REPLAY: Life is Better With Teeth with Dr. Ted Bennion

DJ Stutz  0:00  
Welcome, everybody. I'm so glad to have you here. And today we are doing a replay of one of my favorite episodes of all time. Have you ever seen little kids and they've got that silver teeth or you take your child to the dentist and you're so sad to hear they've got cavities, or there's some issues. And you think, jeez, if you have them brush their teeth, you don't want your kid to be afraid of the dentist, you don't want them to have a negative experience. And so when do you start? How can you avoid some of these issues? As you're raising your little guys? Well, I have the answer. Dr. Ted Bennion is an orthodontist out of Medford, Oregon. He's an amazing father of five wonderful kids. And I'm so excited that not only does he share some really great information on how and when to get started with taking care of your kiddos teeth. But he also integrate some amazing parenting advice that's going to make life so much easier for you all. So enjoy the replay. I enjoyed listening to it again. I hope you will, too. And we'll see you next time.

You are listening to episode three of Imperfect Heroes - Insights Into Parenting. Today, I am so excited because I have my very first guest, Dr. Ted Bennion. And he is going to talk to us about how important oral health is how early you should start some of the do's and don'ts. And he actually throws in a lot of really good general parenting advice into the mix. I'm so excited. Let's get started.

So as I said in the intro, my guest today is Ted Bennion. And I want to explain a little bit about what was going on. A couple of weeks ago, I went to a family reunion. Not all of us could get there. But all of my siblings were there. And between everybody, we had 75 People wish we could have had more. But we all had so much fun. In my family. I have several people who are great experts in various areas of parenting. And so I decided to take advantage of that. And I recorded a few of my siblings and ask them some questions. Ted is so enthusiastic, he is one of the twins. And he is an orthodontist working in Medford, Oregon. He is such a great father and such a great husband. And I just love watching him with his kids, his youngest just graduated from high school. And they are just all so successful caring, and community involved people that I wanted to make sure that I got in with him and some of his insights. So he gives some fantastic information on Dental Care and Early Childhood, some of which I had no idea even through raising my five kids, there was some very new information for me. And what's really fun is he also throws in some amazing parenting advice along the way. And a lot of the things he talks about with developing the habit of dental care and are very young children can translate into almost anything you do with your young kids. And so without further ado, here's our interview. So hey, welcome, and I'm so glad to have you here. So I have with me, Dr. Ted Benyon. He's an orthodontist in Medford, Oregon. And so Ted, I'm just going to have you take a second and just introduce yourself. let parents know how you know what you know what you do.

Dr. Ted Bennion  4:07  
So, like DJ said I'm Ted Bennion and been practicing orthodontics for about 25 years here in Medford, Oregon. I went to undergraduate and got a degree in zoology and then went on to dental school. That's a four year degree and then went on to orthodontic residency, which is three years after that started practicing in Medford. I work a lot with young kids. About 70% of my practices is kids. And then 30% are adults, how to work with kids a lot over the years and how to how to work with them. Some of the most successful courses for me when I was in my residency were in adolescent psychology, really, really useful courses where we kind of learned how to work with kids, where are they coming from? What are they thinking and how to connect with them. And I think that was the most powerful educate

During help for me, because you can know a ton, but if you can't translate that to the kids that you're working with, they're not going to get straight teeth. And there's been some very good studies that show that parents, specifically mothers for these studies, but I would imagine it extrapolates to fathers as well, but mothers that are connected with their children's orthodontic care. And I would extrapolate that to dental care and other areas as well. The more they're connected to the care, the better. The end result is that you'd think that you know, you go to orthodontics, and you're thinking, Okay, I'm gonna go to the best orthodontist in the world. But that best orthodontist is only as good as the parents are, are doing in their home. And part of it is, and I can say they need to brush but Mom and Dad go home with them. And they're the ones who are making sure that happens every day. They're the ones who are making sure there were there were bands, and that they're eating the proper foods, and they're getting to their appointments. And they're the ones who stay connected. And the more connected that they were to the care the better than result was. That's what I've learned over the years. And what I've learned too, is while moms that are connected, or dads have a huge impact, so does my impact as well, the better I am at connecting with them, the better everything rolls. And the more that they connect with me and realize we're on the same page, we're trying to do this together. From the very initial exam, I'm sitting down with them saying, Hey, we're working together to do this. I'm not the guy who just sits down and says, you know, here's what you all have to do. It's me saying we're going to work together, this is some of the things that you're going to do, these are some of the things that I need to do. And together, we're going to find success in doing that. One of the things that we do when we work with something as simple as like thumb habits, that's early, early habits that parents really get worried about, they come to me and it's like, my child sucks to them where they need to do, I'm like, well, first, congratulations, they suck their thumb, you have a pretty happy child, because they never lose their thumb.

They may lose their Binky, but they ain't gonna lose their thumb. And that's a good, that's kind of great. And they sleep well, you know, I have a daughter that has in her ultrasound, we had a an image of her to summon her mouth. And I mean, talk about a kid that you know, is going to be connected with sucking their thumb, right? And parents come in and they get really concerned about well, how am I going to stop this habit? And my answer is, well, you're not. It's your child's habit. It's your child's decision. It's your child's life. And I tried to sit down with the parents and then give a little bit of my parenting philosophy, which is that every trial that we come up against with our kids is an opportunity to connect with them to bring a closer relationship with them. And if that relationship is devolving and getting worse than we need to reset, as a parent, it's the kid isn't going to reset their job. But we have to reset. So a thumb habit is just another opportunity for you to express your love to your child, and to conquer a mountain with them together. And also that them recognizing that it's their mountain to conquer. And you're there to help. The literature basically says that anybody that's sucking the thumb up to four or so until the first teeth come in, really isn't doing that much damage they can't isn't reversible. You know, somebody that may be sucking really hard on that thumb can be forming the palate to their thumb, which would narrow the upper palate. But I don't see that very often parents always come in moms especially get really worried like, am I the most horrible mom on Earth. But because of this or this or this, there's that martyr syndrome that can really hit hard that the mom feels like I've done my best. I've sacrificed my life for this and still didn't get what I wanted. So I'm always telling moms, hey, you know, you're doing better than you think the main thing you have to think about is don't worry too much about what has happened. is most of it's reversible. Yes, it may cost some money. Yes, it may take some time, but it's all reversible. If you let them suck those for up to seven or eight or nine, it's okay, well pick up the pieces from here and move forward. But most of it wasn't caused by that. It's just genetic stitches. There you go. They came out so the child stuck in stuck in the thumb, they're worried that they would have big Overbite because of it. Well, sometimes that does happen. But a lot of times kids like the thumbs don't have a huge overbite, they most often have an open bite, the fight just doesn't come together in the front. That's why we'd like to get it fixed before they get to their to five or six because those front teeth are going to stop growing in. But once they stop sucking their thumb, it'll grow again, as long as those upper teeth haven't fully stopped forming. As long as the root isn't done and completed with with forming, it's going to be okay. So if we catch it, five, six, even seven, it's plenty of time to stop that we even see him after that, or where we say stop the second the thumb and the teeth just grow together. And I love seeing that because I get to tell the kids, I'll show him pictures and say, Hey, here's somebody else who had a thumb habit. Look at what happened. This is them three months later, look at how their teeth came together. And the kid goes oh my goodness. Wow. I mean, little kids. Like oh, I can make that happen. So the other reason why I like to wait until they're in school at least is

I love to ask the question, do you suck your thumb at school? 90% of them go No. And so I want to use that as my building block to say, you've already conquered your habit. If you can go eight hours without sucking your thumb, you got it. You know, little kids have short attention spans, and then that thumb is going to be back in their mouth. So we sit down with him, then, well, you don't suck your thumb at school. My next question is, I want to establish authority, I want to establish independence and their own authority over their own body. And so I'll say, hey, so who told you you couldn't suck your thumb? And they just look at me like blank, like, What are you talking about? They never really want to say, I don't want to get teased. And I don't want to hit that subject too hard with them either. But they'll just go, Well, you know, they look around like nobody told me, okay, and I'm like, okay, nobody told you. So let's get this straight. Your mom didn't say, I don't want you sucking your thumb at school. Because really, that doesn't happen that often the kids just stop. And they don't know, my mom didn't. And if they do happen to get around that and say, Well, yeah, my mom did tell me, I guess Oh, did your mom follow you to school and stop you? Hmm, you did it? And they're like, no. Okay, so great. It wasn't your mom, did your teacher tell you threaten you that if you suck your thumb that you'd be in trouble? Nope. Did your principal I go through all the people as I do this, they'll die down the line. And then they look at me go. No, no, it wasn't anybody. It was just me. That said, I'm like, okay, so you yourself by yourself said I'm not going to do this. Now I've really established in their head. Oh, yeah. It wasn't anybody but me that wanted this to happen. So now I've said, it's you, you're in charge of this. Then I say, Hey, did you ever have a time when you're watching a movie, like at school and the lights are dark? And you put your thumb in your mouth? They're like, Nope. Okay, do you get under your desk and put your thumb in your mouth? Nope. Do you sometimes take bathroom breaks, so you can go in the bathroom and suck your thumb? Nope. The answer is nope, nope, nope. 95% of the time, the 5% of the time that they say yes. They're not ready to stop sucking, they're thrown the bigger issues. And I've seen kids that have come in that have gone to other offices, where they put things have stopped them from sucking the thumb. They're appliances, you can apply to the child, which can work and can be a good adjunct for certain kids. But that's rare. Those kids I saw one come in and her eyebrows were gone. I was like, Okay, what happened? Your eyebrows mom's like, well, she stopped those sucking her thumb. But She plucked her eyebrows out. I'm like, okay, yeah, not ready to stop sucking your thumb. Okay. So that's to me, as a parent, that's what I'm looking for. You know what, when I when I win a battle, but the war is being lost. It's like, Let's reset and see if this battle is so important. Or if we need to just say the battle for another time, then we sit down with them. So once I've established that in the kids are like, yeah, yeah, no, I don't need to do any of those things. Then they say we say well, okay, you don't find the need to do this. What's the next step? So you obviously, don't do it? What stopped you from doing it? I want to gently begin to bring out that idea that I don't want to be teased. Now like, Well, I do because of the kids maybe? Yeah, I don't want that I gotcha. And I let him know, I suck my thumb. I'm okay. My treatment coordinator. See, she stalked her some thumb. So we all sucked our thumbs here. You're in good company, You're among friends. And so then when they do that, then I sit down with him and say, Okay, now so you've already got the habit broken. You're already basically there. We just need to add more when you have a good incentive. You stop, don't you that like, Yeah, nobody really needs to push you when that happens. Right? Then I begin to find out. Okay, now that's point to these pictures. Do you see the problem? Do you see your teeth not coming together? Yes. I when I was younger, Orthodontist I would say okay, if we don't fix this, you might need surgery to fix this, like, you know, bring out the big guns, we want to avoid surgery, right? Woof. That did not fly. It just got the kids scared, scared to death and didn't work well at all. But if I just said, We can fix this and show pictures of other kids, their their teeth came together, they can bite into things now they can kids see things that are proximal, right, you know, I want to bite into food, can you bite into a pizza and blah, blah, blah. But that's not a driving force. They'll learn to eat a pizza with the side of their mouth, I'll do whatever. So then I'm starting to say, okay, we can get rid of these things. And then I won't have to do work on you. Right I then your mom doesn't have to do it. So once I realized that, then we start to say, Okay, we're going to do a program where you go home with your mom, and you guys get a calendar and print it up on the computer. And on your way home, go grab some stickers, whatever stickers, whatever you're interested in, go get stickers like that. And then every day that you don't stick your thumb, you guys will put a sticker on the calendar, put it in a public place, put it in the kitchen, where everybody gets to celebrate. This is a celebration, because every time you don't do it for the day, we put a sticker on that. If you go a full week where you get a sticker every day, then at the end of the week, do something a little bigger. We used to not just give the sticker but we'd say Okay, on day one, you're going to jump on the trampoline with dad for 15 minutes.

or you're going to, we're going to read a book together, or we're going to watch one of your TV shows together, or we're going to play a video game together. It was a lot of that was personal interaction with the parent here in an age where they want that. And we would say, What special thing do you want to do, and they'd write, we'd write it down on that calendar, we're going to do this, we're going to do this, we're going to do this. So the kids highly motivated to do those things with their parents. And you got to figure out things that really match the child's personality, then we'd say at the end of the week, we might take a walk to the treat store and get a treat together or take a walk to the bookstore. And we'll read books together, or the library and rent a book from the library, whatever we want to do, then if we do a full month of it the whole month, then at the end of that month, we're going to do something that's bigger, my daughter wanted to go to the Family Fun Center with all the video games and everything. And she wanted the whole family to go, some of the kids would have been just mom and dad and her mind was the second in the family. And she loved to be the family hero. So that's where she wanted to go. So just the act of sitting down together and having this time together, which is huge. And we see 90% of the families come back the first week and go oh, yeah, it's done. It works. It works phenomenally well. Now, the kids the big struggle is what do they do at night? Right? Oh, man. So we sit and talk about it? What do you give them several options, they can go get a popsicle, and eat the popsicle and then tape the popsicle to the thumb. The other one was to the popsicle sticks. Absolutely. Yes, exactly. Thank you so much for doing that. My staff have to do it all the time with me. Could we be a little more clear doctor? That's right. So so we went and did that they get the popsicle stick. Another thing was to put a sock over your over. And then I'm always teasing them like don't use one of your dad's smelly socks, those are horrible. And then we tell them pin the sock to their pajamas, so it stays there. Another is our gloves, they can pin the cotton glove, they can pin to their pajamas. And then I sit down and tell them my daughter who when she was four, she said Dad, why don't I just taped my thumb to my hand. And I said, and so we tape it, we taped it to him. She taped it, we started it and then she wrapped it. And funny enough 90% of the kids choose that one, because I identify it as the one my daughter made up. Right. And they want to do what the kid thought of. And it was truly what a kid thought of. So we found that that the parents wrapped, it didn't work as well, either too loose or too tight, the kids need to be some portion of that overall activity once again, give them independence, let them be a part of the solution as much as you possibly can. And so many parents come back to this with really great reviews of just how this worked, how this brought them closer to their child, and they came together but too often, you know, we're, we're imposing our will on a kid on something they need to do. I mean, and I tell them when I lectured to fourth graders on on their teeth, I'll spend an hour and go to different schools and talk to him. And I always tell him, hey, when you don't brush your teeth, do your parents get cavities?

So why do you brush your teeth, you brush your teeth for you? Could you imagine if your parents did get cavities, holy cow, what a world this would be. So that's powerful to just try to set the scene and I want to do that, throughout my orthodontic practice is really set the scene from the beginning. This is your body, this is your life. I'm just here to help you to get what you want. And if you don't want this, then we have to be really careful about starting it. Because you're not going to do all this stuff after wearing retainers or all that. That's going to keep it in place. That's one of my principal philosophies within my practice is autonomy of the patient and inspiration to get them to do what they need to do. I have information that they don't have, that I need to translate to them, and they're not going to listen to it. And then they connect with me. In the end. Thanks so much. I love what you said about the child being part of that decision. And it's the child's benefit. And so it is their responsibility to do the work to get that benefit. And having them coming up. It can't be lectured, right? It can't be like, Well, I'm telling you, this is for you. This is for you. It's they're really not connecting, they're still doing it just because it's like I want to get mom off my back. It's sitting down and saying, Okay, let's talk about this a little bit. Well, how do you see it? You know, what do you see about your teeth, and sometimes you're not going to get through to that kid to brush their teeth until they get their first cavity. The Boy Scouts does an incredible job of this thing called reflection. And I learned about it when I was doing training years ago, where they sit down they teach them that not every boy scout group does this, but the ones who are successful to it really well. But you sit down after an activity and you sit down as a group and you reflect on it. There are no very few rules other than you, nobody gets to cut anybody off. All the answers are relevant and useful. And we're not going to tease anybody for their answer. We're just going to hear about what you think about this. And so if your child comes home after a cavity has been filled, tell me about your experience there. Let's talk about it. Did the dentist see anything? What can we do to maybe hopefully we're reinforcing Hey, this turned out to be not such a bad experience. However, it did cost this much money. So I would like to reflect on that a little bit more

People say, Oh, this was money. And now luckily, it's a baby tooth. And so this one is going to fall out. So it's not going to be there for the rest of your life. But the new ones, they're going to be there and this cavity will be there for the rest of your life, or the filling will be there for the rest of your life. And you're gonna have to pay to get it redone over and over. So what kind of things could we do to make sure that we don't go down this path again, and then reinforce some of the things you talked about? I mean, so many times, I've had my kids go come back from the dentist and say, Dad, I gotta brush better, like, really? Wow, that's a revelation. You know, I'm a dentist, and I talked to you about that. But, you know, it can be a time of conflict, like, well, I've told you that over and over and over. It's like, no, no, don't say that. Say, I'm so glad you heard that message. That's awesome. Tell me what your thought about that. But parents too often will sit back and say, Oh, I told you that too. Why don't you listen to me? Why do you listen to your dentist? Well, now we've got a battle. Why horse about why not say, Hey, what did you learn? Wow, that's phenomenal. That's really I'm glad you learned that. Now we move on. And we're on the same page. And same thing, like when parents say, project their own fears of the dentist onto their child. That's a big problem as well. You don't want to project those? Oh, yeah, I'm, I was afraid of the dentist. But I hope you're not afraid of the dentist. While that kid heard, I was afraid of the dentist, you know, or subtle things that the parents say, I see more kids who are dental phobes, who come from parents who had dental hopes, and because they passed it on those the subtle language that goes on there, and you just have to be super careful about how you present dentistry and mouth because I'll tell you, the more positive experiences a child can have in the dental chair as a young child, the better off they'll be as an adult, every negative experience is just multiplied tenfold as they get older. And so we want to be as positive as possible because they're finding out more and more now, the relationship with the mouth to the body, which is like no, duh. It's the portal. It's the main portal to the rest of your body. It's like, it's like not having the airports you know, you've got your you got your checkpoints, right. If you don't have a checkpoint, and anything comes in is like, Well, yeah. And we were shocked. We had some terrorists on board, but it's in your mouth is going going into your body and what decay is there, people will allow Festering Wounds in their mouth that you would never allow on the rest of your body. If you had a wound on your arm that hadn't healed in six months, you wouldn't be like, Well, my doctor says just to live with it. It's like no, that's going to have an effect on your body. And so what we find is when there's gingivitis and periodontitis in a person's mouth, that it affects things in a way that we had not thought previously, heart disease is significantly correlated with periodontal disease, gum disease. Diabetes is associated with it's correlated significantly with periodontal disease, preterm pregnancy, a good gynecologist OBGYN will, will ask the pregnant mother, when was the last time you saw your dentist and make sure that you're getting your teeth cleaned regularly, because preterm pregnancy is correlated with that, and now they're finding that potentially Alzheimer's is linked with it that says more than newer edge where they're saying, Oh, well, we're finding the same kind of plaques in the mouth in these Alzheimer's brains. Is there a correlation there, but the heart disease and diabetes is that data is 2025 years old. In fact, I had a good friend of mine who is a heart surgeon 20 years ago, who came to me he's like I was reading in my flagship cardiovascular journal, that of the correlation between the two, that it's as significant as many of the correlators that we think of like high blood pressure, and atherosclerosis and those things, because like, why aren't you guys beating that drum? As dentists were like? Well, it's new data, we don't want to go and say that and then not have it there. But now that it's been 25 years, it's significantly correlated, we go and talk to our patients a lot. Now, interestingly, COVID, there was some studies that came out that people who had COVID People who also had periodontal disease were 567 times more likely to be hospitalized, and also is more likely to die. I mean, the correlations were massive, right now, you also realize that who gets COVID older people who tend to have those diseases as well. So once again, we didn't jump on that boat as dentists. But still the correlation is there, that you sit back and say, Man, that can we afford not to really be paying attention to oral health, and how it applies to the rest of our bodies. You do not want bloody gums occurring when you're brushing and everything else because not only is the blood coming out of your gums, but it's also allowing all of the plaque and other things to get into your body through that blood supply. So it's like rubbing a wound, you wouldn't use your saliva on a wound. Like, you know, right now you're giving a grimace, as I say, like, no, don't spit on a wound, right? And you you brush your teeth and bleed and be like, Oh yeah, there's a little bleeding there. Your floss?

And you'll bleed you'd like others a little bleeding there. And then people will say, Well, I'm not flossing because I bled, it's like, no, no, no, you got to clean that wound out. But it's really important to get in there and make sure you're taking care of it. And so establishing those good habits as a kid, and helping them to recognize their mouth is a really important part of their body to take care of, is more than just the financial edge of it, or even the disease. It's about longer life lifespans as well. So really useful. Well, and with everything that you're bringing up, it makes me wonder how early do we need to introduce oral care to our children? And what is that earliest youngest dental care at home look like? What should be the first thing that parents are doing with their kids, really, um, you can start even before they get the first tooth with them, there's some of these brushes that are for gums and just kind of getting used to something in their mouth, from a very young age of just massaging their gums, having your hand close to their mouth, having it as a shared experience, you're not enforcing it, once you're holding your child down, while you brush their teeth, you might want to think about it again. I mean, if I put psychological health, and I pitted against teeth, even even though I feel teeth are very important psychological health wins and, and relationship between parents and child. Hugely important. I mean, it's above teeth. It's not a sucker's choice. It's not a choice between either or, like, either have a good relationship, or my kids have a bad teeth, you know, it's like, what am I going to choose? It's like, well, you can have both, you just have to be a little more creative with my grandkids, what I find works really well as we talk about bugs, you know, kids are into bugs, little little kids are into bugs. And then and you say, you know, there's bugs in your mouth. I try to use the language that they understand. It's like, yeah, there's there's little bugs in your mouth, and I'm in charge of helping you get them out. And then I'll look in their mouth and I'll hand it okay, let me see if I see anything there. Oh, my goodness, there's one right there. Hey, book, you know, I'll have them open their mouth, I'll get my mouth closed. Hey, bug, get out of there. Oh, my goodness, that bug, he is not leaving, I got this special bug one, I'll get in there and I'll brush him off. And they'll brush him off. I'll stop. I got two minutes here, I gotta get this teeth brush. And I gotta go and do this. And this. And this. Kids don't work on that kind of program. They, they work on relationships, the kids, they try and not get to bed. Right? We all know that. So with my own kids, I'm sitting there and this we're going to slow down. When this time occurs. It may take us 510 15 minutes to take the time and sit with them and have fun and laugh and talk me saying we've changed a diaper. Are we going a million miles an hour? It's like no slow down, chat with them talk all these poopy diapers or stick in and have fun with the whole process. Rather than just get in and get out something I don't really fully enjoy. When you're brushing their teeth. It's hard. It's like Oh, my goodness, they're crying. And granted, sometimes they will cry. It is true. But if I can have experiences where we're having a one on one good experience, and I'm talking about bugs, and Okay, time to get bugs, I find kids like rhythms. So as we're going through it night after night, oh, hey, let's check out those bugs. And they know what the rhythm is. They know what the story is. And we go in there and we replay it again, and we have fun with it. That's to me a significant part of it. So you start that early on? Yeah, brushing the gums doesn't do much. I mean, certainly doesn't. What benefit is it? I don't know. But the good benefit is getting something in their mouth, it can take a half a second, they get used to that we have fun playing around, I don't have to do anything. That's the beauty of starting when they have gums is like yeah, I'll just go in there. Now on that same subject, it's really critical that moms do not feed their children, anything in a bottle when they're going to bed while they're going to sleep. If they have anything that has sugar in it, and I'm talking natural sugars to so you put milk, apple juice or any of those things, they are all full of sugars, and they are bathing their mouth at night. And that's how you get baby bottles syndrome. Pediatricians are talking about not feeding too much water either, because they're not getting caloric intake with it. My daughter's came to me and like I went to put water in the bottom that like Dad, what are you doing? Don't put water in there, like no rules

on what to do anymore? Like no, it's no calories in that it's not good for him. So I was like, Okay, no more that parents used to put their kids to bed just with the water so they wouldn't get baby bottle mouth. And so you really, you cannot ever do that with them. You have to make sure that they're not they're not getting any of that because it'll rot and decay. And now you've put them up against a real wall, because you got to get all that dental care done when they're very young. And that can be a real problem. So getting in there, I'm flossing children's teeth. That one I want to get in there and brush but flossing can be just a real difficult thing to do. They have the new Waterpik flossers that you could put on the low end of it. And you could do that in the bathtub. The newer studies are finding that Waterpik closers are as effective or possibly more effective than flossing. Okay, these are really really effective tools. And I interview hygienist and dentist all the time now being data on our research that saying this could be are you seeing it in your practice there I guess

I did with myself I floss every day, I started using Fauci and Waterpik, Foster, and my gums are more healthy. That's just the truth of it. It's Waterpik closers are incredible. I believe that flossing is more important than brushing, because 90% of the decay and fillings that you're going to get are between the teeth. And so you've just got to get in there and clean out those areas. Does that mean brushing is an important? No, it's a very, very close second. But they're just two things that go together. And so you got to really make sure that you're that you're getting the floss in there. However, a lot of the cavities for kids are going to be in between the teeth as well. But flossing can be a difficult thing. If you can do the Waterpik. Foster and bathtub, man, that's awesome. I like the portable ones that are rechargeable. It's a cheaper version as well. And you can only get Waterpik w a t e r p ik I have no financial interest in them, although I should add it because they're a really good company. But I don't. And I don't like the Waterpik toothbrush. Personally, I get poor reviews from my hygienist I've used it I'm not impressed with this. I love electric toothbrushes are the bomb. They are Sonicare and Oral B are are by far the top of the line. I there's other brushes that come in and go. But I don't see the robust research that's behind Sonicare and Oral B electric toothbrushes. The problem with some of the electric toothbrushes is that the kids don't like the vibration, that ultrasonic vibration tickles their nose and all that. So we don't use them get get one of those little fun ones. I mean, for little kids out there, get the fun rotary brushes. And I'm like whatever makes this experience go a little bit longer, great. Also, kids are very sensitive to toothpaste. And a lot of kids don't like mint, you'll hear and complaining about. I don't like that flavor. I don't like that. Give them a flavor they like try to get that sugar free Xylitol and any other Xylitol I like as a sugar substitute. Or do it without toothpaste, you don't have to have toothpaste to in order to do a good job of brushing your little kid's mouth, don't like it, don't use it, just use a toothbrush. The toothbrush is the main job here you're getting you're mechanically removing plaque from around the teeth. And that's what you got to do. So use that if you can use a Waterpik Foster and I like like I said I liked the portable because you can use it in the shower. It's not sitting there sink, I just don't see kids. You know, it's so messy using the Waterpik Foster. It's just water gushing out of your mouth, right. You can't swallow it fast enough. And you shouldn't I mean, it's just water. But I mean just to be totally hydrated afterwards, but bloated. But if you can get in there and use that in their bathtub, and just use it in their mouth. And if you can't get there every day, you don't get there every other day getting there cleaned out regularly enough kids don't develop bacteria that fast. I mean, cleaning your kids teeth. If you go to the pediatric dentist and they're cleaning your teeth most of the time, that's not a hygienist cleaning the teeth. It's an assistant who's been specially trained to just clean the teeth. It's so easy to clean kid's teeth, you don't need a hygienist to do it. Generally, if your dentist says that they need hygiene cleanings. Totally Yes, I agree with whatever the dentist prescribes. But most of the time, when I talk to my pediatric dentist, the assistant can do it because it's super easy to clean kid's teeth. I mean, think about it, the rest of their life is easy to they don't get diseases the same typically. I mean, they can go and play for, you know, hours and hours and hours and not seem to have any problems the next day and we'd gotten planned out. But you just got to get in there regularly enough that you can do it. And if you're going to the dentist and the dentist is saying hey, you're doing a good job and you're only doing something every other day in terms of flossing with a Waterpik foster of floss, then keep doing it. It's working, you know, the foods that the kids eat is also significant, right? In order to get decay in somebody's mouth, you have to have three things. You need a substrate, which is the tooth, if you don't have teeth, guess what you don't get cavities. You also have to have sugars. And you have to have bacteria. Those are the three things. If you only ate meat, you would never get cavities. If you only ate fat, you would never get cavities. Because the bacteria eat sugars, complex or simple sugars, whatever it is, they need sugars. They like the simple sugars because they can eat them like crazy. I mean, they can go crazy with simple sugars. And I tell kids it's like a It's if you ever watch Shark Week, it's like the feeding frenzy of sharks when you throw the food in the waters frothing I said that's what it looks like in your mouth when you eat sugar. Okay, when you eat complex sugars like a potato or you know some of the other things, the starches, rice, those take a lot more time to break down where they get stuck in between the teeth of that they'll start to break down salivary amylase breaks down carbohydrates in your mouth. And that's what feeds the bacteria then. So some people have more virulent types of back strains of bacteria in their mouth, and so they process the sugar faster and create the plaques faster. Some people have fine bacteria but they eat a lot of sugar. If you move your sugar down, you're gonna be better decrease the amount of sugars you're going to do better

But also I tell parents, it's the sticky sugars too. If I like to ask my fourth graders if I give you a spoonful of, of sugar straight up sugar, or I give you a Jolly Rancher, which one is going to be worse for your mouth? And the answer is always a Jolly Rancher, even a gummy bear or juice, any the small chewy candies, anything that gets stuck in your mouth and I can help the kids if you're sitting in there, and you've got candy in your mouth still, and you finish swallowing it. That's bad candy, because it's still feeding your bacteria. And also, a sugared gum is horrible, because it's full of sugar and they'll chew it for a half hour. We call Mountain Dew the moneymaker in the dental industry. Everybody out there. Just be aware, Mountain Dew is called the moneymaker because we make a ton of money off of Mountain Dew. And yet we hate it with a passion. We don't want to make dentists don't want to make money off of Mountain Dew or decay. We feel like we're here to help you because you already have this problem. We're here to help you get rid of this problem. We're not here just to fill teeth. Yes, we make money doing that. But dentists in general really want to help you stop getting that. And so Mountain Dew for whatever reason causes mass you can tell a kid who come in at six months checkups. And all of a sudden they've got decay everywhere. And you're like, Wow, this is a problem. And you question the kid? Yep, they started drinking Mountain Dew the last six months and now we've got decay everywhere. So Mountain Dew is a problem. But all soda drinks are problem. Mountain Dew is a specific high problem. But soft drinks, cause first of all, they have sugar in them straight up sugar, kids will tend to nurse them. Right? They'll they'll they'll go little by little sip a little sip a little and they'll they'll make it last a half hour, right? So that's number one. You got all this sugar that's assaulting and the bacteria is going more and more and more. The second thing that happens is the soda pop has carbonic acid. Okay, so carbonic acid is what makes it fizz. That's acid. Acid is why we don't like plaque. Bacteria create plaque. Plaque has a low pH, it's very acidic. That low pH that acid it eats away at your teeth. It's a double whammy that you're doing both. Now that brings up another subject. Acid coming from any other source is a problem. So I've seen kids where they are sucking on lemons, they just like lemons. Lemons are very acidic. And so you'll see an erosion of their teeth. They'll come in for their appointment, like your teeth just look almost translucent. They've eroded that outer layer of calcium on their teeth. Also people who are bulimic, okay, so if they're throwing up, you'll see those were taught to look at the backside of someone's teeth. If you see erosion on the backside of someone's teeth, it's either reflux, or bulimia. And we're supposed to talk to the patient about it. And that's a tender subject with people like do you make yourself throw up? That's not a question that people want to answer truthfully. So you have to really kind of come around the edges of it. But any kind of acid in your mouth that you're putting in, you want to be aware of it. So a lot of people will say, Okay, I've got acid, I just ate something I said, I'm gonna go brush my teeth. No, no, no, don't do that. Or I just threw up, I'm going to go brush my teeth. Don't do that your teeth have just lost the outer layer of calcium, a thin thin layer of calcium from the acid that just came up, you want to rinse your mouth, definitely take the pH back up. So rinse your mouth with water, make sure it's rinsed well. And then use a mouthwash to get you back to normal. So that mouthwash with fluoride will replace the calcium you lost with fluoride. So we I really love having the fluoride around the house for anybody that's throwing up because we tell them you got to rinse your mouth and get that out. Brushing your teeth is not a good idea. At that point. You can wait once it's later that day. Sure, go brush your teeth. It's it bounces back fairly quickly. But you want to be aware of that. I have never heard that. Because if you throw up get sick, whatever. The first thing you want to do is brush your teeth to get that out. So that is brand new information. For me. That's pretty amazing. Thanks for sharing that. And then another question that I had is you brought up mouthwash. And I've seen in the store mouthwash for kids, whatever. What is an age and then how do you teach your children to use mouthwash properly? Because I don't think you want them swallowing it. No, no, no. before the age of five really kids can't control swallowing toothpaste or mouthwash. They're going to swallow it. And so what you have to know is am I in a fluoridated area is my water fluoridated where I live. If it is for dated your child is already getting the optimal amount of fluoride. If they get more fluoride, it doesn't cause any damage in terms of health issues. But what happens is the child becomes more susceptible to fluorosis. fluorosis is where

Are the enamel become spotted? Now there's a lot of different reasons for spotting it the enamel. But fluorosis, you'll see it on almost all the teeth, you'll just see these little white spots that show up. Like I said, there are other reasons for that. But if you're getting too much fluoride, the teeth actually become a little bit brown. Okay, it starts turning the toothbrush. In fact, that's how they found out that floor was out there was in Colorado, there was a town that there well had a high amount of fluoride. Nobody knew that. But everybody had brown teeth, but they never got cavities. Nobody in this town got cavities, all their teeth were incredible. So they started studying these people. Of course, they hated their brown teeth. But they were also the the dentists were going but you don't get cavities. So then they started seeing some people that didn't have the brown teeth, but they did also didn't get cavities. And they found that the people with the brown teeth, were getting a lot of fluoride that people with the the not brown teeth and the white teeth. We're getting just a teeny teeny amount of fluoride. It doesn't take money. It's like one part per million. You know, it's very small. And so nowadays, you're getting even if you're in a non fluoridated town, you're still getting some fluoride and bottled water if it was bottled in a town where they had fluoride in it or if you're on a well, we always tell people to check your wealth for fluoride and see if it's too much or too little. And especially as dentists if we prescribe fluoride to someone to a family, the dentist is supposed to be asking you are you on a well, because it's easy to go, oh, yeah, we're in the city, nobody's on a well, and then somebody is on a well, and that well has fluoride in it. We're also supposed to tell people if we're giving them fluoride, don't let your child brush with fluoridated toothpaste when they're little, because they're getting too much fluoride at that point. Okay. And there's times that I saw in St. Louis, which is fluoridated. I am a massive fan of fluoridation. I am in Oregon, and they don't fluoridate the water in any of our major cities, Portland, none of the cities have fluoride in them, sadly, because it means that a lot of kids have cavities. But when I was in St. Louis, a lot of kids came in with this. Just just slight discoloration of the teeth because of fluorosis and it was didn't cause any permanent damage. The teeth were actually super strong, but who wants that on their teeth? And too often we as dentists, we're like, well, their teeth are strong dose, so that's a good thing. I'm like, No, it's not tooth color. And all of that is really important to people, they don't want to walk around with brown spots or white spots on their teeth. So we have to be better in my opinion of really letting families know if you've got somebody under five and your town is fluoridated. Talk with your dentist and see if you should be using toothpaste that doesn't have fluoride in it. Just use a teeny teeny drop I mean half a pea size is what you should be using. You don't need a lot on that toothbrush. And especially with with any fluoride my own kids, I wanted to control the amount of fluoride that's going in their mouth and so I'm not going to put it on their tooth but toothbrush I want a non fluoridated toothpaste up to about age five. And then we can give the same thing with mouthwash. Of course I don't want fluoride in any mouthwash. But do little kids really need mouthwash. No, they don't. Most of your odor that comes from the mouth is from your tongue. So that's what I'm a big fan of tongue scrapers. Tongue scrapers are awesome. And if you wake up in the morning, you got a bad breath. Go grab a tongue scraper, go as far back as you can don't gag yourself but get pretty far because anaerobic bacteria that's causing some of those issues. So and those at night are going crazy. So you go in there and you don't have to go crazy scrape and just one one nice, gentle scrape across the whole thing. Some are bigger scrapers. Some of the tongue scrapers are big, some are smaller and require to gentle scrapes. But you're not scraping everything off. You're just when you take it off, you'll see how much you have that you take off. You're like, oh yeah, that's I'm not putting that back in my mouth. I'm putting what I love doing. In my exams, I'll have a an explorer, which is a little little hooked instrument that we can scrape off plaque where I see it. So I'll scrape it off. And I'll show the patient. I love doing it to teenagers. I'll show it I'll say okay, so that's just a little bit of plaque that's on there. And if you could just put your tongue out so I can get rid of it. And then look at me like,

oh, you cannot do that. You cannot like like, are you crazy? Are you Jekyll and Hyde? Are you like, are you Hitler? How could you do it this domain? Well, that's where I got it. Just, I was just putting it back where I got the like, and then I tell him, I'm just pointing out, you don't like it. So get rid of it. You don't want this stuff in your mouth. So with the little little ones, you want to make sure that once you take the tongue scraping out, you would never put that back in your mouth. You always rinse it in the sink because it's like That's gross, even though it probably wouldn't hurt you one bit to put it back in. But that's the biggest source of bad breath is that tongue. Now the second is what you eat garlic onions, they're going to be coming up garlic, garlic is going through your pores on your skin. So I mean it's it's everywhere. Then the next thing that can cause bad breath is decay in your mouth. A periodontal disease leaves some nasty breath. And so you got to get that disease out of your mouth if you want to get better get rid of that breath. So those are the three main reasons for bad breath and you can really easily control the first one there. So that's some

Ideas on mouth rinse as well. So if you want to use a mouth rinse mouthrinses, like my third on the list and it's way down the list in terms of what you can do to take care of your teeth, you got brushing and flossing that is almost like the king pens, you got mouthrinses, they can do some good. A lot of the dentist don't like Listerine because the alcohol content is high. So we rarely would have a child of use it, because they are tending to swallow some of it. And also that alcohol content tends to dry out the mouth. And so people are always worried when their saliva slips out of the mouth or saliva this and I'm sorry, my mouth is full of saliva, and I was letting No, saliva is like gold. For dentist, a dentist that is grossed out by saliva is like a mechanic that that's grossed out by oil. Okay, oil keeps the engine going. They know that's the lifeblood of that engine. Saliva keeps the mouth going. The worst thing that can happen to a person is to have dry mouth, people who would get cancer and they'll get they'll get that radiation that stops the salivary glands from producing. They go downhill fast in terms of oral care, they'll get disease cavities, saliva soup, and that's why we have artificial saliva for those kinds of people. But there's some drugs that slow down saliva, and those are really, really negative things for people. So we want saliva in the mouth. So if you're at the dentist, there's a little bit of extra saliva is like no big deal. That's good stuff. Going back to this, then with the mouthrinse being the third, you just don't need a lot of it. If you want to use it to make your mouth a little bit more, it can certainly help. I tend to stay away from Listerine also because it's just hard to use the kids that burns your mouth just a little bit and the alcohol dries out your mouth just a little bit as it desecrates. So an evaporates. So that's something to think about. It's not horrible, you know. So it's obviously has its popularity. I'm a fan of the other ones as long as that fluoride and it tastes good to you go for it. Wow, that's amazing. You've taught me a ton of stuff today that I never thought of. So this is really good. So I always end my podcast when I have a guest with the same question. And that is, how would you describe a successful parent, I would say a successful parent is the one who parented today. With love. I said it, parenting is an everyday experience. And no matter how many mistakes you've made, how much you've screwed up in the past, if you approached today, and you parented to the best of your ability, and you did it with love, and you're trying to learn and to grow. I think that's a successful parent. And I would say the next thing is, it's a parent who's willing to,

to grow as a parent and take input as a parent for their kids, a parent that's willing to apologize often to their child when they don't live up to their standards. I used to be worried because I apologize my kids all the time. I'm sorry, I screwed up. I should have been frustrated there. I should have done a better job with you. And I apologize. And I'd be like, how many times are they getting? Let me do that. Or they go, that's just an idiot. He doesn't know what he's doing. And yet, once my kids were all grown up, they're like that I always appreciated that you were that you were trying to do better that you would come to me and you weren't afraid to say I didn't do it the way I wanted to do it. I was taught by my mom that you're one day going to be a parent, Ted, when I was little, she would tell me you're going to be a dad. People asked me as a young boy, what do you want to be when you grow up? My answer was always a dad. I mean, that's what I had been taught that that was the highest level of adulting is to be a father. And so I was really excited to do it. And my mom prepared me for that event. And she prepared me by helping me to understand what it would be like she taught me how to be a parent when I was very young. And that helped me to know what her standards were. And if she didn't hold up to them, and then also knew what I wanted to do when I got to be older. So if you're still trying and you're still learning, and you're still loving, you're successful.

DJ Stutz  49:00  
I love that. Thanks so much for sharing. So, Ted Bennion where can people find you? Or do you care people find you I know you have a very busy, busy practice. You can find us in Medford, Oregon, we're sitting the same office every day, doing the same thing every day making smiles saving the world in our own little way. That I think the best part of orthodontics is the journey that I get to take with people they come in, I get to see a generally healthy population. And they come in they know what their problem is. I'm not surprising him. Sorry, you have a root canal. It's like you got crooked teeth. And I think you knew it.

Dr. Ted Bennion  49:36  
And so you can find me in Medford and and we're there Monday through Thursday. And we start early at seven o'clock and we finish it for and it's a great, great job, great occupation. 

DJ Stutz  49:47  
Well, Ted Bennionn, thank you so much for joining us and being part of this. So for everyone else. I hope you appreciate all this great information. If you have any ideas or suggestions

are a hot, you can always leave them with me at djstutz@littleheartsacademyusa.com You can always go to our Facebook page or my Instagram page. And that's also under Little Hearts Academy USA. And I always love to hear the aha moments and the things that you've learned from our podcast. So I hope to hear from all of you soon. Thanks so much for joining us

Oh, hey, you're still here. You must have loved the show. Why not leave that five star reviews so the show is easier to find for other families, and they can enjoy the show as well. All right, I'm really good to go now. Catch you next time. Goodbye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai