Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Know About Your Tooth Enamel


Tooth enamel is the most highly mineralized and hardest substance of the body and with cementum, dental pulp and dentin is one of the four major tissues which make up the tooth. This tooth enamel is normally visible tissue and must be well supported by underlying dentin. Research says that around ninety six percent of tooth enamel consist of minerals with water and other organic material composing that completes the hundred percent. Normal color of enamel varies itself from grayish white to light yellow. If one sees the teeth edge where there is no dentin that underlying enamel, the color sometimes appears to be slightly blue tone.

The dentin color and any restorative dental material below the tooth enamel strongly affects the tooth appearance since the enamel is semi translucent. Thickness of enamel also varies over the surface of the tooth and is often seems to be thickest at the cusp up to 2.4 to 2.5mm, and appears thinnest at its borders seen clinically as cementoenamel junction.

Hydroxyapatite is the enamel’s primary mineral which is a crystalline calcium phosphate and the largest amount of minerals present in the enamel adds not only its strength but its brittleness. Generally dentin is less mineralized and will be less brittle which compensates for enamel, highly necessary as a support

Enamel does not contain collagen unlike bone and dentin but instead it has got two unique types of proteins generally called as enamelins and amelogenins. The role of these special proteins is partially understood and also it is believed that these proteins help in the enamel development as a framework support among other functions

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Find a Dentist in your Place


It is always good to be acquainted with your family dentist before any dental emergency arises. Finding best dental surgeon is not a difficult task at all and you can easily identify them by asking questions among your friends and the area health professionals. If you still want to find a good one you can get some recommendations from local dental committee or else from a dental school nearby.

Consumer Research, that offers a set of various questions to judge a good dentist’s skill set after receiving dental treatment.

• How you feel when you bite something? Is that irritating your gum or normal..
• Are you still feeling that irritation on your gum even after the dental work?
• How does your treated tooth look like? Is that look like your normal tooth or not matching properly.
• Even after treatment does floss catch on your tooth or tongue?
• How much time the dentist is taking to polish your fillings?
• When drinking hot or cold water do you feel any irritating pain on your gum?
• Any debris left even after your dental treatment?
• What kind of instrument the dentist is using during treatment. Is he/she using water sprayer to cool your teeth?

Positive signs

Good dental surgeon will take a personal care with the patients and their health. These kinds of dentist are basically prevention oriented but definitely not faddists. Probably will suggest a full mouth study using x-rays films unless exact x-rays films are produced by the patient’s previous dental surgeon.

Dental work will be of high quality and usually the work lasts for a very long time and patient will feel irritation free dental health. Whereas with a low quality dental work may decay or fall out in few years. Price is not at all the best way to judge a dental Surgeon’s skills, quality but rather observe the time taken by the dentist to do the work.

Before starting up with your dental treatment just get a clear understanding of your own level about the problem like, what is the problem all about and what is to be done and after the treatment what the treatment outcome might be.

Negative Signs

Always be ware of colorful advertising since it is more likely to indicate huge production rather than good quality care. Also see that when the fees per service is very low then the service performed may be greater than what is actually needed, this may result in overall high cost.

You must avoid any dental surgeon who sells diatary supplements and vitamins.
Who go

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Tooth Development and its Stages


Development of tooth is the complex process, involves formation of teeth from embryonic cells and starts growing slowly erupting into the mouth. For human to have a healthy oral environment, cementum, dentin, and the periodontium are the essentials that must develop during the stages of tooth development.

Primary teeth of a baby will begin to form normally between the fifth and eighth weeks in utero and then permanent teeth will start to form during the twentieth week in utero. Moreover if teeth do not start developing at or near these times, then they will not develop at all. Significant amount of in-depth research has been carried out to determine the processes that primarily intiate development of tooth. It is accepted widely that there should be a factor within the tissues or the group of cells of the first branchial arch that is considered to be necessary for tooth development.

Tooth Bud

Tooth bud, otherwise called as tooth germ also is basically an aggregation of cells that forms the teeth. These aggregation of cells are derived from ectomesenchyme of neural crest and also derived from the ectoderm of first branchial arch.

This tooth bud is primarily organized into three organs. They are as

• Enamel Organ
• Dental Papilla
• Dental Follicle

Enamel organ is composed of inner enamel epithelium, outer enamel epithelium and stratum intermedium. All these cells gives rise to ameloblasts that normally produces reduced enamel epithelium and enamel. The location where the inner enamel epithelium and outer enamel epithelium join is called to be as cervical loop.

Growth of this cervical loop cells into the tissues forms hertwig’s epithelial rooth sheath, this sheath determines the root shape of the tooth.

Dental papilla normally has some cells that finally grows into odontoblasts which are dentin forming cells. To this the junction between the inner enamel epithelium and the dental papilla determines the tooth’s crown shape. Tooth pulp is formed as the result of mesenchymal cells which is present within dental papilla.

Another tooth bud organ is the Dental follicle which gives rise to three vital entities.
They are as osteoblasts, cementoblasts and fibroblasts. Tooth cementum is formed by the cementoblasts, osteoblasts give rise to a special bone called as alveolar bone around the teeth root. Last entity called fibroblast develops periodontal ligaments that connects alveolar bone to the teeth through cementum

Tooth Bud Development Stages

Tooth development is divided into 4 major stages. They are as follows

• The Bud Stage
• The Cap Stage
• The Bell Stage
• The Crown Stage or Maturation Stage

Bud Stage

Bud stage is characterized by the tooth bud appearing without a clear arrangement of cells. This Bud Stage technically starts the epithelial ells proliferate into the jaw ectomesenchyme.

Cap Stage

Cap stage is the second stage in tooth bud development. During this Cap stage the first signs of the proper arrangement of cells in tooth bud occurs. Group of ectomesenchymal cells stops its production of other extracellular substances which generally results in aggregation of dental papilla cells. Here at this stage the tooth bud starts to grow around the ectomesenchymal aggregation taking cap appearance and becomes enamel dental organ. Enamel organ eventually produces enamel, and then the dental papilla produces pulp and dentin, finally the dental follicle produces the supporting tooth structure.

Bell Stage

Bell stage is generally known for the morphodifferentiation and histodifferentiation that takes place. During this stage the dental organ is bell shaped, the majority of its cells are called as stellate reticulam, this is because of their shape appear like a star. Other structures that appear in the tooth development in this stage are enamel cords, enamel knots, and enamel niche.

Crown Stage

During this next stage of tooth development hard tissues including dentin and enamel develops, this stage is called the maturation or the crown stage. Important cellular changes takes place at this time.

The development stage of tooth is an attempt to categorize major changes that takes place along the continuum at the same time it is difficult to make any kind of decision like what stage must be assigned to a particular developing of toothfull mouth reconstruction. This tooth development research is further complicated by the varying histologic sections and appearance of the developing tooth which can often appear to be in different stages.