Insights & Care
Good oral health starts with the right knowledge. This space is designed to help you understand your dental care better, from everyday hygiene tips to insights on treatments and procedures, so you can make confident, informed decisions for your smile.
Happiness is... Your baby's first tooth!
So true! Your baby’s first tooth is a lovely sign of the baby growing into a cute little toddler! And if a toothless grin is cute, a grin with two tiny teeth is even cuter!
Beyond the elation however, once the first little pearl peeks into your baby’s mouth, you have to start thinking about maintaining a healthy dentition for your child.
So here are a few tips to make sure your baby retains those pearly whites right till his teens when his permanent set of teeth is complete in his mouth.​
Brush your child’s teeth yourself every morning and night. If your child wants to do it by herself, let her, but you run a brush once more after she’s done. Keep checking for tiny black spots: they may be a sign of cavities. Take him to a dentist every six months as soon as his first tooth appears. Good habits start early. If your baby is on breast feed, after the last feed at night, if brushing is not possible/ you are too tired to do it, wipe her teeth clean with a piece of wet gauze/soft cloth. If your baby is on the bottle, never allow him to fall asleep with the bottle in his mouth. If he does fall asleep, wipe his teeth clean. No. 4. And 5. Are extremely important to prevent rampant spread of cavities as sugars from breast/bottle milk will feed on your child’s teeth all night long if not cleaned off. At the age of 6, when the first permanent tooth appears in your child’s mouth, ask your dentist about fluoride treatment. This will strengthen her teeth and play a large role in preventing cavities. Never be in a hurry to extract milk teeth because they are severely decayed. Root canals can be done for milk teeth too. Early extraction of milk teeth will lead to shifting of teeth, leaving no space for the permanent tooth and resulting in crooked teeth. Follow your dentist’s advice. Get your child to rinse after everything he eats. Sugars from food prey on your child’s teeth if left in the mouth too long. Happy Teething!
Dentistry is not expensive, neglect is!
Recently, I had a large number of people asking me if getting their teeth cleaned at the dentists’ would remove the ‘top’ layer of their teeth or would make their teeth loose.
So I thought I would clarify this on the Panacea Page.
Firstly: Getting your teeth cleaned regularly does NOT make them loose or spoil them in any way
A few advantages of cleaning regularly: Your teeth remain free of plaque and tartar which accumulates if teeth are not cleaned. Your gums remain healthy and don’t bleed as they are saved from the millions of bacteria which form plaque and tartar. No bad breath! The dentist, while cleaning goes over each of your teeth carefully and can thus detect even the tiniest of cavities. This saves you from root canals as the dentist will have filled the cavity before it becomes bad enough to require a root canal. You thus save time and money merely by preventing expensive dental work and as minimal amount of time is required to carry out the minor procedures like cleaning and cavity restorations. What happens if you do not clean regularly? Tartar keeps accumulating on your teeth as brushing at home without ever getting a dental check up is rarely sufficient to keep your teeth thoroughly clean. Your gums get inflamed and start bleeding. Bone under your gums starts going away due to the infection and inflammation Teeth lose their bony support and hence start shaking, which is not detected as they are covered with tartar. Once the tartar is cleaned, teeth become loose leading to the myth that cleaning loosens teeth! Bad breath and cavities follow an unclean environment. Get your teeth cleaned from the dentist at least twice a year… It is the best way to have a happy and healthy smile!
A chair side chuckle
It is surprising how little people know about their own teeth! I come across many such examples while giving seminars on dental awareness.
The best one so far? ‘Doctor my brother has really bad teeth… All his teeth started falling off one by one!’ So I asked her, at what age? And she told me they started falling off since he was six years old and kept falling till about 13 years! I’m not kidding! I tried to reassure her that this is normal, everyone’s milk teeth fall off and are replaced by permanent ones… but she was adamant that hers never fell off ‘thank god’! Her age? 25years!
To top that off, she said it was her mother who told her that teeth falling off like this was not normal! And this is a well educated family...
Do we really have such little time to get to know our own selves? I decided I must do something about this low level of awareness among the general public. I started conducting dental awareness programs in schools and corporate offices. People listened with rapt attention and asked really valid and important doubts. Maybe people want to know more but the information is either not easily available to everyone, or is not in a language everyone can understand. The first awareness program I conducted was in an institute for hearing and speech impaired children. I gave a lecture on what parents can do to take better care of these children’s teeth. I found that these people were more interested in how they could prevent their children’s teeth from decaying rather than the treatment options. They probably could not afford good treatment options for their kids but were willing to go that extra mile to make sure they got the right kind of diet, cleanliness and care to prevent tooth decay. The main problem these people faced was ‘my child eats only chocolate’! I tried to tell them, if you provide a six year old with chocolate all the time, he is definitely going to get hooked to it! Healthy dietary habits from a young age contribute significantly towards healthy teeth all your life! Another time, a school for economically backward children had called me to conduct such an awareness program for parents and teachers. But no parents turned up! Only 6 to 8 year old kids and a few teachers were present. I had to think fast how to make these children understand and get interested in a seminar packed with information and prepared for a much older audience! Fortunately I got through to them with my baby talk! And since my presentation was mostly pictorial, it was much easier for them to understand. Their questions were interesting too… ‘Why do I have crooked teeth?’, ‘I have two decayed teeth and only one pains, why is that?’ etc. While giving these presentations, I realized I could use them in my clinic for my patients as well. I started showing detailed videos and pictures to many of my patients and they loved it! Most of them told me that dentists now a days have zero time to actually talk to their patients. As a dentist our job is not just to repair damaged teeth. We are not electricians or carpenters. We deal with the human body. It is our responsibility to ensure that the patient has as much knowledge about his/her teeth and gums and knows how to take good care of them at home. They should know • why their teeth have cavities, • why their gums bleed, • why their teeth are crooked, etc Once they know the ‘WHY’ they should also know what can be done about it, what are the options available, etc. The consent that every patient signs before the treatment starts has a clause ‘I have been given an opportunity to ask questions and have been satisfied by the answers’. Surely dentists can take out 10 minutes during each appointment to talk to the patients, allay their fears, solve their doubts and build a better rapport with them! Remember, you are responsible for your own teeth as much as your dentist. After all, it is your smile… the dentist will do all he/she can to make your teeth and gums whole and healthy again, but it is up to each individual to make sure that they keep their smile as healthy and bright as possible!
Panacea: A name Rooted in Healing
The word 'Panacea' literally means, a remedy for all diseases, evils or difficulties, a cure-all.
This word has a very interesting historical background.
The word Panacea comes from the name of Panaceia, the daughter of Asklepios, The Greek God of medicine (whose staff with entwined snake is the symbol of medicine). Asklepios had a number of children including not only Panaceia, the goddess of healing, but also Hygieia, the goddess of health (from whose name we have the word 'Hygiene').
Panaceia also followed her father into medicine and became the patroness of clinical medicine. Panaceia was said to have a potion with which she healed the sick.
The magical science of Alchemy uses Panacea, a substance which 'cures everything'. Alchemy is an ancient science in which lead is turned into gold by a lengthy, complicated process. Paulo Coelho describes this science in great detail in his book 'The Alchemist
