Our goal at Darby Dental Smiles is to help our patients achieve a beautiful, healthy smile through continuous education and stellar dental services. Here are some professional tips to help you achieve that goal!

1. Our top priority is to make sure you have a healthy mouth. The first course of action is to detect any active disease or abnormalities. Your dental providers complete a series of screenings to review your overall health- this includes reviewing medical history, blood pressure screening, oral cancer screening, dental radiographs, periodontal (gum) measurements, hard tissue (teeth) examination, and assessment of jaw/teeth alignment. This data allows your dental providers to create a personalized course of action that will facilitate long-lasting dental health just for you, which will improve your quality of life! Regular dental checkups are necessary to catch any underlying issues, maintain healthy oral care, and educate you on how to care for your teeth properly. You can easily make your dental appointments by calling (937) 834-2269 or by scheduling online.
   
   
2. How many diseases have specific tools that help you to prevent it from occurring? It is vital to brush your teeth twice daily for two minutes each time. Whether you’re running late in the morning or too tired at night, it is easy to neglect proper oral hygiene habits. Brushing helps eliminate the food and plaque that collects around your teeth. Additionally, it decreases the number of harmful bacteria that can contribute to oral diseases. We recommend a soft-bristled electric toothbrush.
   
   
3. When is the last time you flossed? It’s no joke, flossing is essential to oral health. Plaque, bacteria, and food can get stuck in between the teeth where your toothbrush bristles cannot reach. Brushing alone will not remove all of those harmful substances that can cause cavities, bone loss, and infection - so flossing daily is an essential daily ritual to maintain. Waterpiks are an excellent option for those with braces, bridges, or periodontal pocketing. It’s important to remember that Waterpiks do not substitute for conventional flossing, though use it in addition to your regular oral care routine!
   
   
4. Smoking cessation. Not only does smoking significantly affect your overall health, but it plays a vital role in your oral health as well. Smoking decreases the size of the blood vessels in your mouth. The blood supplies nutrients to the teeth, gums, and bone around the teeth. Blood also delivers important defense mechanisms to areas of infection. Decreased blood flow leads to slower healing and inadequate immune response to harmful bacteria. The bacteria that cause gum disease accumulate faster and in more significant numbers with smokers compared to non-smokers. These factors increase smoker’s risk for periodontal disease, which causes bone loss around the teeth and gum recession.
   
   
5. Teeth whitening: it requires continual maintenance. There are various whitening products that your dental provider can discuss with you. First, it is important to ask if you are even a candidate for whitening. Remember, pigmented foods/drinks, such as coffee, red meat, tea, and wine, cause significant staining. Rinsing with water after consuming those items reduces staining. Biannual dental cleanings remove stains as well!
   
   
6. Lip care. As summer approaches, check your chapstick to make sure it contains SPF. The lips receive a lot of sunlight, which can cause tissue damage. Certain ingredients in chapstick help with cell regeneration, moisturization, lip firming, and healing. Look at the ingredient list for Shea butter, aloe vera, beeswax, green tea extract, and vitamin E!
   
   
7. Dental Cosmetic Treatments
   We also offer several cosmetic treatments to help improve your smile. Click on the services listed below for additional information.

• Teeth Whitening
• Alignment
• Veneers
• Dental Implants

 
Follow us on social media for more tips to a healthier smile or schedule a consultation with our dentists today!

With the changes in our daily lives because of COVID-19, it is easy to get out of your daily routines and let some important things go. During this time it is really important to focus on your mental and physical health, including good dental hygiene. Here are a few helpful dental routines to maintain during #StayHome.
 
1. Brush twice a day - morning and night
Plaque can be really damaging to your teeth and cause long term dental problems. By brushing twice a day, you can remove those plaque-causing bacteria and prevent tartar buildup. Tartar buildup is plaque that has hardened on the teeth and needs to be professionally removed by your hygienist. We will be able to take care of this once we can see you in our office for your routine dental hygiene visit. Brushing also helps prevent gum disease, which is essentially an infection of your gums.

If you are concerned with tartar buildup or are experiencing sore gums, painful chewing, bad breath that won't go away or sensitive teeth please, contact us to see if you need to be seen for a dental emergency.
 
2. Floss like a boss
We know flossing is not on your Top 10 favorite things to do every day - which is why so many people choose to skip this oral health necessity. But we know that flossing is incredibly important to ensure you are cleaning off buildup between your teeth where a brush just cannot reach. Flossing daily helps prevent gum disease and even fight off bad breath by removing trapped foot particles. 

The best part - it only takes a minute to do.
 
3. Eat (and drink) a healthy diet
Those sugary and fattening foods put our oral and overall health at risk as does drinking coffee, sodas and those fruity cocktails. It is highly recommended to eat fruits, vegetable, lean meats, and nuts not only for your body, but for your mouth as well.  We all love a drink from time to time but excessive consumption of alcohol or sugary drinks can really damage your teeth. It is best to limit these types of beverages. For healthier drink options and ones that won't discolor your teeth, drink water, tea, and milk.

In an effort to support national efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, our practice is taking the following steps to help assure your health and well-being and that of our community:

• We are following directives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a way to limit patient and staff exposure to this virus.
• Your health, and the health of our dedicated staff, matters to us, so going forward we will suspend all non-emergency care for three weeks.
• Patients will be seen only for urgent and emergency dental needs.

 
We will contact you soon to reschedule routine hygiene appointments. If you are already scheduled for an urgent issue, we will contact you the day before your appointment to discuss your health status, health screening protocols and confirm whether the appointment should be kept. Of course, please call us right away if you have a dental emergency or need immediate care.
 
The safety and well-being of our patients continues to be our primary concern. We will continue to monitor the status of COVID-19 nationally and within our community and keep you up-to-date regarding our plans to reopen for business as usual.
 
I urge you to contact us if you have any questions or concerns. We can be reached by phone at (937) 834-2252 and will respond as soon as we can.
 
Thank you,

Darby Dental Smiles