Hi Tonya how are you?
Good, thanks.
Alright, what we are going to start out with first is checking your plaque retention on your teeth.
Now, you have had this done in the past, which we frequently do because you have braces.
So you are familiar that it is a pink substance that will show areas that you
need to work on with brushing and flossing.
Open for me.
Okay.
Okay, I am going to bring you up so we can see.
Okay, let's just take a look.
Open for me.
Alright, seems as though you are doing a nice job on the linguals, which is the tongue side of the surfaces of the teeth.
But where you need more work is right up in the front. You see where this plaque retention is?
This bright pink? It is right by the gingival margin, which is the margin of your gum tissue.
You are actually even doing a nice job on your molars.
I think that we need to work on this.
What we are going to do is go over brushing.
Again, this is more a review for you.
To get the gingival margin better you can angle up, if you can just slightly.
I know the brackets are in the way.
And you are not going to scrub too hard with the brush,
but you are more or less going to giggle it very lightly.
And with the braces you have to actually do a little bit more work.
You have to come down the opposite direction and get under there.
Which I can see because this brush is so large that it is making it difficult for you to get
where you need to go. Even your gum tissue itself.
Because I can see it as I am doing it.
So, I have an alternative method. This is called the End-Tuft brush.
And what that does, it is a little more smaller and compact. And you can actually get underneath
your brackets easier. You can see it go down underneath and up.
And it is actually getting your gum tissue.
I want you to try it out for me.
Excellent job.
We are going to review flossing with you. I know you are accustomed to using your
floss threader. I'm just going to go over the areas cause you still have
areas in the front here that need to be addressed.
We are going to bring this floss through, pull one side out and bring it up
and around. Down, up and around. Just like that.
I'm going to actually have you try that out for me, making sure you can maneuver.
So we are also going to go over nutrition. How are your eating habits at school now?
Pretty good.
How about your pop drinking, are you a pop drinker?
Yes, I am.
How many times a day would you say?
Maybe four.
Four times a day? Okay, pop is one of the worst things that you can have.
I know that it is located around the corner at every hallway at school.
Pop is bad for you for two reasons. One is that it contains acids so what it does
is kind of wear down your enamel and over time you kinda lose your natural anatomy of your teeth.
What you want to do is maintain natural anatomy for function and for aesthetic appearance.
So, if at all possible. It also kinds of thins it out and you don't want to have thin enamel.
You want your enamel to be as close to the way that it is now as you can possibly have it.
Also, bacteria in your mouth thrive off of the sugar that you are ingesting and eat away
essentially your tooth enamel when you are drinking your pop.
So, it creates what we call an acid attack and that demineralizes the natural minerals
in your tooth. And what you want to do is try to create re-mineralization,
which is bring it back to the level of normal pH in your mouth.
So, if you are drinking Pepsi for 30 minutes at a time, you are having an acid attack
for 30 minutes, plus an additional 20. So it is a 50 minutes total that the acid
is attacking your teeth. All based off of the sugars in your mouth.
So, how about snacking? How are your snacking habits?
Potato chips.
Potato chips? Is that frequently though out the day, is that are school, at home or both?
At school.
At school mostly? The problem with potato chips is that they are highly retentive
and they tend to stick in your mouth. They are going to stick in-between the braces.
And I am sure that you have noticed this.
Oh yes.
So, what you are going to want to do is to tend to stay away from those snacks, but I know
that it is difficult to completely go ahead and just quit eating your potato chips
so some things that I would supplement in between there would be rinsing out with water,
drinking a lot of water, try and supplement your Pepsi with one glass of water a day
or one bottle of water, or even Diet Pepsi would be good. It still gives you the acid production
as far as its acidic nature, but you are getting an artificial sweetener so you are not
getting the sugar intake as you would with normally drinking Pepsi.
So, cheese neutralizes the acids in your mouth so cheese is a good one, plus you
have braces so it is nothing hard that is going to interfere with your brackets or your wires.
So, cheese is a good one so if you can pack cheese along with your potato chips and eat a
couple pieces of cheese that will bring your pH back to normal.
Milk, milk also re-mineralizes so if you could substitute another glass of pop with milk,
if you prefer milk over water, that is still better than just drinking the pop.
So, any questions for me? Concerns about your nutrition?
No?
No, thank you so much.
Alright.