What does Snoring have to do with Jaw Pain?

When people are suffering from jaw pain, they’re right to go to their dentist for help. What they may not know is that a dentist can also help with their snoring. At Alta Loma Dental Care, we treat obstructive sleep apnea and want our patients to understand how it is related to temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJD).

The temporomandibular joint (TMJ) is a very complex structure. It connects the lower jaw with the head and is responsible for its full range of motion. A healthy TMJ must be able to absorb all the forces put on it during chewing.  When a person suffers from sleep apnea, their body often attempts to keep their airways open by moving the jaw around at night, which is called bruxism. This can cause wear and tear on the teeth in addition to subjecting the TMJ to additional stress. An injury to it can cause pain to be felt anywhere from the head to the shoulder. When it is sore, a patient may not be able to open their mouth or hear clicking noises when they do.

We provide night guards which hold a person’s teeth in place during sleep. This reduces the damage of bruxism and eliminates the body’s incentive to move the jaw at night.

Alta Loma Dental Care is at 7283 Carnelian St, Alta Loma, California, 91701. To schedule an appointment, call 909-987-6268 or visit Alta Loma Dental Care and fill out a contact sheet.

 

Sectioning - A Way of Prepping for Extractions

We’ve mentioned before on our blog that we at Alta Loma Dental Care safely remove patients’ wisdom teeth. One of the ways in which we do this is by sectioning them before removal. This means that a tooth is cut apart so it does not have to be yanked out all at once.

The typical way to remove a tooth is by rocking it back and forth while pushing or pulling it. There are two important limitations of this. One is that a wisdom tooth may be too firmly connected to the jaw to be pulled without using a dangerous amount of force; the other is that it may be partially covered by gum tissue and not have enough room to move. Using a dental drill, our doctors can cut a wisdom tooth apart while the patient is numbed and won’t feel anything. They can then pull pieces of the sectioned tooth out through smaller openings without needing nearly as much force. This also makes it less likely that a tooth will break accidentally while being pulled.

Alta Loma Dental Care is at 7283 Carnelian St, Alta Loma, California, 91701. To schedule an appointment, call 909-987-6268 or visit Alta Loma Dental Care and fill out a contact sheet.

 

Link Established between Alcohol and Oral Cancer

At Alta Loma Dental Care, we’re dedicated to combatting oral pathology. To assist our patients’ preventive care, we wanted to pass along the findings of a new study by the American Society of Clinical Oncology linking oral cancer to alcohol.

Most previous studies of oral cancer did not assess alcohol as a causative factor separately from smoking. According to the study, most people are unaware that alcohol alone causes cancer, despite that it can be linked to 5% of all new cancers globally, including those of the oral cavity and throat. The study also found that even light and moderate drinkers are at risk and that the type of alcohol they drank made no difference (meaning that beer is not safer than hard liquor in this particular regard).

We help to provide oral cancer patients with treatments for medication side effects such as dry mouth, but alcohol can interfere with treatments. There was some good news: when people stopped drinking, their risk of developing mouth and throat cancer declined.

Alta Loma Dental Care is at 7283 Carnelian St, Alta Loma, California, 91701. To schedule an appointment, call 909-987-6268 or visit Alta Loma Dental Care and fill out a contact sheet.