Video Transcription:

Armond Budish: It’s officially spring, and that means it’s time for more
green outside and more clean inside. Spring may spur you to make your home
sparkle, but Dentist Steve Marsh has a different way to sink your teeth
into clearing away clutter. He’s here with pointers on how to polish your
pearly whites. Thanks for joining us, Steve.

Dr. Steve Marsh: Thanks for that introduction, too.

Armond: Any time. So while there are things we can do at home to keep our
home and teeth tidy, every now and then we need a professional to come in
and clean up, right?

Dr. Marsh: Right. You know, one of things that happens, you can do just so
much at home. In the same way you might bring your car in when you have the
winter salt in Cleveland and you need to take it off, same way a
professional, a dental hygienist, can actually take off some of the
deposits, whether they’re stains or hard deposits like tartar. They have a
number of instruments very different than we have at home. In my own
office, this is an ultrasonic scaler, and it’s usually connected to a cord,
and it will actually move away that tartar. It’ll actually sort of just
bump it right off the tooth. It keeps the teeth cleaner. And tartar is
actually a mineral deposit that’s in the saliva.

Armond: You can’t do that yourself at home?

Dr. Marsh: Well, you can try with a toothpick or something, but it’s
really unsuccessful.

Armond: All right. We were talking about . . .

Dr. Marsh: Stains.

Armond: . . . stains. Now tartar, what’s that?

Dr. Marsh: Well, tartar, is that hard deposit . . .

Armond: Okay. That’s what we were talking about?

Dr. Marsh: . . . that’s what we use it for. But people who drink red wine
can get stain, coffee and that sort of thing. The hygienist has a polisher
that’ll take that off. This is a patient who came into us, and actually we
have those pictures reversed, Armond. But that’s somebody who has stain,
you can see on the right. And again, that can be from coffee. It can be
from cigarettes, red wine.

Armond: I was going to say, it looks like you made them darker.

Dr. Marsh: Well, that’s because they were loaded up incorrectly. And here
we talked about tartar. Now on the left, this is very definitely correct.
You can see the tartar. It’s that deposit again. It’s a mineral in your
saliva that keeps coming out all the time your saliva flows. And you can
see after Amy in our office has cleaned those teeth, it almost looks like
they’ve separated, but, in fact, all it was, was she’s removed some of that
tartar, and that can be a problem. So you can see how much more you can do
in a dental office.

Armond: How many times a year should somebody come in for a professional
work as opposed to, you know, just themselves?

Dr. Marsh: We usually say two to three times a year. It’s even more
important the less teeth you have, the older you are because you want to
maintain that which you still have.

Armond: Right. So you showed us one instrument. What other things are
available?

Dr. Marsh: Well, let’s talk about things at home. One is the ultrasonic
toothbrush. You can . . . it makes that noise, but the best part is it
cleans debris off very well. It’s especially good for people who are older
who may have arthritis, who may have trouble moving a toothbrush around in
the mouth. This’ll do it for them.

Armond: Great.

Dr. Marsh: Another thing, we have this little floss threader. Now floss is
sometimes hard to do as one matures with arthritis, that sort of thing.
These can go between the teeth, and it’ll actually take away any debris.

Armond: Okay.

Dr. Marsh: What also happens, Armond, as we mature is our teeth start to
separate, and that’s where a proxy brush . . . this is a brush that can go
in between the teeth where there’s separation. You can actually see it go
in.

Armond: It almost looks like a toothpick with a brush at the end.

Dr. Marsh: Absolutely. It does a very good job.

Armond: And why are dentists so focused on flossing?

Dr. Marsh: Well, because it’s the only way you can get the food out
between teeth. Now here’s a patient, Armond, that has had a lot of stain.
You can see that on the left. On the right, if you focus on the lower
teeth, again, that’s after the tartar’s been removed. We’ve polished them.
Now the patient also wanted some white teeth in the top, and so we did
porcelain veneers there. Those are very beautiful, whiter veneers, and our
hygienist polishes it with a very special polish to get away all that
stain.

Armond: Great.

Dr. Marsh: Here’s another patient that cleaned her teeth very well, but
over the years, they had darkened. You can see they had been worn, and she
said, “Steve, what can we do? I’m also getting more food packed in.” So,
again, we did ten porcelain veneers. We did some crowns. We closed the
space. So as a dentist, we were able to close the space. Less debris got
in. And now she comes in three times a year to get her teeth cleaned and
polished. Again, we use a special polish.

Armond: It’s beautiful what you can do, and when you put the pictures up
right, it really shows it up well.

Dr. Marsh: Well, thank you.

Armond: Thank you, Steve. Follow Steve’s advice and you’ll spring into
spring with a sparkling smile. My thanks to Steve Marsh for springing this
information on us today.

Announcer: See what Dr. Steven Marsh can do for your smile by calling 440-
461-1003 or visit www.clevelandsmiles.com. Next, how to be healthy from the
top of your hairdo to the tips of your painted toes.