Refer your friends and/or family to us and receive a King Soopers gift card.  Ask us how for more details.

Brighten Your Smile For "Back To School!"

Brighten your smile for "back to school time."  Contact us for details regarding how.  Don't forget to "like" us on Facebook also.

Skydiving epic failure. Time for dental implants??

Check out our Facebook page to see Grandma's skydiving disaster!!! If you or a loved one are considering dental implants and have questions please read the following article.  Dr. Halek and Dr. Rathburn would enjoy the opportunity to meet with you and see if you are an ideal candidate for implants.  


Dental Implants have changed the face of dentistry over the last 25 years. What are dental implants? What is the history of dental implants? And how are they used to replace missing teeth? This section will give you an overview of the topic of dental implants, to be followed by more detail in additional sections.
As with most treatment procedures in dentistry today, dental implants not only involve scientific discovery, research and understanding, but also application in clinical practice. The practice of implant dentistry requires expertise in planning, surgery and tooth restoration; it is as much about art and experience as it is about science. This site will help provide you with the knowledge you need to make informed choices in consultation with your dental health professionals.

Dental illustration by Dear Doctor

Let’s start from the beginning: A dental implant is actually a replacement for the root or roots of a tooth. Like tooth roots, dental implants are secured in the jawbone and are not visible once surgically placed. They are used to secure crowns (the parts of teeth seen in the mouth), bridgework or dentures by a variety of means. They are made of titanium, which is lightweight, strong and biocompatible, which means that it is not rejected by the body. Titanium and titanium alloys are the most widely used metals in both dental and other bone implants, such as orthopedic joint replacements. Dental implants have the highest success rate of any implanted surgical device.
Titanium’s special property of fusing to bone, called osseointegration (“osseo” – bone; “integration” – fusion or joining with), is the biological basis of dental implant success. That’s because when teeth are lost, the bone that supported those teeth is lost too. Placing dental implants stabilizes bone, preventing its loss. Along with replacing lost teeth, implants help maintain the jawbone’s shape and density. This means they also support the facial skeleton and, indirectly, the soft tissue structures — gum tissues, cheeks and lips. Dental implants help you eat, chew, smile, talk and look completely natural. This functionality imparts social, psychological and physical well-being.

 

Veneers can be such a subtle change but yet such a transformation.  Don't let crooked and broken teeth get in the way of your life.   Call us today to schedule a consultation.  

303-786-8899

Happy Memorial Day.  Have a safe and fun weekend.  Don't forget to thank a veteran this weekend!

End of the school year craziness!

Summer is almost here and I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel we call "School".  Whether you have kids, are a teacher or are in school yourself, most of us can relate to the end of school year stress.  We have noticed a huge increase in the amount of flu-symptoms and colds even though this isn't the typical "sickness season".  Super bug or super stressed?  I found the following article an eye opener to how our stress levels can really affect our health.  So sit down, put your feet up and relax while you read it.

A Cold Fact: High Stress Can Make You Sick

By JANE E. BRODY

EXPLANATIONS of why people catch colds are almost as numerous as the viruses that cause colds. They range from the environmental -- living with small children, riding the subway at rush hour, getting chilled to the bone -- to the personal -- smoking too much, exercising too little, sleeping poorly, eating erratically, working too hard.

But studies under way at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh suggest that psychological stress is also a very important factor in determining who gets sick when nasal passages are invaded by a cold-causing virus. Just any old stress will not do. It has to be long-term stress, lasting at least a month and stemming from a significant problem like being fired from a job after years of service or being left financially or emotionally bereft by a divorce. The researchers point out that stress is not the cause of all colds. Rather, people under severe stress are more likely to catch cold when exposed to a virus than people under milder stress.

Dr. Sheldon Cohen, a psychologist at the university, has spent years trying to discover why some people frequently catch colds, while others rarely get a sniffle. In 1991, he directed a study of 394 men and women that identified psychological stress as an important factor in colds.

He and co-workers in Britain showed that the higher a person's stress score on a standard test, the more likely the person was to develop a cold when exposed to a cold virus. Stress was an important risk factor even when smoking, lack of exercise, poor diet, disturbed sleep and alcohol consumption were taken into account.

In the current studies, financed by the National Institute of Mental Health, Dr. Cohen and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center subjected 276 healthy volunteers ages 18 to 55 to physical, social and psychological examinations before placing them in quarantine and depositing cold viruses in their nasal passages. On each of the next five days, volunteers, paid $800 each, were examined to determine who became infected by the virus and who then developed symptoms of a cold.

Last June in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the team reported that the volunteers with the most ties to relatives, friends and community were the least likely to catch a cold. The relationship between having many social connections and being relatively immune to colds held even though cold viruses spread easily among people.

Although this finding would seem counterintuitive, Dr. Cohen said that other researchers also have found that ''having many different kinds of social relationships helps to protect against disease.'' The message from this study: ''Be involved and participate in your community'' to increase your chances of staying healthy, Dr. Cohen said.

The newest findings, published in the May issue of Health Psychology, a journal of the American Psychological Association, confirmed the earlier study showing a strong link between susceptibility to colds and stress. But this time Dr. Cohen sought to determine the kinds of stress involved and how they might affect resistance to colds. The study showed that only chronic stress, lasting a month or more, affected the risk of catching a cold and that two causes of stress -- being unemployed or underemployed, or having interpersonal difficulties with relatives or friends -- had the greatest influence on risk.

Being under severe stress for more than one month but less than six months doubled a person's risk of a cold, compared with people experiencing only routine stress. Stress lasting more than two years nearly quadrupled the risk. Likewise, the stress of interpersonal difficulties doubled the risk of a cold, and being under work-related stress raised the risk 3 1/2 times. However, less common stresses had no effect on participants' chances of developing a cold.

Even being socially well-connected, which could provide emotional support during hard times, could not overcome the harmful effects of chronic severe stress, the researchers reported.

But when Dr. Cohen and colleagues looked for a biological explanation, they were surprised to find that increases in the stress hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine could not account for the strong relationship between stress and colds. Similarly, blood levels of natural killer cells, which constantly search the body for abnormal cells and wipe them out, were affected very little.

So now, Dr. Cohen and researchers are looking at substances called cytokines that have an indirect effect on tissues that are being invaded. Cytokines are messenger chemicals of the immune system that travel through the blood and send out an inflammatory alarm when cellular abnormalities are discovered. The alarm marshals macrophages and other reinforcements to battle the invader. This response of the body to a viral infection, not the virus itself, causes the sneezes, congestion, runny nose and other cold symptoms.

Can your cavities be contagious? Maybe your spouse skipping their dental appointments will eventually harm you.

The Claim: Dental Cavities Can Be Contagious.

By ANAHAD O’CONNOR

Published: March 28, 2011

Everyone knows you can catch a cold or the flu. But can you catch a cavity?
Researchers have found that not only is it possible, but it occurs all the time.
While candy and sugar get all the blame, cavities are caused primarily by bacteria that cling to teeth and feast on particles of food from your last meal. One of the byproducts they create is acid, which destroys teeth.
Just as a cold virus can be passed from one person to the next, so can these cavity-causing bacteria. One of the most common is Streptococcus mutans. Infants and children are particularly vulnerable to it, and studies have shown that most pick it up from their caregivers — for example, when a mother tastes a child’s food to make sure it’s not too hot, said Dr. Margaret Mitchell, a cosmetic dentist in Chicago.
A number of studies have also shown that transmission can occur between couples, too. Dr. Mitchell has seen it in her own practice.
“In one instance, a patient in her 40s who had never had a cavity suddenly developed two cavities and was starting to get some gum disease,” she said. She learned the woman had started dating a man who hadn’t been to a dentist in 18 years and had gum disease.
To reduce the risk, Dr. Mitchell recommends frequent flossing and brushing, and chewing sugar-free gum, which promotes saliva and washes away plaque and bacteria.
 
THE BOTTOM LINE
Cavities can be transmitted from one person to another.
 

ANAHAD O’CONNOR

Who Made That Dental Floss?

Jens Mortensen for The New York Times

By PAGAN KENNEDY

In the early 1800s, a pioneering dentist, Levi Spear Parmly, urged patients to clean between their teeth with silk thread — a revolutionary technique that could protect the gum line and prevent tooth decay. But “people just didn’t get it,” says Dr. Scott Swank, curator of the National Museum of Dentistry. In an era during which rotting molars were the norm, he says, “people expected their teeth to fall out.”

Dental Duty

The Victorians also loved their toothpicks. After dinner, a gentleman would produce a leather box, reach into its velvet-lined interior, withdraw his gold pick and begin grooming. Charles Dickens owned a toothpick inlaid with ivory and engraved with his initials; it retracted into its own handle like a tiny spyglass. Flossing might have been more effective, but how could it compete with the flash of the toothpick? Back then, silk thread came in unwieldy spools and had to be cut into lengths with a knife. Worse, using it required you to put your fingers into your mouth.

In the 1870s, Asahel Shurtleff helped to civilize floss when he patented the first dispenser: a bobbin of thread with a U-shaped prong sticking out of its side. The prong worked like a tiny metal hand, guiding floss between the teeth. His invention anticipated the portable floss holders you can now buy in drugstores.

Designers have since given us bubble-gum-flavored floss, Gore-Tex strands and tooth-shaped dispensers — all in an attempt to make flossing seem fun or at least not too difficult. Recent studies, meanwhile, have revealed that flossing might be one of the simplest ways to ward off tooth decay. Yet, Swank says: “People still don’t care. Or they don’t want to put their hands in their mouths.” Two centuries on, flossing remains the quintessential thing that we forget — and hate — to do.

FLOSS ON FILM

Gary Roma is producing a documentary about dental floss.

You’re seriously working on a feature-length movie about floss? After making my documentary about doorstops, I decided to continue mining the mundane for meaning.

You managed to catch on film a monkey, flossing with a piece of string. How? Serendipity. I was filming in a zoo for another project. On cue, a monkey grabbed a rope, pulled out a strand and began flossing.

You interviewed two inmates who tried to escape from a prison using dental floss. What was their method? They used several miles of floss to create two braided rope ladders, enabling them to scale a 40-foot prison wall.

Is it true that you’re planning to raise money for your movie by selling vintage floss containers online? I likely have the largest dental-floss collection in the world — nearly 200 pieces. I plan to auction it off so I can hire an editor to whittle down 100 hours of floss footage.

A version of this article appeared in print on October 21, 2012, on page MM20 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: Who Made That? (Dental Floss).