Dr. D. B. Dextraze, DDS

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Office News

Our goal is to develop a strong partnership with every patient. When you understand the importance of your dental health, we can help you maintain a healthy mouth, as well as treat the causes and symptoms of any dental condition.

We invite you to read our latest SmileLink newsletter and to check out our website often for new information, or contact our office with any questions or concerns. Working together, we can help you achieve a lifetime of healthy and attractive teeth and gums.

Featured Article

SmileLink Articles

A Bridge for Everyone

If you’re missing a tooth or two, a bridge could be a good choice to fill the gap. Different types of dental bridges are created depending on where you have a tooth missing. We use four types of dental bridges: a 3-unit, cantilever, Maryland and implant-supported. A 3-unit bridge uses a tooth on each side of the missing tooth to anchor the bridge. The anchor teeth are reduced in overall size because they will have a crown cemented over them. The artificial tooth is suspended between the crowns. This bridge is placed on posterior teeth that must withstand heavy chewing forces.        
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Dont Ignore This Oral Infection

Your teeth should not have pockets. A pocket next to a tooth indicates you have a severe dental infection called periodontitis, or perio, for short. If not treated, a perio abscess can form, and then, you could be in serious danger. A perio pocket develops from a tiny moat called a sulcus that surrounds each of your teeth. A sulcus is similar to a snug collar, and it can become infected. Sometimes, a food particle like a popcorn hull will lodge in the sulcus, between your gum and tooth [top image]. The hull quickly attracts hungry bacteria. If the hull is not removed, your saliva can’t flush out the rapidly multiplying bacteria.      
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How Green Dentistry Benefits You

Green dentistry isn’t a fad; it’s easy to do and a way of life that benefits everyone. Here are some of the ways we are trying to do our part. We use digital x-rays instead of film, which means you are exposed to 90 percent less radiation than is used by traditional x-rays. We’re not exposed to hazardous chemicals used to process the images, and there are no hazardous materials to dispose of. The bio-hazard disposal receptacles in our office ensure that neither you nor the environment comes in contact with used needles or toxic chemicals. Our office is paperless because we use a computerized patient management program. Computerizing your records presents fewer opportunities for human error when reading others’ handwriting. We remove fewer trees from the forests. What paper we do use can often goes to the recycler instead of a landfill.        
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When Harmless Bacteria Turn Ugly

Bacteremia (back-ter-‘ee-me-uh) means there are bacteria in your bloodstream. Bacteria enter your bloodstream when you brush your teeth too vigorously, scrape into the gum tissue and puncture tiny blood vessels, or when your gums are not healthy, eating a hard food like a carrot can scrape into the gum tissue, for example. Your body’s immune system generally handles bacteremia without much fuss. However, if you have inflammation in another part of your body, bacteremia takes on a serious dimension. Inflammation is complex because it is influenced by many factors, including genetics, smoking, diabetes and other conditions.
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