Ah, the delights of the dentist's office! First you come in and are forced to lie supine on a reclining chair, as if on a surgeon's operating table. Then the needle filled with numbing agent appears and descends, like some evil wasp. The high-speed drill begins to whine, ominous as some merciless mosquito about to pounce. Grinder bits are added to the drill, which, when applied to the tooth, make the head vibrate as though it's in a blender. And all of the other associated sights, noises and tastes combine to create such an unforgettable experience!

But with the increasingly popular and available laser dentistry, help is on the way. (Read more about Miracle of Laser Dentistry)

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Those Americans who avoid going to the dentist for years due to their extreme dental phobia may be setting themselves up for potentially life-threatening health problems.

As dental decay advances and gums deteriorate unchecked, bacteria may start to proliferate and get into the bloodstream, eventually causing damage to the heart and other areas of the body, doctors say. (Read more about Fear of Dentists Can Hurt Health)

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Gone are the days (or soon will be) when dentists had to ladle quantities of goo into patients' mouths to take impressions for the construction of crowns, bridges and implants.

Instead, exciting new high technology has been developed that will do a two-minute digital scan of a patient's entire set of teeth. Once the information is captured by an electronic wand the dentist passes around the teeth, it's delivered to a dental lab where milling machines hooked up to CNC (computer numerical control) devices are used to craft the artificial dentition, most of which is now made from zirconium dioxide. In the past, gold and platinum had been the materials of choice. (Read more about Dentistry Goes Digital)

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So you want to flash those pearly whites?

Sure you can get yourself lasered, you can go to your dentist to get bleached, but what about the low tech method: toothpaste.

Dr. Marc Liechtung, a cosmetic dentist and owner of this laser whitening center, says they do have a role. “These products have become an adjunct to in office bleaching. So we tell our patients to go out after bleaching, and get whitening toothpaste.”

In whitening toothpastes, there are two general categories of whiteners—abrasives--the most common one is silica, and anti-tartar agents.

Unlike bleaching agents like hydrogen peroxide, which get into the tooth, these superficial whiteners clean surface stains--mostly along the gum line and in between teeth.

They get to stains from things like coffee and smoking.

“People want to get like 7-8 shades lighter they’re not going to do it with just toothpaste,”says Dr. Liechtung.

But Dr. Robert Gerlach, who leads the studies on whitening at crest, says the right whitening toothpaste can make a huge difference. “The before and after images are remarkable; the patient clearly looks remarkably better. But we haven’t affected the underlying tooth color. To do that we have to diffuse peroxide in. So if you don’t have stain on your teeth, we can’t remove that stain.”

Dr. Gerlach says there are innumerable studies to back up the whitening claims. And to add to that, four crest and three Colgate pastes have the ADA seal of approval for whitening.

Dr. Clifford Whall, Director of the ADA Acceptance Program, says, “Our guidelines set specific levels of whiteness that they have to achieve in order to receive our seal.”

That’s not to say other toothpastes with whitening on the label but without the seal don’t whiten…in fact, if they contain silica, for example, they probably do.

“The second thing the whitening toothpaste do, however, is they prevent daily stain accumulation,” states Dr. Gerlach.

The ADA seal adds a layer of guarantee that there is clinical data to back up the claim. (Read more about Whitening ToothPaste)

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Megan Moynihan never suspected that her regularly scheduled visit to the dentist would have her facing the drill. “I came in for a check-up and a cleaning and they took X-rays. It turned out that I had 7 cavities,” says Megan. (Read more about DENTAL DECAY)

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