Boyles General Dentistry & Implant Center Blog

With maturity and age, many people realize that memories are more precious than possessions. Unfortunately, brain shrinkage caused by dementia and Alzheimer’s can rob the afflicted patient of the pleasure of remembering special moments and even special people in their life. Friends and family can also suffer, feeling as though they’ve lost their loved one.

In July of 2023, an important study from the American Academy of Neurology showed a strong association between brain health and oral health. Basically, researchers found that those who had advanced gum disease, which is the top cause of tooth loss, tended to have more brain shrinkage, particularly in the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory.

But can memory loss be prevented through good oral hygiene? It’s possible! Learn more about how these two areas of the body are connected and how you may preserve your memories through caring for your smile.

Are you replacing your old dentures with state-of-the-art dental implants? It’s an exciting upgrade for your smile, but you need to keep in mind it will be a change from what you have gotten used to with dentures. Especially if you’ve had dentures for a while, the transition to dental implants could be a little jarring at first. How? Here are three things you’ll have to adjust to when your dentures are attached to implants.  

Are you like millions of Americans who start out the new year with ambitious goals? There’s nothing wrong with wanting to accomplish something significant in 2024, but that doesn’t mean you have to shoot for the moon and choose something impractical. For instance, you can set a worthy goal to have a healthier smile!

How can you achieve this resolution, and perhaps even other goals too, this year? Implement the following into your lifestyle.

There’s no place like home for the holidays—as the song goes. But getting there can be stressful! Whether you’re catching a flight or driving, taking care of your smile is probably not the first thing on your mind. But unlike you and your family, oral bacteria don’t take a break, and if you’re not careful, the holiday season can end with a cavity or two. So here are some tips to help your teeth and gums weather holiday travel and stay healthy.

If you’re like most humans, you try to avoid experiencing pain as much as possible. You may even steer clear of certain higher-risk activities like bungee jumping or skateboarding, so you don’t hurt yourself. When your dentist says that your tooth needs a crown, you worry—will it hurt? Is getting a dental crown painful?

Knowing more about this restoration can put your concerns to rest!

After a while tolerating pain in your jaw, you are ready to seek help. Because the pain isn’t in your teeth but your temporomandibular joint (TMJ), you consider making an appointment with your physician. However, a medical professional shouldn’t be your first go-to resource for this kind of problem—your dentist is! Keep reading to learn reasons you should turn to your dentist in this situation.

Living with an incomplete smile is not an ideal situation. The problems that can occur as a result, such as eating and talking, can make life far more challenging than necessary. But as you contemplate the idea of dental implants to replace your teeth, you may begin to wonder if you’re eligible for treatment. While it is true some issues can make success difficult, which we will discuss in this article, most patients can move forward with the help of various preliminary procedures.

When you first got your veneers, you felt like a million bucks! You couldn’t stop smiling and showing off the results. No doubt you wanted never to lose that feeling. The good news is that if you take good care of your veneers, you don’t have to!

Veneers are pretty durable, but if you buy and use the wrong kind of toothpaste, they can wear down more quickly. Keep reading to learn which toothpastes could shorten your confident smile’s lifespan and how to lengthen it with healthy choices.

As an adult, you’ve already lost all your baby teeth and received your grownup versions, but one in particular stands out for the wrong reason. It’s much smaller than the teeth around it. When you talk or smile, you are always cognizant of this little tooth calling attention to itself, making your smile look unbalanced.

Well, did you know that your dentist has not just one possible solution to correct small teeth but three? Learn the basics about the procedures that could help yours be a more appropriate size.

It’s estimated that between 30 and 40 million Americans have some level of dental anxiety, a fear of dentists that stands between them and getting the care they deserve. Whether you’ve had bad experiences, heard horror stories, or have just been put off by the portrayal of dentists in the media, sedation dentistry can help to put you at ease before a necessary treatment.

That said, this presents yet another problem for some people: the cost of sedation. If you want to learn a little more about how much feeling at ease is likely to cost you, here’s a guide that may be able to help you.