Adventures in Happy Teeth Land: Dr. Noura's Special Journey with Kids' Dental Health!

Welcome to the Dentistry for Kidz podcast. We are Angelina and Cameron and we love candy. Do you all love candy? We've learned how to enjoy all the candy we want without getting cavities or getting in trouble with our dentist wants to learn our magic. Join us discover how to enjoy sweets and have nice bright, clean, shiny white tea. Let's go.

Today we have Dr. Nora Reza port from Red Rock kids central Las Vegas. Dr. Nora moved to the States at a young age and grew up in Las Vegas attending college at UNLV. She followed her passion for sciences by graduating from Nova Southeastern University College of Dentistry and completed her specialty degree in pediatric dentistry at UNLV Dental School. Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

So our first question is what made you decide to become a pediatric dentist and work with kids dental health.

So even before I decided to go to dental school, I always liked working with kids. When I was in high school, I worked at a daycare. So I really enjoyed working with kids. And that's kind of how when, when after, after I finished dental school, then I decided the specialty that would I would enjoy the most would be pediatrics. So that's kind of what made me go to that direction.

So we heard you're an expert in treating specialty need patients? Can you tell us about your experience working with special needs kids and how it differs from treating other young patients?

Yeah, so we see a good amount of special needs patients at our office. Mostly I would say most of the specialties because we see are in the autism spectrum. And the main difference I would say is that you have to be more patient, give them a give them give them an idea why what's coming so that they're aware of what's going to happen, so that they're a little bit more comfortable. So you just have to be a little bit more patients. And then sometimes with special needs kids, we also do need to put them under sedation, that constant conscious sedation or general anesthesia if they need any treatment just so that they're a little bit more comfortable. So

what are some common dental challenges that special needs kids may face? And how do you address them in your practice.

And then the main problem is with parents, they have a hard time with keeping oral hygiene, focus at home. So sometimes parents have a hard time brushing their kid's teeth at home. So it's really important for us to show the parents the proper way to brush their kids, especially with special needs, how to position them, how they can position the child to be able to open their mouth, sometimes they could be fighting them. So that's I would say that's the hard part with homecare with special needs kids. I think also, not a lot of dentists can accommodate special needs kids so that that's kind of a downfall on us with helping them as well.

And so for just kids in general, are there is that also the common dental problem you see? Or is there anything else?

In general? Yeah, I would say a lot of times parents decide to let the child take over their own their own oral hygiene a little bit too early. I usually recommend for parents to help with brushing and flossing, even up to seven years old or older if the child has any orthodontic work going on. So it's not a problem to help them even if they're a little bit older. So I think the misconception is that you have to let them learn and not help them. And that's a lot of times that's when kids start getting cavities because they're not doing a good job with their hygiene at home.

Can you explain why baby teeth are essential and how they affect the development of permanent teeth?

Yeah, so they with baby teeth, although they are gonna fall out eventually. The misconception again is that because they're gonna fall out that doesn't they don't matter. So if there's cavity you can just leave it alone. But we do definitely want to make sure to maintain those baby teeth for as long as possible because they are keeping that space for the adult teeth or when that tooth is ready to erupt into the mouth. So the problem with extracting a baby tooth early or not treating a baby tooth on time would be that they could not only could it affect the adult tooth that's developing underneath that baby You, but it could, if you extract it early, it could also lose the space for that tooth for when it's ready to come in, because it could be years down the line before that tooth is ready to erupt. So that's why we want to make sure to maintain those baby teeth until they're ready to fall out on their own body.

And how does the child's diet impact their dental health and what are some tooth friendly snack options.

So the diet is actually a super important part. Sometimes you couldn't be brushing really well. But because of how high the sugar intake is, you can still have lots of cavities. So we want to we, I always recommend to try to stay away from stickier stuff. So like gummies, fruit snacks, even like, some of those bars can be sometimes a little sticky. With babies, like goldfish, things like that, we just want to try to limit them. It's not that you can't have it at all, it's fine to have them, we just want to limit them. So everything in moderation, and then some of the better things to have. So if someone has a sweet tooth, I always recommend trying to instead of having candy and trying to have desserts instead. I mean, still again, we wanted a moderation. But it's better to have something that's not sticky. If you wanted dessert, definitely you know like fruits, vegetables, obviously, those are all important as well.

And so our last question is, are there any myths or misconceptions about kids dental health that you would like to debunk?

Myths? I think one thing that sometimes it's hard, hard for parents to understand is why we need to take X rays. So sometimes the poem has parents say that they don't see any cavities. So if you don't see it, then it's not there. But without X rays, we can't really tell if there's anything going on. Sometimes when teeth are really tight together, and they're touching, it's hard to see in between those teeth. So that's when X rays are super, super important for us to be able to see if there's anything going on between the teeth where we can't really see it visually to the eye on a clinical exam. So I think that's a myth where parents just think if it's if they can't see it visually, then it's not there. Also, extras are really important for diagnosing any extra teeth or any missing teeth so that we can always be ahead of it so that it doesn't cause any issues down the line.

Thank you so much. Is there anything else you would like to add before we end today?

Um, no, I think this is great. Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much. Have a nice day.

Thank you, Cameron.