4th Annual Patients Appreciation Party

Yesterday we had our annual Patients Appreciation Party and we had so much fun!

This is our favorite day of the year at Smiles For Kids.  This year, just like last, we rented out a movie theater and started out with a carnival of games and food.  We had a great time playing BINGO.  Stefanie did a wonderful job leading this game and many kids won gift certificates to Toys R Us for winning.

Meantime Morgan led many little ones in the game of Hullabaloo.  If you've never played this game, you should look for it!  It is so much fun.

Martina had the spinner game where kids could win all kinds of fun jumpy frogs, necklaces, tatoos and stickers.  And they sure did!  Malgosia and Michele were our face painting artists and so many kids walked out with rainbows, pumpkins, snakes, elephants, swans, hearts and flowers on their arms and faces.

Daniella was our master arts and crafts lady.  She helped kids color pictures and make picture frames.  She did a great job taming the crowd there!

Finally Yvette worked as a team with her son Alex and directed kiddos in the bean bag toss.  They had fun.

Carrie and Kasia welcomed everyone and distributed raffle tickets so that everyone had a chance to win some fabulous prizes such as Toys R Us giftcards, Children's Museum Membership, Houston Arboretum Membership and gift certificates to restaurants around town.

It was so fun to see all the smiley faces and to see all the kids have so much fun!  And of course you cannot have a party without pizza so we all ate tons of pizza!

After a little bit over an hour of all this fun we finally settled down into our seats and watched Chicken Little.  What a fun movie that is!  Everyone munched on popcorn and chilled out for the next hour and a half.  Thank you guys for coming to play with us!  It was so much fun and we hope to see you soon in the office and next year at the party again.

Smiles for Kids and Kids' Meals

Last week we got to participate in a really fun event right downstairs from our office at the Avalon Diner.  A wonderful organization called Kids' Meals was doing a fundraiser there to collect revenue to feed hungry children in the Houston area.  Here is their website if you'd like to find out more about them! http://www.kidsmealshouston.org/  We were so blessed to be part of this great effort!  And it was so much fun as 104.1 KRBE was there with music, fun and Roula and Ryan from the morning show. They were both serving meals at this cool event and certain percentage of all meals sold went to Kids' Meals.  Smiles For Kids sponsored this fundraiser, but we also came to Avalon Diner to have lunch and to contribute to this great organization.  Here are some pictures from the event and hope you will enjoy them a bit :)

At lunch at Avalon Diner with Roula and Ryan!

Dr. Kasia with the director of Kids' Meals, an incredible woman, Ruth Burrell.

Dr. Kasia and the kids helping the fund-raising!

Our promotional table at the event

Yvette and Dr. Kasia with Roula from 104.1 KRBE

Brushing and flossing as Michele would like you to do it!

When to Floss

For most patients, dental floss should be used before tooth brushing. The following reasons are why:

1. When the surfaces in between the teeth are flossed first and the plaque (biofilm) is removed, the fluoride from the toothpaste used while brushing reaches the surfaces in between the teeth to prevent cavities.

2. If brushing is accomplished first, flossing may not be carried out. This is because the mouth feels clean; the need for flossing may not be appreciated. Also time may be limited and flossing can be postponed.

How to Floss

1. Hold the floss between thumb & index finger or hold between thumbs. The ends of the floss can be tied together to make it easier to hold (circle of floss).

2. Grasp the floss firmly, allowing 1/2 inch length between fingers.

3. Work the floss slowly between the teeth in a short sawing motion. Avoid snapping through the contact area.

4. Curve the floss around the tooth in a C-shape.

5. Press the floss firmly against the tooth. Move gently beneath the gingiva until tissue resistance is felt.

6. Slide the floss horizontally and vertically with pressure to remove plaque.

How to Brush

1. Wet the toothbrush

2. Apply a smear of toothpaste across bristles

3. Start with the sides of the top right molars & work your way around all the fronts of the teeth until the top left side molars are reached. Then work the toothbrush the opposite from left to right brushing the tongue side of all the top teeth. Repeat steps for the lower teeth. As you are brushing the toothbrush bristles should be touching the teeth and the gums at the same time (the gums will blanch) moving in a soft circular motion. Roll & vibrate the brush slowly down over the rest of the tooth, making sure some of the bristles are reaching in between the teeth. Special angles with the toothbrush such as inserted up right or at a slight angle to reach the tongue side of the front teeth.

4. While brushing light pressure should be used, if the bristles are bending too much pressure is being applied.

 

Below is the link showing active ingredients of different toothpaste. If a patient is placed on Clinpro, they also need to use a TP with abrasive agents to continue fighting tartar buildup & excess plaque.

"This product is for once a day use in place of regular toothpaste for patients 6 years of age or older as recommended by a dental health professional." from the Clinpro website. Clinpro is only gently abrasive, patients with poor hygiene should improve OH before being placed on Clinpro; for the following reasons 1. They already have poor brushing skills and they will need to use two different toothpastes, you don't want to overwhelm someone that already has poor habits. They need to improve one step at a time. 2. If the patient with poor OH is given Clinpro by the DDS they will probably just brush with that and the toothpaste is not going to help them improve their OH.  

http://www.dimensionsofdentalhygiene.com/uploadedfiles/DDH/Magazine/2010/10_October/1010tpf.pdf

Halitosis

90% of halitosis originates in the oral cavity (poor OH) 10% has systemic or nonoral causes.

 

Tongue Cleaning

Brushing and cleaning the top of the tongue is a daily requirement. The tongue is a nice warm home for bacteria to live and cause bad breath. If brushing the tongue makes one gag, you can brush from side to side in a sweeping motion to help lesson the gag reflex.

New York City Conference

The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry puts on a wonderful conference each and every year over Memorial Day weekend.  This year was in New York City, the city that never sleeps.  And so neither did we!  But we learned a lot!

Our hotel was in Times Square, which is an amazing place!  It is light like daylight all day long.  Thank goodness for black-out curtains in the hotel.  But at the same time it was a wonderful place to stay in the middle of the heart of New York City.  I took several classes and so did Stefanie, our office manager.  On Friday we took what is called "Miniclinics", which is a bunch of small lectures condensed into one 3 hour class.  We learned about "Performance Management of the Dental Team" first.  It was a very interesting lecture about staff retention, measuring success of your staff and their interactions, figuring out the best ways to make your staff work well with one another and with the patients and other staff issues.  It was truly fascinating and wonderful. Second topic of discussion was "Clinical Tips for Successful Placement of the Bonded Resin Composite Strip Crown".  It was a very good clinical lecture on how to make front baby teeth look good in case they have early childhood decay.  I learned a lot from this portion of the class and hope to use the techniques on the little ones.  The third topic was "Etch, Bleach, Seal Technique: Alternative or Adjunct to Microabrasion". Many of our patients have hypoplastic (under-formed) teeth that are esthetically challenging and upsetting to both the patients and the parents.  This lecture discussed methods of treating them using simple bleaching and sealant techniques that could help our patients with overcoming these slight imperfections without aggressive treatment.  The final topic in this lecture series was "New High Tech Gizzmos That Every Pediatric Dental Office Needs to Increase Efficiency and Productivity".  I am always excited to learn about new advances in technology and inventions in pediatric dentistry and this was a very fast paced, information loaded session.  We learned that we basically use the latest and greatest technology for our patients and I was so excited to hear that!  It is so good to know that we are up on top of the innovations and that our materials, instruments, techniques and software are the cream of the crop!

After this class we went to visit the exhibits.  We purchased a few new things that will aid us is better dentistry.  We are trying new front teeth crowns, we purchased Isolite dental illumination system and we shopped around for toothbrushes, toothpaste and such.  We spent many hours talking to dental manufactures and exploring new ideas for pediatric dentistry.

After that we had a bit of entertainment and saw Jersey Boys musical after dinner with a bunch of fiends from pediatric dental field.  We also trotted over to the Empire State Building which is truly amazing!  And then found our way back walking to Times Square.

On Satruday morning we took the final class: "Fraud and Embezzlement in the Dental Office"
 It was a truly scary class as you find out exactly how mean and conniving people can be. It was sad to see the case studies and it made us want to only have good and honest people in our office as we hope we have now!  Stefanie and I appreciated thinking of our staff and how amazing they are!

This was our final class.  After that we enjoyed New York City for another day of musicals, walking tours, biking in Central Park and lots and of sunshine.  It was a great trip and such a wonderful learning experience.  I'm already looking forward to next year's class in San Diego!

Warm welcome to Melissa

Some of you might have been around Smiles For Kids to remember Melissa Vaikhman.  She started in our office about 4 years ago when she was still in high school.  She worked with us during holidays and summers and two years ago she went to school to get her dental assistant license.  This is such a big commitment!  It requires a test, learning how to take X-rays, mastering OSHA and few other skills.  She of course passed the test with flying colors and did a great job.  Then she started college at Trinity University in San Antonio and is majoring in psychology.  Last summer she wanted to try her newly acquired psychology skills as a camp counselor and we missed her dearly here.  But this year she decided to come back and take over for Natalie who went back to school full time and left us for now.  We are so excited to have Melissa here!  She now finished her second year in college and is doing a fabulous job for us!  She is a fully trained dental assistant and you might see her this summer taking x-rays, doing parent talks, sitting in on exams and helping the kids get from one area to the next.  Please say HI to her and warmly welcome her back!  We are also interviewing for a full time dental assistant as Melissa will eventually go back to school.  So stay in touch to hear more about our newest team member as we find someone perfect and special to see our wonderful patients!

MS 150-Bike Ride From Houston to Austin

So we did it again!  This is the 8th time that our family participated in this amazing ride.  Have any of you guys done it? I'd love to hear about your experiences!  For those of you that have never done it or maybe even haven't heard about it... Here is our story:

We LOVE this bikeride!  It is a rain or shine event that has such wonderful, amazing, spirited and simply awesome riders and volunteers that it is hard to describe the atmosphere in words.  It starts on Satruday early in the morning with 3 different start lines.  It is about 100 miles of a ride if you start from the furthest one and 75 if you start from the closest one.  13,000 riders line up to do this ride.  Most of the riders have a team they ride with.  My dad, my husband and I have ridden with many different teams before, but this was out second year to ride with the Continental Airlines Team.  This particular team is super wonderfully organized!  We actually have support both days at lunch so we don't have to stand in line with the rest of the riders.  And aside from turkey and beef wraps they made me my FAVORITE food, peanut butter and jelly sandwich with bananas inside.  Gotta love it!

We spend this first night in La Grange TX on the county fair grounds. It is such a site!  Hundreds of teams set up their huge tents in the field.  Many with generators, kitchens, kegs of beer and fridges full of food.  Our team had lots of goodies and the evening spread included even a wine and cheese tasting party!  My mom and the boys as well as few friends of the family came to see us in La Grange and celebrated the evening with us.  We ate and drank and chilled out, but at 9pm sharp the lights are OUT.  And good thing since we had to wake up at 4:30am to get in our fabulous breakfast of eggs, yogurt, cereal, coffee and other goodies, get our bikes back in shape and hit the road!  That second day we rode 75 miles of hilly Austin countryside.  The weather was absolutely beautiful and we rolled up and down those hills without much delay.  It was such a fabulous ride!  I was so proud of my dad, who at almost 60 years of age did an amazing job both days!

We finally got to Austin around 2pm on Sunday and we were welcomed by crowds of spectators including mom and the boys as well as friends of ours.  We even managed to have dinner with some friends who live in Austin after they were nice enough to let us freshen up in their showers :)

I wish I could have all of you guys inspired to do this ride one day. It is just the most wonderful event I've even been in and I strongly encourage you to try it!  It is just such a great ride!

Well Baby Class

This past Tuesday we had a wonderful new class for parents and kids under three years of age.  We are so excited about launching this program because it gives us an opportunity to share our knowledge of oral health with so many parents! This class is completely free of charge or obligations to the families.  We provide snacks for both parents and kids and the only requirement we have is that the kiddos are under three years of age.  We are planning on having this event few times a year.

We first took this lively group of kids and parents on a tour of our beautiful office.  We showed moms and dads our state of the art digital xray room and explained our beliefs on when and how to take xrays.  We took them through the New Patient Room and talked about how we convince little ones to show us their pearly whites :).  We showed parents our hygiene area where Michele does the cleanings and our exam room.  We also showed them our "jungle and space travel" themed treatment rooms with TVs over the chairs that can entertain little ones while we fix any possible cavities.

After the tour we chatted with parents about all things that are important to little ones' oral health.  We had a slideshow about proper brushing and flossing techniques, about foods that are healthy for the teeth, about habits such as thumb sucking or pacifier use and other pertinent topics.  Finally we took each family to a separate room where our staff showed moms and dads how to properly brush little teeth and Dr. Lindhorst examined individual smiles for cavities as well as proper dental development.  As the parents were walking out, our front desk staff gave them prizes and answered any insurance questions they might have had.

It was such a fun morning and we all had a good time.  We are looking forward to the next session in 6 weeks on May 24th!