George Clooney and His White TeethI live in a neighborhood with modeling agencies, expensive condos and townhouses, and lots of beautiful men and women, who all have one characteristic in common- their teeth are as white as George Clooney’s, Brad Pitt’s, or any other celebrity. I don’t know how much they pay to keep their teeth sparkly and white, but I am highly doubtful that they get their teeth whitened using the free coupons that come in the mail.

In comparison, my teeth aren’t nearly as white and I am both leery of choosing a dentist by mail and unsure about budgeting enormous amounts of cash for the sole purpose of whitening my teeth. I have tried and used whitening strips with limited success, but am always on the look-out for inexpensive ways for self-improvement.


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Glide Dental FlossBack in the old days, there wasn’t a lot of difference in dental floss. It was usually stringy, came undone with any hint of trouble including too-close-together teeth, braces, or left-over lunch caught perilously between two teeth. None of this made flossing once or even twice a day particularly appealing to me, even after my dentist insisted at each visit that I could use a little more flossing.

Glide dental floss changed this.

My hatred of flossing changed when I was introduced to Glide. And, no, I am not getting money from Crest for this- take it for what it is- a personal recommendation for a product that I really think is far superior to any other dental floss on the market today.


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February is National Children’s Dental Health Month—a perfect time to get your kids on the right track toward good dental hygiene. And if you think baby teeth aren’t that big of a deal, think again—these tiny teeth are responsible for creating the spacing arrangement for adult teeth that will come in later on. They also help your child learn to chew properly, as well as form words, so they’re pretty important. Here are a few tips to help ensure a healthy start with your child’s teeth.

Start early. Dentists say you can start when your children are actually in the womb by eating a good, healthy diet and taking the proper vitamins. These give your kiddo the best start in developing healthy bones and teeth.

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From cookies to candies, gigantic feasts worthy of the gods to delicious wines, cocktails and other spirits, our teeth take a pretty big hit during the holidays. Sure, it’s fun and yummy and festive, but it’s not exactly enamel-rific. If you’re worried about your pearly whites this Christmas, try some of these tips to keep them in tip-top shape.

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It might seem ironic that October is National Dental Hygiene Month, but what better time is there to care for your pearly whites than the same time you’re about to gorge on candy? Some states even offer programs where dentists buy the candy from kids and throw it away.

(Of course, they may not really throw it away; not every dentist is like Willy Wonka’s dad. There’s always the chance that they could hoard it for themselves or sell it on the dental black market…)

All joking aside, dental health is pretty important—especially if you want to do things like chew or eat and the like all of your life. I never really understood why my dad made such a big deal about going to the dentist until I was old enough to get that I would need my teeth for a pretty long time, and to do so I would have to take care of them myself.

Here are some things you can do just for your teeth this month.

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While you definitely don’t want green teeth, keeping a healthy smile with the lowest environmental impact is pretty important these days. Between a new toothbrush every month to buckets of chemicals used on your pearly whites, you may have more of an eco dental print than you’re aware of. But with the tips below you can green your dental routine just as easily as you’ve likely don the rest of your life.

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My new best friendI am normally a Crest girl, Crest toothpaste, Crest white strips, etc.  The other day my mom gave me Listerine whitening strips to try.  At first I was like, no thank you, I still have some Crest White strips that I am using, but then she insisted.

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This is the story of how I met Anita Fok, DDS.

I was young, I was in Malaysia getting a Visa for Thailand and I needed a dentist. My first mistake? Taking a recommendation from an aging (to put it nicely), more than slightly inebriated British ex-pat I happened upon in the Reggae Club of Penang.

"You need a dentist?", he said, leering at me in the way that only drunk older men tend to do. 'I've got a tip."

I told him that I heard all about the dental hospital in town and how friendly, nice, and clean it was. Just like America?

He gave me the tip that sent me on a different course for a very long time.

"Go to the Australian Consulate."

I told him that as I was an American citizen, thank you very much, and though not quite proud of my government at the time, there would be no way I was going to the Aussie Consulate for advice on a very personal problem, my teeth!

"He's a dentist, too. And he's cheap."

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If you have ever been to my dentist’s office than you would already know that they do everything in their power of minimize the amount of pain that you feel during any dental procedure. But my dentist uses a few other tricks that I had never heard of before my first appointment at his office. Not knowing that my dentist wrote a best-selling book on pain management, I learned a thing or two when at his office on that fateful day. He used the art of distraction to make me not think about the series of shots that he was about to administer into my tender gums. By distracting me mentally I thought about it less.

Then he swabbed a cotton tip with anesthetic and numbed the local area prior to giving me the injections of Novocain. Then, when he did give me the injections he used a vibrating massage ball in one hand, which distracted my nerves and made me feel only vibrations on my face. I never felt the shots in my mouth, and before I knew it he had already finished.

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Many people, myself included, dread any sort of trip to the dentist. When it comes to wisdom tooth extraction surgeries, it can be really easy to put the entire experience on hold. But when it needs to finally be done, the more that you are in the know about the surgery the better prepared you can be. Here is what you should expect when getting a wisdom tooth extraction surgery, and how you can be best prepared for it and know what to expect.

What you Should Know About Wisdom Tooth Extraction
There are some things that you want to be in the know about when it comes to your wisdom teeth and you. Most often they are hard to clean and they can get infected and sometimes rot away – in most cases they also grow in crooked and they can greatly affect how your other teeth stay straight.

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