Seems like a weird question coming from your Dental Office Team, but we are deadly serious!!

As Dental Practitioners we are in a unique position to both ask the questions and understand the implications of the answers.

This office proudly offers treatment to assist patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea to manage the disease by providing Dental Sleep Medicine Services.

According to PubMed Health and A.D.A.M Medical Encyclopedia Obstructive Sleep Apnea is a condition in which the flow of air pauses or decreases during breathing while you are asleep because the airway has become narrowed blocked, or floppy.

A pause in breathing is called an apnea episode. A decrease in airflow during breathing is called a hypopnea episode. Almost everyone has brief apnea episodes while they sleep. It gets messy when the episodes are frequent and last longer.

Dr. Michael Glass has spent considerable time studying treatment options for patients dealing with Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA). OSA is a medical problem not a dental problem so the treatment is a dental appliance used for managing a medical disorder. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine says an oral appliance is the primary approach for treatment of patients with mild to moderate OSA and is to be employed when patients with severe and very severe OSA have tried and are non-compliant with traditional CPAP therapy.

It has become my opinion that every dental patient should be screened for signs of OSA. A simple screening, consisting of four questions, starts the process. They are the easy questions of the STOP screening method: 1) Do you Snore? 2) Are you frequently Tired during the day? 3) Has anyone ever Observed that you stop breathing during sleep? 4) Is your blood Pressure elevated? Listen for the questions and try to answer accurately.

The screening process is not a test. There are lots of ways you can answer the questions. This is a tool that we can use to determine if further evaluation may be indicated.

So what?

Having and not treating OSA can be a life altering situation.

If you or someone you know is dealing with OSA or if you have any general questions, just ask us! You are also welcome to leave a comment below and I will get back to you.

Meanwhile stay tuned to this blog. Over the next several entries I will provide more information about OSA, the complications and co-morbidities, treatment modalities and what we can do together as a team to help our patients manage the disease. And by the way stay alert...the STOP screening is coming!

- Dr. Michael Glass

A visit to the Dentist is a chore that everyone knows they have to do. I can’t say we always like it but we know we have to do it. What about when you mix the visit with a good dose of guilt?

Now, throw in those American traditions that send our Dental Guilt Meter through the roof…Valentine’s Day and Halloween!

OMG talk about falling off the healthy snack bandwagon by forgetting to avoid excess refined sugar in our diets!

Well, it is Valentine’s Day 2012; time to think about cupid’s arrow and loving each other and chocolate! Every February 14, across the United States and in other places around the world, candy, flowers and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St. Valentine. I have often heard people say that Valentine’s Day is a product of the greeting card and candy manufacturers marketing department. Well I guess it works because Americans send around a billion (yes that’s the 9 - 0’s billion) greeting cards annually. OK, that’s less than half the amount of cards sent around Christmas (2.6 billion says the Greeting Card Association), but it’s still a whole bunch of cards! It isn’t all the manufacturers fault, according to History.com. Americans probably began exchanging hand-made valentines in the early 1700s. It wasn’t until the 1840s that Esther A. Howland began selling the first mass-produced valentines in America. Howland, known as the “Mother of the Valentine,” made elaborate creations with real lace, ribbons and colorful pictures.

So let’s get back to the Dental Guilt stuff – here’s the good news: sugar does not cause cavities. There is a whole lot of other bad stuff refined sugar can be blamed for but not directly for decay on teeth. Dental caries (decay leading to breakdown of teeth) is actually caused by the bi-product of bacterial metabolism – acid. If we can get rid of the bacteria before it sits on the teeth long enough to cause decay then we can help to prevent cavities. Sugar helps the bacteria stick to the tooth and is among the list of different food products that provide nutrition to the bacteria. So throw out the dental guilt and grab a toothbrush and some floss and get rid of the bacteria!

Meanwhile this is Valentine’s Day and we should express our affection some way. Here at Today’s Dental we love to make people's teeth bright and white. Our Valentine’s Day promotion is the gift of Whiter Teeth. For the rest of the month of February 2012 the first patient (new or existing) that mentions this blog and one of our doctor’s: Dr. Michael Glass, Dr. Bradley DeMark or Dr. Howard Farran can receive a FREE GIFT CERTIFICATE for an in office Whitening Treatment after your teeth are checked and cleaned. The next five patients mentioning our blog (after the first patient) will get $50.00 off any of our whitening treatment systems they choose.

So get right back on to the healthy tooth bandwagon; call Today’s Dental for an appointment; let us know you saw this blog, take advantage of our offers and enjoy Valentine’s Day.

Lose the guilt & share the love!

-Dr. Michael Glass

It’s one of those every year type of things.

To me and the team at Today’s Dental, the thing we look forward to the most is the Periodic Exam and cleaning at the dental office. It’s so great we like to do it TWICE a year; once with and once without X-Rays.

Ground Hog Day is kind of like the myriad of other annual esoteric events such as Civil War in the Southwest annual activities at Picacho Peak State Park. And who can’t stay away from Flickerfest: Australia's only annual competitive International Short Film Festival and never a dull moment annually at Oenorama in Athens; the biggest and most important event of the Greek wine industry.

Periodic dental checkups aren’t esoteric at all, but they do come around every year…twice.

It's all about the excitement of finding the results. Waiting for the hairy little weather predictor to pop out of his hole and stay out or go back and hide, is like waiting for the hygienist to tell us how stable our pocket depths are. Even though we know spring will come each and every year, this is the day we find out if it will come soon or sooner (or if you live in Phoenix, if spring was here yesterday, you may have missed it altogether). At our regular checkup we know the hygienist is going to tell us how well we are doing with our comprehensive program of home care to maintain our oral hygiene and health. But this is the day we find out if we are good, better or best compared to the last checkup!

Keeping it real; it’s a stretch to compare Groundhog Day; or any of the annual events around the world, to a periodic dental checkup and cleaning but clearly we could all look forward to these events and not miss any of them. Just like you wouldn’t consider missing the annual Swamp Buggy Races in Florida Sports Park in Naples, FL (these races are so good they happen THREE TIMES a year!).

See you soon (or at least 6 weeks from soon!)

- Dr. Michael Glass

A few months ago, on one of the few quiet Sundays at our house we spent some time straightening up and preparing for the winter. My family and I live in Phoenix, Arizona; in the cul-de-sac called “Ahwatukee.” We see all kinds of desert creatures at different times. Ahwatukee is a geographically established community named for its local interpretation of the Native American phrase for “paradise.” It is nestled in the area between the southern side of South Mountain Park and Interstate 10 the 4th longest Interstate Highway in the country that stretches from the Pacific Ocean to Jacksonville, Florida (of course Route I-10 runs due north-south as it borders Ahwatukee, making Ahwatukee’s borders even more confusing). At over 16000 acres, South Mountain Park is the largest municipal park in the country so there are lots of critters running around all year (check out this link, it’s really interesting). It is not uncommon to see a coyote walking in the foothills of South Mountain behind my house. We have seen Javelina, quail, all sizes of lizards, really skinny desert rabbits, owls, hawks and a variety of other wildlife right in our back yard!

Well, preparing for the winter in Phoenix means putting the bathing suits in a drawer and pulling out the long sleeve tee shirts and sweaters for those really cold days below 60 degrees. On this particular Sunday we had all the doors open around the house, including the garage. While we were busy arranging some outdoor furniture a cry for help came from the kitchen. Standing, frightened, in the middle of the kitchen, was my wife, yelling at a coyote that wandered into the house from the open garage. We all came running with sticks and bats and even a leash!

How Scary!

Thank goodness for our highly skilled and overly protective, fierce guard dogs. OK, truth be told our house pets run under the bed and hide if someone in the house drops a spoon and it makes a clattering sound on the floor. Well, they really saved the day when they approached the beast threatening my wife. Our loving mutts proceeded to sniff the coyote in places left only to the imagination (why dogs insist on sniffing other dogs' hind quarters is beyond me). Apparently the animals had all met in the neighborhood. How nice to know we have a neighborhood coyote. No sooner did the menagerie in our kitchen begin their mutual salutations when the guy who owns the house up the block was out in the street calling "Nicky..Nicky". It seems the "threat" was his skinny golden retriever. When we all settled down, realizing what was happening we told our neighbor that his dog looks an awful lot like a coyote! He responded: that's what everybody tells me!

This saga of our little house in the desert has a pretty quiet ending; Nicky went home with his owner, we closed all the doors to the house and our canine attack team hid under the bed...someone dropped another spoon.

Want more great family stories or just great Family Practice Dentistry? Come and visit us at Today’s Dental.

Dr. Michael Glass

Call (480) 893-2273 or email (michael@todaysdental.com)