Learning Hub - Glen Eira Dental

Choosing the Right Toothpaste for Your Child

By Glen Eira Dental Group June 5, 2020 No comments

With popular characters all over the packaging and no useful information to speak of, the toothpaste shelf at the shops is a tricky thing to navigate.

Here are some helpful tips on choosing the correct strength fluoride toothpaste for your child.

If your child complains that their toothpaste is ‘too spicy’, kids dentists have also included the inside scoop on non-mint flavours.

The ‘SPIT, NO RINSE’ technique.

Firstly, we recommend the ‘SPIT, NO RINSE’ technique.

If your child can’t yet spit out, that’s fine. Toothpaste works by being in contact with enamel, so leave it alone to work its magic.

Which Toothpastes Do We Recommend?

Here are our recommendations based on the most current research and evidence:

0-18 months of age

The guidelines recommend no toothpaste, however, depending on your child’s dental health, your dentist may advise you to start fluoride toothpaste early. Some of these reasons would be identified at the 12-month dental visit.

Brush from when the first tooth appears, twice a day. You will ask yourself through your sleep-deprived haze why you’re bothering, but I can assure you it’s worth it.

Those few seconds it takes to wipe the milk from those cute little teeth in the early days means less chance of the nasty bacteria taking up residence and doing damage later on.

As your baby gets older and hits the 12-month mark, you may question your sanity as you refine all sorts of wrestling holds to get the job done. Establishing really great brushing habits by 14 months is critical as the first molars (that appear around this time) often present a few years down the track with decay, despite everyone’s best efforts.

Sadly for parents, the need for consistent brushing at this age coincides with the peak of poor co-operation (that may disappear by 3 if you’re lucky!). Stick with it!

18 months – 5 years (inclusive)

The guidelines recommend low fluoride toothpaste (500ppm).

Please ignore all the different ages ranges on the tubes of toothpaste below, they all contain the same amount of fluoride (500ppm).

They are adequate for children ages 18 months-5 years with a LOW decay risk.

Here’s the inside knowledge.

We often modify the guidelines and often move to a stronger fluoride option (1000ppm) for kids who have:

learnt to spit out
decay
additional needs
enamel defects
a sibling with decay
a diet that includes frequent carbohydrates.

We regularly reassess the correct toothpaste for your child at each check-up.

The biggest concern we have with the guidelines for the 18 month- 6 years age group is the mounting evidence that low fluoride toothpaste is ineffective in preventing decay.

Colgate Minions and Macleans Little Teeth both contain the same amount of fluoride (1000ppm) and are suitable for younger children needing a stronger fluoride option.

6 years and up

For children in this age group who can spit out reasonably well, we recommend a toothpaste that contains 1450ppm fluoride. Currently, there are three commonly available options – Macleans Big Teeth, Oral B Junior 6+ and Colgate Maximum Cavity Protection Junior.

Kids with Allergies, Additional Needs and Flavour Aversions.

For children with allergies to flavours and colours, we recommend Soul Pattinson Plain. It contains 1000ppm fluoride and is suitable for 4 years and up in many circumstances.

This is not suitable for children with a sensitivity to sodium lauryl sulphate.

For children who dislike mint flavour, there are no products for sale from common retail outlets in Australia.

Our favourite toothpaste in this category is Tom’s of Maine Strawberry with Fluoride (1000ppm). This also comes in an Orange & Mango flavour. Both contain no artificial colours, flavour or preservatives (but still contain sodium lauryl sulphate). Tom’s toothpaste can be bought online or in the surgery.

We sometimes find that our patients who have a Sensory Processing Disorder, Autism Spectrum Disorder or additional needs will reject a toothpaste that foams or has a gritty texture.

If this is the case, then we recommend Toothmousse Plus used as a toothpaste. It has a smooth texture, doesn’t foam, contains 1000ppm fluoride and comes in delicious vanilla, strawberry and mild mint flavours. It’s an expensive option, but we think it’s worth it when you’ve exhausted every other option and the flipside might be decay.

The best choice of toothpaste for your child should be part of the advice given to you at each check-up with your child’s dentist.

Flossing

By Glen Eira Dental Group June 2, 2020 No comments

Did you know that flossing is just as important as brushing your teeth? This often comes as a surprise to many of our patients, so don’t worry if you didn’t know, you’re not alone!

Why do we Floss?

Toothbrushing alone only cleans around 60% of the tooth surfaces. This is because the bristles on our toothbrush cannot reach between the teeth, and this is where flossing comes in!

1. Preventing Decay

Flossing lowers your risk of tooth decay and gum disease by preventing the build-up of plaque.

Flossing disrupts and removes the bacteria between your teeth that cause this type of decay.

2. Preventing gum disease

If bacteria is left around the gum tissues for too long, it can start to cause inflammation.

Plaque begins to reform the minute you remove it, and if not removed it can lead to gingivitis, where gums become inflamed and bleed easily.

3. Managing Early Decay

Sometimes early decay is detected between the teeth in the enamel layer. At this stage, the decay is reversible with a reduction in sugar, adequate fluoride, and flossing the plaque away from the decayed area. Diligent flossing may be able to stop this type of decay progressing and needing a filling.

When To Start

Flossing should start when you have two teeth contacting each other. Depending on the spacing of the individual child’s teeth, this may first happen with the front teeth from as early as 12 months. For other children, the front teeth may never be in close contact, and it may be the molars that are the first teeth you need to floss. The second primary molars erupt from approximately 2-3 years of age.

It is the contact areas between the molars that are at the highest risk of decay.

Start by flossing once a day, as part of the night-time brushing routine.

How To Floss

Floss vs. Flossettes

These both achieve the same result if used properly and it often comes down to personal preference. Some differences are listed below:Floss

Sometimes easier to achieve better control of the floss tension
Less plastic wastage
More cost-effective

Flossettes & Floss Holders:

Can help reach the back teeth, particularly if the child has a small mouth, active tongue, or the adult has large fingers.
Children enjoy the novelty of them
Easier to hold, especially for older children who wish to start trying to floss by themselves.

Flossettes (have floss already attached):

Floss Holders (wind your own floss):

Floss holders allow you to wind the floss around the ends, meaning you can use your floss of choice. Another benefit is that you can adjust the floss tension easily. They are more environmentally friendly as you reuse the holder and only dispose of the floss.

Are Electric Toothbrushes Better?

By Glen Eira Dental Group June 2, 2020 No comments

The good news is YES, electric toothbrushes have significant advantages over manual toothbrushes, and there’s good evidence to back it up. We recommend starting your child as early as they will tolerate it.

How do Electric Toothbrushes Help?

To understand more about why electric toothbrushes work better for many children, it’s important to remember the WHY and HOW of toothbrushing.

Bacteria or germs are in everyone’s mouth. In order to stay alive, bacteria must find somewhere to live. In the mouth, the easiest spots to cling on to are the teeth. Teeth provide a whole host of areas that bacteria can live – in grooves and fissures, between teeth and on the gum line.

Once they’ve stumbled upon a place to hang out, they set about dividing into new versions of themselves and inviting all their friends to the party.

Like human parties, it often starts out with just a small number of close friends that are basically harmless. With time, food, drink and ‘accidentally’ announcing the party to all your friends on Instagram, there may be a whole lot of unwanted guests on your doorstep causing trouble.

The latecomers of the bacterial world join together to form a film called plaque. Plaque is very sticky, hard to see and hard to remove. The areas of thickest and most damaging plaque are often found on the gumline.

So let’s imagine the steps required for a child to remove this plaque.

Firstly, toothpaste needs to be applied (on the brush, not all over the sink and up the walls). Then methodically and meticulously (neither attributes being common in children), the lips must be moved out of the way and the toothbrush placed on the gumline and moved in small circles.

The toothbrush needs to be moved around the mouth, still moving in circles and not skipping over any teeth, brushing the outside, inside and chewing surfaces. Most kids are lost well before this stage and turn to repurpose their toothbrush as a sword, microphone or just simply wet it and pop it back in the holder hoping for the best.

When you think about the underdeveloped fine motor skills, concentration span and sometimes lacklustre motivation of many children, it’s easy to see how toothbrushing is often vastly ineffective.

The complex skills required for toothbrushing take many years to develop, and this is one reason why we recommend that a parent brushes for their child at least until the age of 8 years. Kids should only be given the go-ahead for independent toothbrushing if they can demonstrate effective plaque removal.

Our experience is that when we ask a child to demonstrate their brushing for us as part of a check-up, children as old as 12 & 13 years are frequently unable to carry out effective brushing. It’s important to be aware of the skill level of your child in regards to toothbrushing, and be willing to jump in at those evil bookend times of the day and help until they’ve got it under control. Just because your child can sit in the driver’s seat moving the steering wheel doesn’t mean they’re driving the car!

Go with a device that does most of the hard work for you!

Benefits of Electric Toothbrushes:

They take most of the more complex fine motor skills required for toothbrushing out of the equation. Round, oscillating type electric toothbrush heads do the small circles for you. All your child needs to do is be able to aim in the right places (following the gum line and on the chewing surfaces).Most have a built-in 2-minute timer, which is the absolute minimum time required for effective plaque removal. This is for a child who has all of the other skills under their belt (concentrating, not brushing the same favourite/easy-to-reach area over and over etc.)It makes it easier for you to brush for your child. Brushing someone else’s teeth is always going to be more difficult than doing your own. After all, most adults are unlikely to sabotage their own brushing by biting the toothbrush, complaining about how spicy the toothpaste is, running away, moving their head frantically side to side to create a moving target, interrupting to ask ‘is it finished yet?’, whinging about how it’s hurting or closing up for that extra surprise element of brushing without being able to see.

Also, there’s a fair bit of real scientific evidence.

The Evidence:

The results of a Cochrane Review* demonstrated that powered toothbrushes show a statistically significant benefit when compared to manual toothbrushes with regard to the reduction of plaque and gingivitis in both the short and long term. The authors found an 11% reduction in plaque in the short-term and a 21% reduction in plaque in the long-term (>3 months).

Bear in mind that many of these studies were carried out in adults who you’d imagine had basic toothbrushing skills under control. The benefits we’ve seen in hundreds of our patients who have swapped over to electric toothbrushes are far greater.The best results were found with rotation oscillation heads (where the brush head rotates in one direction and then the other).

Electric Toothbrushes We Recommend:

The Oral B Stages and Vitality range.The Vitality Sensitive is particularly good for older kids who don’t want a character brush. This is the brush I use at home.

I have no affiliation with Oral B (in fact I find the marketing surrounding oral hygiene products questionable). I just find their toothbrushes to be perfectly functional and start at a good price point for a child’s toothbrush. Shaver Shop often has the best deals (about $23 when on sale).The Stages range specify ages 5+ years but I started my son at 18 months of age. You should be able to use it as soon as it’s tolerated.

Take Home Advice:

Start your child on an electric toothbrush, they’re ace
Rotation oscillating type heads show the best results
Brush FOR your child (not just supervise) until at least 8 years of age
Brush twice a day for 2 minutes

Disclosing Plaque

By Glen Eira Dental Group May 15, 2020 No comments

SCHOOL IS GOING BACK! WOW! There will no doubt be a mix of emotions. Are you doing cartwheels or quietly cherishing the last couple of weeks of kids being at home?

In the rush to get the haircuts, uniforms, lunch boxes ready. How about we check in to see how our kids have been brushing their teeth?

It certainly has been interesting in our household the last few weeks trying to institute a routine of “brush teeth, wash face, uniform on and brush hair” didn’t always go according to plan! What has it been like in your household?

Glen Eira Dental believes that prevention is better than cure. We would like to take this opportunity to show you the tools you can use to help you assess the effectiveness of your kids’ teeth brushing skills.

In the clinic, we use DISCLOSING SOLUTION or DISCLOSING TABLETS (you can actually buy these from some pharmacists). There is even now a disclosing toothpaste on the market as well called PlaqueGlo! I will attach a link at end of this post.

All these products stain plaque that is usually tooth coloured and difficult for you to see. ( Plaque is a thin film of bacteria that grows on teeth which causes tooth decay and gum disease when left for too long). For the kiddies, I like to tell them plaque is like poo on teeth – it usually grosses them out enough to boost their motivation to get better at brushing

When using disclosing products, it is wise to protect clothes, towels and surfaces as they do stain!

Don’t have access to these? No worries. You can actually make your own! They may not provide as much detail as the products on the market, but they do work. Just watch the food dye though.

DIY Disclosing Solution

All you need is Vaseline, cotton buds, food colouring and water.

1. Apply Vaseline to the lips to avoid colouring them in.
2. Mix 3-5 drops of food colouring with 10 mls of water.
2. Dip the cotton bud into the food colouring mixture and run along the teeth.
3. Rinse the mouth out to reveal plaque.

You can do this BEFORE or AFTER brushing to check how well your kids, or even you have been brushing!

We would love to know how you go with this!

Please PM us your photos!!

We will be running a competition over the next couple of weeks! The Plaque Removal Challenge! To see who are our superstar brushers! More detail to be revealed tomorrow!!

Take care and stay warm!

Here is the link about PlaqueGLO – Apologies for those who are not LA-LA fans!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK2tZhQG6qk