Continuing our series of dental terminology explanations.
Last time, we took a look at some of the dental terminology that you may have heard at our Canterbury practice up to and including the letter ‘I’.
Today, patients of Bradley and Partners Dental and Implant Clinic can continue to learn more about some of these terms, starting with the letter ……..
J – Jawbone – Not a huge choice here and most of you will know what the jawbone is.There are separate terms for the upper and lower jaw which you may occasionally hear though. The upper part of the jaw is called the ‘maxilla’ and the lower part the ‘mandible’. Bone loss in the jaw following extraction or tooth loss can cause other teeth to move and may result in crooked teeth. Some patients may also suffer from jaw problems, often caused by teeth grinding. These are known as ‘occlusal’ problems.
K – Keratinised gingiva – Not one, perhaps, that you will hear too often but this refers to the thicker gum tissue around the neck of a tooth. Keratin itself is a protein that makes up the external layer of our skin as well as our hair and nails.
L – Local anaesthetic – Most of you will be familiar with this term and it is necessary to apply this before many dental treatments. To do so without would cause the treatment to be too painful to perform. It is applied via a fine needle into the gum around the tooth to be treated. Many people say that they dislike this as it hurts when it is given. In reality though, you are unlikely to feel much sensation as it enters the gum and any discomfort comes from the anaesthetic entering the bloodstream, a necessity to make the area numb so that the procedure can be carried out with minimum discomfort.
M – Molars – These are the teeth at the very rear of your mouth. They have a predominantly flat surface which allows you to chew your food. They are very strong but, being at the back of the mouth, are more difficult to keep clean. You should always try to clean at the back of these, including the use of floss.
As experienced dentists, as with many other professions, it can become all too easy to slip into using terminology that we understand but which may sound strange and possibly even concerning to the patient sitting in the chair. Some of the dental terms that we commonly use are at least vaguely familiar to most people, but this isn’t the case for all of them.
We don’t know how long we will be in lockdown, but indications are that it will be a little while yet, and although there are calls for schools to reopen as soon as possible, it is likely that children will be learning from home for several weeks to come.
2020 is now finally behind us and many of us will be hoping for a better year ahead. Despite the somewhat shaky start to the New Year with the storming of Capitol Hill and the large number of Covid cases and deaths in the UK, things will hopefully get better as we move forwards into the year.
So, we have come to the final blog of 2020! What a year it has been and as things currently stand, doesn’t appear to be getting any better.
Little is more unpleasant than when your teeth come into contact with ice cream or a steaming hot cup of tea when you suffer with sensitivity. This is a condition that affects many thousands of us in the UK and it can be caused by many things, some of which are preventable with a little care.
We have discussed before why you shouldn’t be afraid of root canal treatment in 
We are now almost a week into the second national lockdown. This is due to end on December 2nd although some experts believe that it will either extend, or that there will be some significant restrictions still in place, perhaps roughly equivalent to what existed in Tier 3. Although there has been some good potential news surrounding a possible vaccine success, this is unlikely to be available to most of us for a while and the announcement may not yet have done a great deal to lower the stress levels of some of our Canterbury patients.
A few years ago, an article came out in a dental magazine which investigated the smells that people in the UK found to be the most offensive.
It seems like a lifetime ago now, when pubs were full of smoke and doctors sometimes suggested smoking as a way to ease stress. With advertising of cigarettes now banned in many arenas, and a ban on smoking in pubs etc, this definitely seems to have encouraged more and more people to quit.