OST Blog

Sometimes food that’s good for your body isn’t necessarily the best for your teeth. Dr. Ford and Dr. Guter and our team want you to know which healthy foods can harm your teeth and gums, and what steps you can take to continue enjoying these foods, even when you’re dieting.

When you begin to substitute empty calories with whole foods, make sure you also remember to focus on your dental health. The majority of people tend to switch out sugary foods in favor of fruits and vegetables when they diet.

It’s worth knowing that most fruits are highly acidic and composed of natural sugars. Some of the highly acidic fruits to watch out for include apples, grapes, strawberries, pineapples, blueberries, oranges, and grapefruit. Moderation is key here, as with all other things. Fruits can be a great source of energy to help you through your day, but try not to overdo them.

Often, people also incorporate more leafy greens into their diets, which mean plenty of salads. Salad dressing is another item you’ll want to watch out for. Many dressings are filled with vinegars and sweeteners that include harmful acids, which change the pH of your mouth. When your mouth shifts from alkaline to acidic, your smile also turns to a higher risk for erosion and decay.

Rather than get rid of these foods altogether, simply change what you do after you eat them. Rinse your mouth out with water, brush your teeth, or eat alkalizing foods after consuming these acidic foods. Healthy alkalizing foods include dairy products such as eggs and yogurt, or any type of vegetable.

If you have questions regarding your current diet and its effect on your oral health, please contact our Virginia Beach, VA office and speak with a member of our staff. If you’ve begun to make changes in your diet toward a healthier lifestyle, we hope these tips can help your make positive changes to your oral health. Our team at Oral Surgery of Tidewater wants a healthy lifestyle to be a top priority in your life.

As you age, it becomes even more important to take good care of your teeth and dental health. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately one-fourth of adults age 65 and older have no remaining teeth. What's more, nearly one-third of older adults have untreated tooth decay.

Oral health, regardless of age, is crucial to overall good health. Ideally, we all want to keep your natural teeth, but whether you're caring for natural teeth or dentures, advancing age may put older adults at risk for a number of oral health problems, including:

• Dry mouth
• Diminished sense of taste
• Root decay
• Gum disease
• Uneven jawbone caused by tooth loss
• Denture-induced tissue inflammation
• Overgrowth of fungus in the mouth
• Attrition (loss of teeth structure by mechanical forces)
• Oral cancer

These conditions may not be diagnosed until it is too late. If you want to feel good, stay healthy, and look great throughout life, you might be surprised what a difference a healthy mouth makes.

Here are some tips for maintaining and improving your oral health as you become older:

• Brush twice a day with a toothbrush with soft bristles. You may also benefit from using an electric toothbrush.
• Clean between your teeth once a day with floss or another interdental cleaner.
• If you wear full or partial dentures, remember to clean them on a daily basis. Take your dentures out of your mouth for at least four hours every day. It’s best to remove them at night.
• Drink tap water. Since most contains fluoride, it helps prevent tooth decay no matter how old you are.
• Quit smoking. Besides putting you at greater risk for lung and other cancers, smoking increases problems with gum disease, tooth decay, and tooth loss.
• Visit Oral Surgery of Tidewater regularly for a complete dental checkup.

If you have any questions about keeping up with your oral hygiene at home, please give us a call!

One of the greatest features our team at Oral Surgery of Tidewater offers is the ability to see first-hand how we can help our patients. While X-rays help us detect any problems in your mouth and give us valuable information on what is bothering you, they often don’t give Dr. Ford and Dr. Guter a complete view of everything that is going on inside your mouth. With the use of an intraoral camera, we can see every aspect of your teeth and mouth with incredible detail, uncovering cracked or fractured teeth, excessive wear, carious lesions, cavities, or other issues that may be hidden. When we can discover oral problems early on, your treatment is much less invasive and often saves you money down the road.

An intraoral camera allows Dr. Ford and Dr. Guter to view clear, precise images of your mouth, teeth, and gums and allows us to make an accurate diagnosis.  With clear, defined, enlarged images, Dr. Ford and Dr. Guter and our team see details that standard mirror examinations may miss. It’s much easier to understand what is happening in your mouth if you can see the problem on a computer monitor, and it means faster diagnosis and less chair-time for our patients!

Intraoral cameras are small, about the size of a dental mirror, and emit a light onto the tooth. The tooth will emit a color that lets Dr. Ford and Dr. Guter determine if the tooth is healthy or diseased. Intraoral cameras also allow us to save your images on our office computer to provide a permanent record of treatments. These treatments can be printed for you, other specialists, and your lab or insurance companies.

For any questions about the intraoral camera, we encourage you to ask Dr. Ford and Dr. Guter or our team during your or your child’s next visit or by giving us a call at our convenient Virginia Beach, VA office.

If you’re suffering from sleep apnea, you already know the short-term consequences. Your nights are marked by snoring, gasping for breath, and waking up dozens of times each sleep cycle. Your days are no more enjoyable. You might be plagued by drowsiness, morning headaches, sore throats, dry mouth, memory problems, depression, and decreased libido.

And the long-term consequences can be even more serious. Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) has been linked to high blood pressure, stroke, dangerous responses to medication or anesthesia, and falling asleep while working or driving.

In other words, OSA can have devastating consequences for your health and your quality of life.

You may have already tried out various non-surgical options. Perhaps your doctor has suggested behavior modification, oral sleep appliances or splints, Positive Airway Pressure machines—these and other methods have proven very helpful for some sufferers. But if these options don’t work for you, it could be time to talk to Dr. Ford and Dr. Guter about OSA surgery.

Obstructive sleep apnea is caused by an obstructed airway. The throat muscles may relax as you sleep and make it impossible to inhale fully with each breath. Or you may have a physical condition such as a large tongue, enlarged tonsils or excess throat tissue that blocks the free passage of air into your lungs. The size and position of your jaw can affect breathing as well, or your nasal passages may be involved.

In other words, Obstructive Sleep Apnea can be caused by a complex set of variables as air attempts to travel from nose to lungs, so your individual OSA diagnosis and treatment will vary depending on your individual anatomy. For this reason, an oral and maxillofacial surgeon like Dr. Ford and Dr. Guter is the specialist you need.

Oral surgeons pursue advanced studies for a minimum of four years in a hospital-based residency program. There, they train with medical residents in the fields of general surgery, anesthesiology, internal medicine, and other specialties with a specific focus on the bones, muscles, nerves, and skin of the face, mouth, and jaw.

Because your anatomy is unique, Dr. Ford and Dr. Guter will first carefully assess the causes of your breathing obstruction and, if surgery is indicated, will recommend a procedure or procedures tailored to treat your specific needs.

Among the specialized surgical procedures used to treat OSA are:

• Nasal Surgery—treats a variety of nasal passage obstructions such those caused by a deviated septum or a nasal valve collapse
• Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP)—removes or remodels excess tissue in the area of the soft palate and throat
• Pillar Procedure—a minimally invasive procedure which uses small implants to reinforce the soft palate and reduce vibration in the tissue
• Tongue Base Reduction—excess tissue can be removed surgically, or shrunk through the application of radiofrequency waves
• Genioglossus Advancement (GGA)—the tongue muscle is moved forward and tightened to prevent the tongue from collapsing backward during sleep
• Hyoid Advancement/Suspension—the small bone above the Adam’s apple is repositioned to expand the airway and prevent upper airway collapse
• Maxillomandibular Advancement (MMA)—the upper and lower jaws are moved forward surgically to open the upper airway, after which the jawbone is stabilized in its new position.

These and other surgical procedures may be performed in a hospital or in our Virginia Beach, VA office, with traditional surgical techniques or using technologies such as radiofrequency waves, and can be minimally invasive or require a hospital stay.

It’s important to note that surgery is not always the solution to OSA, but we are uniquely qualified to diagnose the cause of your OSA and to recommend the most promising treatments, surgical or non-surgical.

If you—or a partner, family member, or friend—have noticed that you suffer from thunderous snoring, or episodes of gasping for breath, or that you wake up dozens of times each night, it’s a good time to make an appointment at our Virginia Beach, VA oral surgery office. It could be the solution of your dreams!