Myth 1 – Teeth Whitening ruins your tooth enamel

Not generally true! Professional Teeth Whitening product suppliers mostly use Hydrogen Peroxide or Carbamide Peroxide as the active ingredients in their tooth whitener gels. The chemical Hydrogen Peroxide (HO) is a bleaching agent which converts into water (HO) and releases an Oxygen molecule (O) in the process of the chemical reaction. Both Water and Oxygen are common, safe components of our everyday lives.

The Oxygen particles penetrate the rough surface of your tooth (even though they appear smooth, they are microscopically rough, rod like crystal structures) and dislodge staining particles. I like to explain this by imagining the TV commercials which show how a clothes washing powder with oxygen lifts stains from your clothing.

The “bleach” Hydrogen Peroxide is not the same as household bleach containing ammonia, or other low-end, acid based tooth whitening products, and can be swallowed, within limits. In fact our own bodies produce Hydrogen Peroxide naturally!

Acidic products can remove enamel from your teeth. Look for teeth whitening products using Hydrogen Peroxide which is pH balanced, meaning they have no, or low acidity levels. Putting acidity into perspective, you should be aware that everyday Orange Juice is shown in lab studies to soften (and potentially erode) tooth enamel by many times more than a professional hydrogen peroxide based tooth whitening gel could, if used correctly.

Myth 2 – Teeth Whitening is not Safe

Not true! Cosmetic Teeth Bleaching with Hydrogen Peroxide has been in use for 100 years. Most recognized dental bodies worldwide endorse tooth bleaching as a generally safe practice, when simple safety steps are followed. Any professional supplier of teeth whitening products will include adequate instructions for the safe use of their product.

Safety vs Risk with tooth whitening is generally centred on 2 main issues: Exposure of the gel to the gums and soft tissue of the mouth or lips, and tooth sensitivity. Both can be minimized by using professional products and minimizing the amount of time the bleaching gel is exposed to the gums or teeth.

As with any cosmetic procedure, there are potential risks. Thankfully with professional teeth whitening any side effects experienced are temporary and are not permanent. As with most cosmetic procedures, you may have to endure some discomfort to look better. Sometimes I call this “Vain Pain”.

Myth 3 – All whitening Gel is the same

Not true! Of the two major professional gel options, there is Carbamide Peroxide and Hydrogen Peroxide. Both produce the same active ingredient Hydrogen Peroxide, but Carbamide Peroxide acts SLOWER on the teeth and is recommended for use only with an Accelerator Light (I will talk about that later) or for overnight use. Carbamide Peroxide concentrations contains roughly 1/3 of the active ingredient, Hydrogen Peroxide. As an example, 35% Carbamide Peroxide is roughly equal to 12% Hydrogen Peroxide.

Because Hydrogen Peroxide is an unstable chemical which reacts immediately, it is more expensive to produce. Many vendors offer only Carbamide Peroxide based products as a …

In June 2009, a 22-year-old Honolulu mother of three young children was sentenced to a year in prison for illegally accessing another woman’s medical records and posting on a MySpace page that she had HIV.

The State of Hawaii brought charges against the woman under a state statute criminalizing the unauthorized access to a computer; and which categorized the conduct of the defendant as a class B felony.

According to accounts of the incidents that led to the woman’s conviction, there was a feud between the victim and the victim’s sister-in-law, a friend of the defendant. The defendant, who worked as a patient service representative at the hospital where the victim was a patient, accessed the computer for the victim’s sister-in-law.

Over the course of approximately ten months, the defendant accessed the patient’s medical records three times through a computer. After she learned of the victim’s medical condition, the defendant posted on her MySpace page that the victim had HIV. In a second posting, she said the victim was dying of AIDS.

The victim complained to hospital officials of the unauthorized access. After an internal investigation the hospital terminated the defendant’s employment.

The defendant’s conduct, of course, was egregious and inexcusable. The one-year jail term handed down by the Court exceeded the term recommended by the prosecutor. Nevertheless, beyond the issue of holding the defendant accountable for her actions some may question to what extent the hospital should bear responsibility for the breaches of confidentiality that occurred.

Federal law imposes statutory burdens on health care providers to protect against the improper use or disclosure of private health information and to reasonably limit uses and disclosures to the minimum necessary to accomplish their intended purpose.

Specifically, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996’s (“HIPAA”) privacy regulations became effective on April 14, 2003. HIPAA is intended to protect consumers’ health information, allow consumers greater access and control to such information, enhance health care, and finally to create a national framework for health privacy protection. HIPAA covers health plans, health care clearinghouses, and those health care providers that conduct certain financial and administrative transactions electronically.

In addition to the privacy regulations, HIPAA’s security rules became effective on April 21, 2005. Together the privacy and security regulations are the only national set of regulations that governs the use and disclosure of private, confidential and sensitive information.

Under HIPAA’s Security Rule, the standards for the protection of electronic information covered by HIPAA are divided into three groups: Administrative safeguards, Physical safeguards and Technical safeguards.

A couple of the most significant required safeguards under HIPAA are the Administrative “Sanction Policy” and “Security Awareness Training” safeguards.

The sanction policy standard requires a communication to all employees regarding the disciplinary action that will be taken by the covered entity for violations of HIPAA. The sanction policy should have a notice of civil or criminal penalties for misuses or misappropriation of health information and make employees aware that violations may result in notification to law enforcement officials …

I recommend these software packages (such as Demand Force, Solution Reach and so on) a lot to my clients because they can automate everything and fill up those schedules. However, if you use software like that, beware of the little known issues that may come up with regards to patient reviews:

1) They are not visible to new patients .

The software bundles the reviews on a separate page which can link to your website or from their own platform. It looks great, however, a patient has to go hunting for them on your website. That collects two things: a) they can find them easily once on your website before they get bored and leave (you have only a few seconds for them to find what they want). And b) They are already ON your website.

Only Google reviews stand prominent in the path of the new patient searching for a dentist. If you do not have enough Google reviews then you are not giving the prospect new patient enough incentive to actually click onto your site. With all the clutter in this New Economy, you have to fight for every patient "action".

2) They are not as trusted because they are not public facing .

These software packages a lot of times want to placate the dentist. It looks great to have 3,000 5 star reviews on your Demand Force page, but new patients may not trust that at all. Especially when every dentist has a similar profile and it's on your own website which you control.

People trust Google reviews because they trust Google, they are public facing and anyone can go on there and write a good or bad review. They have more "psychological weight". So the 39 4.8 star review you have on Google might get more attention from people than your 14,450 5 star review on your website (if they are even able to find it).

3) Automated Google review collection :

Beware this issue – it could leave you with many, really bad negative Google reviews.

The same software packages can automate the sending of people to Google to write a review. Here's the problem: for some, writing a bad review is a cathartic experience that has nothing to do with you. They might have had a bad day and want to leave one so they have "yelled at someone" without yelling at someone.

And while you might not have any now, I've seen them hold onto that link for over a year (it's in their email) and one day you piss them off and they go write it. Bad news is spread at least 7x faster and more trusted than good news.

Then you have this problem where a bunch of negative reviews are left as "most recent" and that's the first impression a new patient gets when going through your Google reviews. Also, it's very hard to get rid of negative reviews even if they are libelous.

Here's where those special pages …

If you are wearing dentures for the first time right now, or have been a denture wearer for many months or years, I’m sure you have struggled many times to find the answer to the question often asked: “Which is the best denture glue?’ Let me say this at the very start, I have worn a denture ever since I was nine years old and I am now in my eighties. Therefore I’ve had a few years to ponder and search for an answer to that perplexing question.

I would like to give you a short, quick answer, and say: “Do this, or use that” – but I’ve found there is more to the problem than most people realize. The more I think about it the more complicated the answer seems to get. At one time I was so frustrated with denture “glues,” I went directly to my dentist and said point-blank, to him: “Doc, what kind of denture cream or glue do you use with your dentures? What do you think I should use?” He thought for a couple of minutes and replied: “Terry, as a matter of fact, I don’t have dentures, I still have all of my “natural” teeth, so I can’t tell which “glue” is best for you or anyone else to use. My advice is for you to try them all until you find one that meets your needs to make your denture feel: stable, secure and as immovable as possible while you are chewing, talking drinking and sneezing.”

Well, I thought to myself, that was an answer, but not one that helped me at all. I still had the same problem I had before I asked my “expert” dentist for his help.

Of course, my dentist did go on to explain to me, at length, why it was that I might need a “glue” to hold my denture in place. He began by giving me a brief history of dentures and their use from ‘way back in the 1500s to the present time. He told me the first dentures were believed to have been made by the early Etruscans, before the Romans captured them. Those dentures, then called: false teeth were only made for rich people and they were made only for “show” not for eating! Why? Because, back then, there was no good way to hold those false teeth in place while the wearer was eating, chewing, drinking and trying to talk normally with a mouth full of fake teeth.

Much later in history dentists who were then called “tooth barbers” figured out ways to keep false teeth in place using such things as: thread, catgut, and even gold wire. Those wires had to be very carefully put in place. Once the false teeth were wired in place they were not easily taken out. The result was the wearers of those dentures often left them in place too long and the teeth began to smell bad. Another process was to “wedge” the false …

Brushing your teeth is not enough to keep good oral health unless you do not have any gaps between your teeth. We may not learn flossing at an early age, but using dental floss is necessary to keep dental diseases away. Not only that, with studies about the correlation of oral health to heart ailments, it is also necessary to keep good oral hygiene to prevent heart diseases. Brushing, flossing, and using mouthwash are some of the basics that we need to properly perform daily.

As recommended, it is best to floss at least once a day. This helps in removing food debris that is stuck between the teeth which are difficult to remove by just brushing or gargling with water or mouthwash. So how do you really floss properly?

Here are some steps and points to do this and prevent oral and heart diseases:

1) Do the flossing before brushing your teeth.

2) Use approximately 18 inches or an arm's length of floss and wind each the ends around your middle finger.

3) Hold around a couple of inches of the floss between your thumb and index fingers.

4) Gently insert or slide the dental floss in the gap between the teeth.

5) Make sure you will not snap the floss to prevent irritating the gums.

6) Hold the floss tightly enough as you gently move the floss up and down and make sure to angle it correctly as it forms a letter "c" as it hugs the tooth.

7) You may also make a scressing motion on the inner sides of the tooth to remove debris clinging to that side.

8) Include the sides of the tooth that are even exposures without another tooth beside it. Some foods that are sticky can also easily cling to the tooth surface.

9) There are several types of dental floss available which even includes a plastic handle. So choose a type which can help you maneuvers easily between the teeth and even to the teeth at the far end of your mouth.

10) Floss between all of your teeth and then brush your teeth once done.

Flossing is not really done for every after meal unless there is really food stuck between your teeth that has been bothering you. So it is not necessary that you wait to remove it by the end of the day. Even gargling with mouthwash is not advisable to be done after every brushing. Still, it is done at least once a day and make sure the mouth rinse is sugar-free. Although some mouthwashes would say it is sugar free just make sure you read the label especially for those who are diabetics. …