofa cartoonish type of atmosphere and viewpoint,
you know, I think it reallyhelps to keep those fears down. And
as far as adults are concerned,I would say, don't wait until it
hurts to come in to see thedentist. You really want to go in
to see your dentist and be withthem consistently while things are easy. Because
(21:57):
one, it helps to bring yourfears down because you're comfortable, you're used
to going in and if you haven'tbuilt that relationship yet with a dentist,
find a dentist. You know,maybe it takes two or three tries to
find a dentist where you just feelreally comfortable going in again. The biggest
thing is you don't want to waituntil something hurts, because if it does,
now you're talking about potentially a muchmore challenging procedure that needs to be
(22:21):
done. So the best thing isto get into the dentist early where you
could focus on prevention and build relationshipswith him. That's great, good advice,
very solid. Okay, before Ilet you go, I would like
to know what are the three biggesttakeaways that you hope our listeners take from
today's conversation? Excellent? Excellent.I have a corny but kind of silly,
(22:41):
three step plan to help get orkeep people on the right path the
corner that is always my route.Well, I was gonna say, please
go laughing at my grammars. UsuallyI'm sharing this with kiddos when I share
this, But I have three sisthe happy healthy smiles. And the first
one is cut out the candy,trying to minimize the sugar, you know,
(23:02):
minimize the frequency of eating sugary thingsor things with carbohydrates in them.
The second sea would be clean yourteeth, doing the brushing, the flossing.
The third seed would be come visitthe dentists and doing this will help
you build healthy and healthy smiles.I think those are three great takeaways.
That's perfect your three c's. Ilove that cut out the candy, clean
(23:25):
your teeth, and come visit thedentist. Great solid advice, and I
am looking for a new dentist inRiverside, so now I know where I'm
going to be going with my kids. Awesome. Thank you, thank you
so much for joining me today.I really appreciate this and have a wonderful
day. Thank you you as well. Remember your smile is your signature,
(23:48):
and taking care of it goes beyondbrushing and flossing. Whether you're a parent
nurturing your child's dental journey, oran individual committed to maintaining oral wellbeing.
Doctor morgan expertise has shed some lighton a pack to healthier teeth and gums.
I enjoyed that. I hope youdid too. Maybe we can make
a pack together. Schedule that dentalcheck up, make sure you are going
(24:11):
every six months, take care ofthe kid's teeth and of course your own.
With that, I bid you afarewell until next time. Keep smiling,
keep shining, and keep covering yourhealth.
Welcome to Covering Your Health, awellness podcast dedicated to covering all areas of
living a healthy and happy lifestyle,from healthy hearts to understanding health plans and
everything in between. Each episode willprovide you with a better understanding of managing
your health, preventative care, andstaying on the right path for your family's
wellness journey. The Covering Your Healthpodcast is presented by i EhP. Now
(00:26):
your host Evelina Revez. Hey there, Yes, Evelinarivet's here, excited for
another episode of Covering Your Health withEvelina Reves, presented by my friends at
IEHP. This topic in particular todayis kind of fun because I feel like
I know a little bit about itbecause I've had children who have all had
(00:49):
these things teeth, and I myselfhave teeth as well. We're going to
talk a little bit about oral healthtoday. It actually is such an important
topic. Brushing your teeth for twominutes a day can make a huge,
huge difference. And today I'm joinedby an expert in the matter, Doctor
(01:10):
Daniel Morgan, also known as DoctorDan, a pediatric dentist and owner operator
of Little Smile Builders in San Bernardinoand a Riverside Children's Dentistry. Thank you
for joining us, doctor Dan.How are you today doing well? Evelyn?
Thank you? And I'm really excitedto be able to speak with you
and with your audience. Oh,this is going to be a ton of
(01:30):
fun. It's a topic I lovetalking to my own children about their oral
health. Every single day we'd havethis discussion. It's one of those things,
you know, did you brush yourteeth this morning? Did you brush
your teeth before bed? But beforewe get into this whole thing, I
want to know a little bit moreabout you. Tell me what made you
(01:52):
decide to go into this field.Yes, Evelyn, you know one thing
I would say is some people thinkthat dentists or pediatric dennist children's dentists have
this magic pill that we don't havethese same battles with our children. We
do, and you know, it'sa fun thing. So not only do
we get to have fun with ourpatients trying to bring about oral health with
(02:13):
them, but we also get topractice this at home as well. But
to answer your other question, asfar as worth, how I got into
dentistry and in this line of work. My sister was a trailblazer in my
family and was one of the firstpeople to go to college and became a
dental hygienist against all odds. Andshe really opened the doors and planning seats
for me. I struggled, camefrom, you know, from a simple
(02:35):
background, and she opened the doorand planted the seats to where I just
you know, and she gave methe encouragement and it built me up to
where I had enough enough encouragement fromher and enough thought and courage to say,
hey, let's just go for this. And I went for it and
became a dentist and eventually became apediatric dentist. If you come from a
(02:57):
family that maybe there's not a lotof persons or something that you're looking to
aspire to, look for somebody thatcould just provide some encouragement for you and
can maybe give you some help openthose doors to be able to get into
places, to be able to dothings that may not be as easy as
it seems. No, Yes,I love to hear that it's your sister
that did that for you, Thatwas the encouragement that gave you that and
(03:20):
inspired you. Yes, Yes,she played a big role in my upbringing.
That's that's wonderful to hear that.I love siblings. My brother and
I I feel like we're closer nowthan we were when we were younger,
but we definitely rooted for each other. We always had each other's back.
We were the biggest cheerleaders. Soit's good to have that in your own
(03:40):
family. Let's get into what we'rechatting about today, oral health. Why
is it so dang important? Youknow, that's a great question in life.
There's some diseases or health problems thatyou know, we're just genetically bound
to have, it's going to happen. But there's some things in life that
we can actually do something to preventand make a huge difference. And when
(04:02):
it comes to oral health, whenit comes to cavities, most problems that
people face are preventable, and actuallyby taking just some few easy steps,
it can actually make a huge differencein the long run as far as a
person's oral health is concerned. SoI think to myself when I go to
visit my dentist, and my dentistis he's a really great guy, and
(04:24):
he would do the mouth check andI was wondering, like what was he
looking for. He's like, oh, you know, we can find signs
of cancer, we can find differentsigns of all kinds of things. The
mouth really is the gateway to somany diseases, right, Oh, it
is. It is. You know, just as the years have gone by,
we've found and are detecting and learningmore about how oral health is impacting
(04:47):
a lot of other general health problemsthat are popping up and rising in people.
And so it is, you know, not only from just a general
health standpoint, it's really important maybeone of those foundational things that if we
can get the oral health right,it might help to get other parts of
our general health right. But anotherside of it too, is just our
oral health is huge. I mean, it's what we're eating food with.
(05:10):
You know, we use our teethto eat, We use our teeth to
smile and to engage with people andto you know, make relationships with others,
and so I mean there's just awhole lot of things that are going
on that oral health. If wecan get it right, boy, it
just makes a huge difference. Andstarting them out really young too, right,
starting those habits at an early age, Yes, it does. And
that was actually one of the reasonswhy I decided to go to pediatric demistry.
(05:32):
I was, I have been,and still I'm just a huge believer
that if we can get things startedout right at initial stages of life,
you know, when kiddos are young, when patients or people are young,
boy, we could just affect suchso tremendously the life, the trajectory,
the health of a person. Andso starting out, you know, whether
(05:53):
you're young, whether you know somebodywho's young, whether whether you don't know
somebody who's young. I mean,just taking those steps now makes such a
huge difference. I mean, weall know that most of us have heard
maybe this good old Chinese proverb when'sthe best time to plan a tree?
Well up twenty years ago, when'sthe next best time to planet tree?
(06:14):
But today today would be a goodtime. And so same thing with your
oral health, Same thing with youroral health. If you can start making
some huge differences right now, tryingto focus in on prevention, on doing
those things that are going to helpcreate good oral health, voys going to
make such a huge positive difference foryou and for others around you. Yeah,
yeah, absolutely. Let's talk aboutthose most affected by poor oral health.
(06:39):
How can they seek out help?Another great question, you know,
a lot of pretty much everybody's well, all of us, because all of
us have teeth, all of ushave malds, so we're all affected by
it. And so it doesn't matter, you know, if you are at
the you're the president of the UnitedStates, or if you're you know,
just really dealing with a lot ofchallenges in your life. Everybody deals with
(07:02):
oral health issues. But with thatbeing said, there is the higher amount
of people in lower income, lowersocioeconomic lower education, you know, maybe
not having as much access to insurance, or you're just in a geographic spot
that it's harder to find. Dennis, you know, people in those types
of situations, it is they aremore affected. You know, we are
(07:26):
seeing that there's a higher percentage ofpatients that have oral disease, oral problems,
cavities, things of that nature.You know, again, though,
wherever you're at in your life,I would say take this point home.
It doesn't matter where you're at.You can still do things that are going
to make just a positive difference foryou. So, you know, while
(07:48):
the statistics say one thing, youstill have a huge opportunity to make a
positive difference for yourself. And Iwould say those are your family and your
friends, your children. So whatwould be some of those ways that they
could prevent some of these oral issues? Good question, Good question. Maybe
the first thing that comes to mindthat I like to talk about is snacking
(08:13):
habits. You know, a lotof us love to snack, and snacking
isn't necessarily bad, but one ofthe things that we're finding is that if
we're continuously eating food throughout the day, then our potential for cavity is going
to increase. And so one ofthe things that I like to encourage others
is try to minimize the amount oftimes that you're eating food. If you
(08:35):
are going to snack, because peopledo need to snack in certain situations,
try to find yourself a snack that'shealthier. Vegetables, especially things that are
just really fibery, some nuts,maybe some string cheese. Those things wouldn't
be as bad. But typically whatI see people snacking on is maybe you
know, a diet coke, maybesome chips or crackers, things of that
(08:56):
nature, things that just have alot of sugar or carbohydrate them. And
if we're eating that consistently throughout theday and just taking a you know,
our mouth really doesn't get a break, and so that's a huge thing.
There's actually a really cool thing thatour mouth does. And again I'm just
really excited about this because our mouthhas the ability to protect itself. And
(09:18):
so if we're say, if you'reeating really frequently, we're just taking a
lot of snacks, eating our breakfast, lunch, din and all of that,
the mouth is going to have foodor sugary things in your mouth for
a long period of time. Ifwe're able to do the opposite, where
we have good breaks during the day, so we're cleaning our teeth and now
we have a clean teeth maybe forexample, from breakfast to lunchtime, no
(09:41):
food, no sugary stuff, nocarbohydrates sitting around your teeth. If we
have that break, your saliva hasa chance to come in and help remineralize
or restrengthen your teeth. And sothere's this cool process that's happening that when
you eat, your teeth starts toget weakened because of acids and sugars and
things of that nature. But aswe have breaks where there's no food,
no sugary stuff hanging out around ourteeth, are slide is able to come
(10:05):
in and restore or restrength them ourteeth, and so having some breaks within
the day is a really really goodthing. Yeah, that's cool. So
it just gets to work right awaywhen you've got that break, your mouth
is not taking a break, it'sfixing things. Yes, yes, that
is cool. So what are someof the first signs that our listeners should
be looking out for, maybe ifthey don't even realize that their oral health
(10:28):
could be deteriorating. Oh, anothergreat question. You know. One of
the thoughts that I have with thisone is, yes, there's some signs
to look out for, but ifwe're seeing our dentists really consistently, we're
going in every six months for acheckup, then really those signs that could
potentially start popping up, you andyour dentists together are able to really catch
(10:48):
those. And ideally, and ina lot of situations, we're able to
catch them when they're small. Andif we catch them when they're small,
then actually the way to fix itis much easier than if you let that
turn into something big. You know. Maybe an example that comes to mind
or a patient that I saw,I had a kiddo that was embraces or
is embraces right now, and oneof the thoughts that I've or one of
(11:09):
the things that patients will tell mewhen they're embraces, well, I'm going
to the orthodonists. The orthodontist isthe dentists, and so I'm getting my
checkup when I go in and havemy adjustments done. But really the reality
is that the orthodonists when they're takinga look at patients while they're embraces,
they're not really looking out for thegeneral health of the patients. So they're
(11:30):
not necessarily looking for cavities. They'remore looking for how can we continue to
come out with the best alignment ofthese teeth and get the best smile possible.
And so just the dynamics of howthe orthodonis's office works, they're not
set up in a way to wherethey're really able to do a good job
looking for cavities. And so evenif you're embraces, you want to keep
going into the dentist office for yourregular checkup. And the specific examples at
(11:52):
a kiddo recently that is embraces andfortunately came in for his checkup because when
we had his checkup, we tooksome X rays, some pictures of his
teeth and we're able to find atooth that was starting to move off in
a direction that it wasn't supposed to. And so if we would have said,
well, you know what, let'swait until the orthodonist is done,
or would wait longer than what we'resupposed to, we could have really really
(12:15):
ended up with a very very badsituation, a situation where this patient could
have potentially lost one or two ofhis front permanent teeth. A big deal.
Yeah, Oh my goodness. Sothat's why it's so important that you're
still doing both of you know,if you're of course looking at an orthodonist
and also going to the dentist,keeping on track of both of those situations.
(12:39):
They kind of go side by sideparallel. Yes, Evel. And
if I could bring up another exampleof something that I've seen, and I
had a patient a couple of yearsback, well, and I do see
this every once in a while,but there was a patient that I had
who was I would say, aboutone years old, which is the time
that we want kiddos to start comingin to see the dentist. And this
kiddo came in at one years old. And when the women this's baby was
(13:01):
smiling, you know, beautiful smile, pearly white teeth, everything's just looking
great. And from a parent's perspective, you know, the natural thought is,
well, everything's good. We don'tneed to go see the dentist.
So when they came in to seeus, while we're doing our check,
if I looked behind these front teeth, oh boy, there's some big,
big cavities that we that we're startingto happen on this kiddo. And so
(13:24):
we really had a great opportunity tonot only try and provide some therapeutics,
some different therapies that we have toslow down this cavity process, but we
also had a great opportunity to starttalking to mom about how we can try
and get in front of this,try to use some other things at home,
try these educating her on these differenttechniques and things that we could do
(13:48):
to help slow this cavity process down. So we can, you know,
come up with the best solution,best way we're going about fixing these teeth.
If we would have waited and wewere able actually to get these teeth
taken care of without having to usidation, without having to hold this kiddo down,
without having to really do any majorwork like putting crowns or baby root
(14:09):
canals or anything like that. Wewere able to take care of tooth these
teeth in a pretty pretty simple,straightforward away, and that was because they
came into the dentists. They sawit while it was still in a preventable
type of situation, and we wereable to do some great work. And
also, you know, the parentas well was able to take home and
just was really active in trying todo her part as well from home.
(14:31):
Yeah, if you don't know better, you're not going to be able to
do better. Right, So thatactually leads into kind of my next question
for young parents or those who arebringing their new babies that are getting their
teeth at one years old, youknow, whatever the age might be,
Let's talk about what are the thingsyou're telling the parents specifically to keep the
(14:52):
teeth pristine and not have this negativeimpact. Are there foods that they should
stay away from when they're I don'tknow, one or two years, you
know, so at that age whenthey're really young, some kitters that will
have coming in to see us,they're still nursing or they're still bottle feeding,
and so one of the things thatI'd like to do personally is I'm
a huge fan of nursing, andI believe there's a lot of benefits with
(15:16):
nursing. But when kiddles start havingteeth coming in, we want to start
changing the frequency of how they're feeding. And this goes to whether they're nursing
or whether they're bottle feeding. Wewant to start creating some bricks, just
like we were talking about earlier ofhaving breaks in between meals. One of
the things that we'll do is ifthey have teeth coming in at night time,
(15:37):
we want to start transitioning them toa period where to a point where
we're able to get them to stopnursing or to summerson to go to bed,
or if they are nursing, togo to bed, figure out a
way that we can get in thereand clean their teeth after they fall asleep.
That way, we're not allowing milk, whether it's from nursing, whether
this is from bottle feeding. Wedon't want that to sit on their teeth.
(16:00):
So this would be a huge thingthat we're talking about. Brushing and
flossing are also some huge things.Brushing I think most people know that some
parents will look at me with aconfused look in their face when I tell
them, well, your kiddo needsto start flossing, and so even at
the young age, so a oneyear old, the two year old.
One of the things that I'm lookingout for is as their teeth start coming
(16:21):
in the front teeth, because thoseare typically the first ones that are coming
in. If the teeth are reallyclose together, and you like, you
can't see between the teeth at thatpoint, even if they're six months old,
we really want to start getting inthere with floss because food and bacteria
will get stuck in between those teeth. And another thing that I'm just a
really huge fan of is some parentswill tell me, well, doctor Dan,
(16:44):
I can't get my hands inside theirmouths to floss, you know,
putting the string around my fingers.So one of the great inventions that happened
ten twenty years ago, whenever itwas, was those flosters. There's little
plastic sticks that have the floss inthe end of it. It just makes
it so much easier to get inthere and floss, even the young kittee.
Yeah, I like using those still, and I'm not a baby.
I use them as well. Yeah, those are great. I buy them
(17:07):
for my teenagers and everybody. Youknow, there's no excuse. They're so
easy. They're just so easy.I remember going to the dentist with my
little ones when they were very little, and my son loved those little goldfish
crackers and oh and I remember mydentist going, you gotta limit those,
(17:30):
and I know it's so silly,but I'm like, oh really, and
he's like, yeah, those aregetting stuck and those are creating cavities.
And I was like, okay,understood, And it made sense to me
what you were saying about the bottlethrough the night. I mean, it's
so hard right when we're taking thebabies off the bottle or off of nursing.
They want that comfort when they laydown and then they want to go
(17:51):
to sleep with their bottle. Butwhat does that mean. It means their
teeth have something on them all nightlong. So I remember that. Yes,
Evelyn, if you don't mind,There's another scenario that just came to
mind right now as you were mentionedas the goldfish. You know, there's
a lot of times that I'll haveparents do something, Oh, kieths are
looking great. How we do thecheck up. We look inside their mouth
(18:12):
and there is like a gold platesitting on top of mush, sitting on
top of those back teeth, andso you know, again whether it's whether
it's chips, whether it's goldfish.As kiddos are chewing on them, they
get stuck on those back teeth,on the molars in the back, and
so you know, but they'll goin there and they'll figure out, how
(18:33):
can I pick this out. Letme get a toothpick, Let me use
my tongue, let me try andget it out. But you know,
kiddos don't really think about that,and they'll let those foods just sit on
those back teeth, which you knoweventually just leads has a high potential of
lead into cavities. Yes, Itotally remember that too, the little gold
plate just sitting right there. Iremember also there's those cute when the babies
(18:56):
were little and they were just kindof still just mostly gummy. They have
those little brushers that you put onyour finger that you can start, you
know, getting your child ready forbrushing, you know, with those little
bristles at the end of your finger. I can't think of what they're called,
but you know what I'm talking about, right, The things you put
over your finger so that you cankind of go around your kid's mouth.
(19:17):
I feel like that made my kidswant to be able to do it themselves,
when they were able to hold theirown toothbrush and learn that way little
habits. Yes, those those toothbrushtraders are great. They're they're really really
good. And you know, evenanother little tip for parents or you know,
people who know really young kids orbabies I should say is if you
(19:38):
can get the babies started with that, you're really stimulating the gums and you're
getting them used to you. You'rekind of training them to be used to
having, you know, a toothbrushthat you'll eventually use in the future,
and so they're stimulated with that.It's not a foreign thing once you start
to get in there with the toothbrush. So it's a great thing to use
to get in there and start cleaningeven before teeth come in. So I'm
(20:00):
thinking also with that saying that we'restarting this with the little ones, of
course, we're getting them active andnot afraid to do this on their own.
What advice can you give to ourlisteners who've been putting off going to
the dentists because, let's say,busy schedules. Maybe they haven't gotten back
on tracks since COVID. I feellike a lot of people got off track
(20:21):
when COVID happened, or maybe theyhave a fear associated with a dentist.
What do you do? How doyou handle this situation? You know,
if this is a young, youngkiddo, save again a one year old,
they're probably not going to know thedifference. Am I afraid of the
dentist or not? So I wouldjust say bring them in. We have
(20:44):
some techniques that we do to helpmake things as easy as possible. We
don't expect them to do the samething that an adult would do, so
we really try to make things aseasy as possible for kiddos as they start
getting older. I would say readingthem a book. You know, a
lot of local libraries will have somedental books that you can check out,
read or just go to the youknow, go on on a weekend date
to the library and you can goread some books to them and introduce them
(21:07):
in a fun, in a safe, in a relationship building type of way
of what it's going to look liketo go to the dentist, and that
can really help calm down the fearsand help them kind of think of it
kind of like it's almost a cartoonexperience that they're going into the dentist.
We're going to have mister mirror lookingat our teeth, or we're going to
have a little toothbrush going in therespinning a super powered spinning toothbrush brushing our
(21:33):
teeth while we go to the dentist. And so if you kind of put
it with a book, kind ofa cartoonish type of atmosphere and viewpoint,
you know, I think it reallyhelps to keep those fears down. And
as far as adults are concerned,I would say, don't wait until it
hurts to come in to see thedentist. You really want to go in
to see your dentist and be withthem consistently while things are easy. Because
(21:57):
one, it helps to bring yourfears down because you're comfortable, you're used
to going in and if you haven'tbuilt that relationship yet with a dentist,
find a dentist. You know,maybe it takes two or three tries to
find a dentist where you just feelreally comfortable going in again. The biggest
thing is you don't want to waituntil something hurts, because if it does,
now you're talking about potentially a muchmore challenging procedure that needs to be
(22:21):
done. So the best thing isto get into the dentist early where you
could focus on prevention and build relationshipswith him. That's great, good advice,
very solid. Okay, before Ilet you go, I would like
to know what are the three biggesttakeaways that you hope our listeners take from
today's conversation? Excellent? Excellent.I have a corny but kind of silly,
(22:41):
three step plan to help get orkeep people on the right path the
corner that is always my route.Well, I was gonna say, please
go laughing at my grammars. UsuallyI'm sharing this with kiddos when I share
this, But I have three sisthe happy healthy smiles. And the first
one is cut out the candy,trying to minimize the sugar, you know,
(23:02):
minimize the frequency of eating sugary thingsor things with carbohydrates in them.
The second sea would be clean yourteeth, doing the brushing, the flossing.
The third seed would be come visitthe dentists and doing this will help
you build healthy and healthy smiles.I think those are three great takeaways.
That's perfect your three c's. Ilove that cut out the candy, clean
(23:25):
your teeth, and come visit thedentist. Great solid advice, and I
am looking for a new dentist inRiverside, so now I know where I'm
going to be going with my kids. Awesome. Thank you, thank you
so much for joining me today.I really appreciate this and have a wonderful
day. Thank you you as well. Remember your smile is your signature,
(23:48):
and taking care of it goes beyondbrushing and flossing. Whether you're a parent
nurturing your child's dental journey, oran individual committed to maintaining oral wellbeing.
Doctor morgan expertise has shed some lighton a pack to healthier teeth and gums.
I enjoyed that. I hope youdid too. Maybe we can make
a pack together. Schedule that dentalcheck up, make sure you are going
(24:11):
every six months, take care ofthe kid's teeth and of course your own.
With that, I bid you afarewell until next time. Keep smiling,
keep shining, and keep covering yourhealth.
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