The struggle is REAL…. You beg, cajole, and nag, but no matter how you plead, you still haven’t figured out how to get the little ones excited to brush their teeth regularly. Maybe you’ve even played detective: Is their toothbrush damp, is their breath minty? And sometimes it’s all a bit much, right? You think to yourself, “Maybe it’s not such a big deal...

Preventing cavities with a twice daily dental care routine Mariah LaPatka, RDHConsultant, Minnesota Oral Health Project You do many things to care for your child’s teeth and keep them healthy. You make sure your child drinks water with fluoride. You take your child to the dentist and to the doctor. But most importantly, you establish a twice daily dental care routine with your child....

Think Fluoride 1-2-3 Cris Gilb, RN, PHN, MHAExecutive Director, Minnesota Oral Health Project It’s as easy as 1-2-3 to protect your child’s teeth and strengthen them with fluoride! When sugars in food and beverages mix with bacteria in the mouth, they create acid.  Acid damages tooth enamel, or the outer covering of the tooth. The enamel loses mineral and breaks down. However, enamel will...

“WE SERVE” Dan Snobl, M.Ed., RPT Dan Snobl was the Director of Physical Therapy at Southwest Minnesota State University for 37 years and has extensive leadership experience in the Lion’s organization. I joined Lions in 1982 in my home town of Tracy, Minnesota in Southwest Minnesota. The Tracy Club is part of Multiple District MD5M which number 21,262 strong, organized into 641 Clubs in...

Effective Strategies to Reduce Dental Caries A Silent Epidemic According to the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, caries is the most common chronic disease of childhood. Dental caries is the decay process, the end result of which is the cavity – a result that could be helped by fluoride varnish intervention. It has reached silent epidemic proportions because no one writes about the problem, as compared...

Strategies for Successfully Brushing Your Child’s Teeth Elise Sarvas, DDS, MSD, MPH Dental Director, Minnesota Oral Health Project and Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Developmental and Surgical Sciences, University of Minnesota Most people know they should brush their teeth twice a day. Most people know they should brush their child’s teeth too. But not many realize that the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry recommends...

Keeping a child’s baby teeth cavity-free is important Cris Gilb, RN, PHN, MHAExecutive Director, Minnesota Oral Health Project Dental cavities in the baby teeth of Minnesota’s children is a silent epidemic, even though cavities are preventable. An alarming number of children, nearly half of all children ages 2 – 11, have cavities in their primary (baby) teeth. Over half of children starting Kindergarten have...