A good dentist can see quite a bit about your general health by looking in your mouth. Based on the state of your gums and teeth they can tell if you might have a disease such as diabetes, kidney disease, heart disease, oral cancer or osteoporosis. They can also tell if you have bulimia or are suffering from stress. Check out this interesting article to see if you have some of the oral symptoms of these diseases.

Photo via Conor Lawless

Detroit dentists are very busy these days. This is because medical benefits for about 350,000 GM and Chrystler retirees will expire very soon. So people are lining up to get their last free teethcleaning, dentures and fillings.

Optitians are also experiencing the temporary boom with people coming in to get their last free prescriptions for eye glasses.

"It's been nuts," said David Borlas, a dentist in Chesterfield who has been so busy lately he frequently works straight through his lunch hour. "Once the announcement came out, people started coming out of the woodwork. We've got people jammed on top of people."

See the full story here.

The Detroit photo above is by Dave Hogg

In this video Kandee shows us how we can whiten our teeth at home for a fraction of the cost we would pay at the dentist. Kandee is not a dentist but she did used to work at a dentist's office so does have some good inside info. She recommends buying bleaching trays for only a couple of bucks and then customizing them to fit your mouth by dunking them in boiling water.

It seems too good to be true. Her method only costs a few bucks whereas it would normally cost over $300 at the dentist. We'd love to hear a professional dentist's opinion on her tutorial.

Here's some words of advice about how to keep your teeth white naturally via the dentistwhitening blog;

If you can regularly abstain from eating foods and drinks that can easily stain your teeth, it will also help to keep longer lasting teeth whitening effects. The main foods to avoid are usually darker in color, such as chocolate, red wine and colas, as well as those that are sour and acidic, such as coffee, pineapples, vinegar etc. Of course, it is not healthy to totally avoid some of the above mentioned foods and drinks since a widely varied, balanced diet is very important to your general health. Hence, a cheap DIY teeth whitening secret is to brush and floss your teeth thoroughly at least twice a day and especially after eating these foods. By doing so, you will be able to have fresh and clean teeth, which fend off the onset of bad breath, peronditis, ginvitis, bad gums and plague formations. All these will detract your bright smile.

Photo via 1horsetown

Porcelain veneers can dramatically improve a person's appearance, particularly if their teeth are far from perfect. But veneers don't always make you look better. Sometimes they can make a person look older or less attractive. Often they are overly white and big. Check out the interesting before and after photos of Hillary Duff who had some very poorly crafted veneers change her look for the worse when she was just 18. She's since had them redone and they look much better now.

In the short one minute video below Michelle McPhail tells us what we can expect to pay for porcelain veneers.

She is a dental technician in the Tampa Bay area and she says it costs between $900 to $1,300 for a full veneer. If you're getting a few veneers rather than just one or two you can expect to get a break on the average cost per veneer. Michelle made this video a few months ago and prices may have come down a bit since then.

Do orthodontists make more money than plastic surgeons? Here's an interesting tidbit we found on a student doctor forum.

My wife is an orthodontist, and this is what I know:

Another person wrote in;

Just keep in mind that orthodontics and for that matter all of the dental specialties are EXTREMELY competitive to get into. If you aren't top 3-4 in your class then better get used to the idea of being a general dentist. IMHO it would be foolish to set out to be an orthodontist without a very inherent interest in dentistry. Chances are good you'd end up as a general dentist. As previously stated, don't make a career decision based strictly on money. You've gotta go with your heart.

Image source: dziner

Bill Osmunson is a cosmetic dentist who often treats the white and brown tooth damage caused by fluorides. For 25 years he promoted water fluoridation, but his life was changed when, at the urging of his patients, he re-examined the issue. As he put it, "Looking at the current literature was like a knee in the gut."

Read more here and see the video below.

On This American Life, a dentist talks about the increasing frequency of people with newly cracked and broken teeth. He has seen an acute change in the last three or four months. People are grinding and clenching their teeth while sleeping. This is usually caused by stress, and it usually goes away when the stress lifts. But in times of high stress, whether in someone's personal life or due to the state of today's economy, the grinding can be so severe as to break a tooth. The dentist is seeing a lot more people with job pain and resulting broken teeth.

Cosmetic dentist Dr. Huefner has a good post about how to select porcelain veneers to suit your face. Above are two of five examples. The first image shows a more masculine smile. It suits an older face, it is square and flat. The second shape is called the "Enhanced” smile style, and is apparently popular with many beauty pageant contestants. See that the second teeth from the center are a little shorter than the front teeth. This gives a youthful effect dentists call “the gull wing” and is attractive on many females.

See three more popular veneer shapes here.