If you struggle with any of these, Dr. Milfred has a solution that can help. With handcrafted porcelain veneers, you can finally enjoy a more dazzling smile and improved confidence.

All it takes is just two visits with Dr. Milfred at our Portland dental office. The end results will be bold and beautiful—finally, a smile that reflects your personality!

Each one of your veneers will be handcrafted by our lab according to Dr. Milfred’s personalized specifications. That means your veneers will compliment your overall appearance, including your face shape, features, and skin tone.

Are you ready to find out what porcelain veneers can do for your smile? Call our Portland dental office to reserve a consultation with Dr. Milfred. We transform smiles for patients from Portland, Beaverton, Vancouver, Lake Oswego, and surrounding areas.

Why so often?

Because even the best at-home brushing and flossing routine needs a little help. When you come in for a regular checkup at Dr. Milfred’s Portland dental office, we’ll help you achieve your cleanest smile possible with a professional cleaning and a thorough oral exam.

We’ll also help you plan for your smile’s future by recommending services that can help you achieve optimal oral health. Or, if we don’t have a general service to recommend, Dr. Milfred may be able to recommend a cosmetic service to help you gain confidence in your smile. Our Portland office features porcelain veneers, teeth whitening, cosmetic bonding/contouring, and smile makeovers.

If it’s been awhile since your last checkup and you’re ready to schedule your next one, get in touch with us today. Helping patients improve their smiles and their lives is our primary goal. Give us a call. Dr. Milfred serves patients from Portland, Lake Oswego, Beaverton, Vancouver, and surrounding areas.

The good news is that Dr. Milfred knows of something that can help.

The solution is called CariFree, and with CariFree’s range of product, cavity-prone patients can finally enjoy a healthier, more protected smile.

What’s the Secret to CariFree’s Success?

The main ingredient behind CariFree’s success is xylitol. Long used as a natural sweetener, xylitol also has cavity-fighting properties. Namely, xylitol supports a healthy pH level, which is important for preventing caries and decay.

In cavity-prone smiles, a low pH level breeds acid-producing bacteria, which in turn causes decay. CariFree helps patients by neutralizing pH levels and preventing the production of this acid-producing bacterium. What’s more, CariFree products also contain fluoride, which supports oral health by attracting important minerals to teeth and making them stronger.

Want to learn more about how CariFree can help you prevent cavities? Call Dr. Milfred’s Portland office to schedule an appointment with us. Dr. Milfred would be happy to help patients from Portland, Beaverton, Vancouver, Lake Oswego, and surrounding areas develop a treatment plan that will help them have their best possible smile.

What would that look like exactly?

First, resolve to drop by Dr. Milfred’s Portland dental office once every six months so we can check in with your and see how your smile is doing. These regular visits are important because they let us clear away bacteria and plaque buildup. Plus, seeing us on a regular basis lets Dr. Milfred keep an eye out for problems like tooth decay and gum disease.

Second, resolve to brush at least twice a day, floss at least once, and rinse with a trusted mouthwash. By actively paying attention to your teeth and gums on a daily basis, you can do your part to strengthen your oral health and protect it from trouble.

Want To Get Started On the New Year Early?

If you’d like to get a jump on the New Year, why not go ahead and schedule your next appointment with Dr. Milfred? Our office is located in Portland and serves patients from Beaverton, Vancouver, Lake Oswego, and surrounding areas.

Give us a call today.

Go for it!

The holidays are a time to focus on your loved ones and everything you’ve been blessed with. So, while we absolutely hope you’ll brush and floss just like normal tomorrow, we also don’t you want to think twice about having seconds. Instead, spend that time sharing a smile with your family and thinking about everything you have to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

We’d also like to offer you a few tips, if you’re worried about getting your little one through the holiday cavity-free.

First, consider stocking up on xylitol candy this year instead of Snickers or Three Musketeers. Unlike traditional sugar, which can cause tooth decay or cavities, xylitol prevents cavities by making it harder for decay-causing bacteria to stick to teeth.

If you’re interested, you can find out more about xylitol and its benefits by visiting xylitol.org. And if you want to find a range of xylitol candies, visit xlear.com, zappgum.com, or Amazon to find what you’re looking for.

But maybe you’d rather stick with tried-and-true favorites this year. You can still help your little by encouraging him or her to share, limiting how much sugar they consume in the process, and by encouraging your child to brush and floss at least twice a day.

Following these simple steps can make Halloween healthier without dampening any of the fun.

Call Dr. Milfred’s Portland office if you have any other questions about Halloween or would like to schedule your next appointment. We serve patients from Lake Oswego, Vancouver, Tigard, and surrounding areas.

As your Portland family dentist, we want nothing more than to protect the health and integrity of you and your children’s teeth and gums. That includes encouraging the use of athletic mouthguards by any of our patients involved in contact sports. To that end, Dr. Milfred lists here five reasons you should strongly consider wearing (or asking your child to wear) athletic mouthgear.

1. Tooth fractures or displacement. One primary role a mouthguard plays is protecting your teeth from breakage and shifting due to impact. The mouthguard, ultimately, cushions your teeth and evenly distributes the force of any impact so one tooth doesn’t endure the full force of the blow.
2. Tooth loss. Athletic mouthgear also guards teeth from being knocked clean out of your head. If you’re worried about looking silly with a mouthguard, imagine walking around with a missing front tooth (or worse, teeth). Suddenly looking weird for a couple of hours with a mouthguard versus the alternative doesn’t seem so bad, right?
3. Flesh wounds. A mouthguard also protects the fleshier areas of your mouth from your teeth. Clearly, our tongues, cheeks, and lips are tender and easily injured without the use of athletic mouthgear. Feeling a little awkward or slightly uncomfortable for a few hours is certainly the more favorable option to biting through a lip or tongue.
4. Jaw fractures. Sudden, forceful impact to the head can quite easily cause jaw fractures as your teeth will inevitably crash into each other. An athletic mouthguard, however, will put a layer of padding between your jaws, protecting you from painful fractures that often necessitate fairly major surgery and a lengthy diet of meals you don’t have to chew.
5. Concussions. As it’s almost impossible to test just how effective mouthguards are in safeguarding athletes from concussive head injuries, evidence does indicate that they do help. And, really, when it comes to head injuries, why wouldn’t you do as much as you can in the way of prevention.

When all is said and done, we think it’s kind of a no brainer. With all these benefits alone, why wouldn’t you protect yourself with an athletic mouthguard? If you have further questions about protective mouthgear or want to schedule a fitting, give us a call. Our Portland office also serves patients from Beaverton, Lake Oswego, and other surrounding cities.

Below, we’ll fill you in on what we can do to solve either of these problems, and what you can do in the meantime.

Let’s Say Your Crown Gets a Cavity

First, we want you to know, preventing decay from injuring your crowned tooth is relatively simple. Just brush and floss as you would (or should) with all of your other teeth, and your crown should remain free of decay. If, however, your crown does get a cavity, Dr. Milfred can handle it in one of a few ways.

• Depending on the depth of decay and whether or not you’ve had one yet, you may need a root canal and, after that, a new crown.
• Dr. Milfred can perform a procedure called “crown lengthening,” which involves removing some of the bone supporting your tooth to make room for cleaning out the decay and then preparing for a new crown.
• If the decay is too deep or overwhelming, the teeth may require extraction.
• In every case but the latter, a new crown will most likely be required.

With the exception of extraction, all of these are fairly expensive procedures, so your best bet is to simply take good care of your crown and avoid further damage altogether.

What if Your Crown Comes Loose and Falls Out?

It doesn’t happen often, but crowns can come loose and come out. If this happens, try your best to retrieve the crown before accidentally swallowing—or, worse, inhaling it—and don’t throw it away. It’s possible Dr. Milfred will be able to simply reattach the fallen crown. Whether you are able to recover the crown or not, call our office immediately, and we will get you in as soon as we can. Until you can come in, clean the crown and exposed tooth gently with a toothbrush. Depending on the condition of the crown, you may be able to reattach it temporarily with over the counter cement found in almost any drugstore. When you call our office, describe the crown and what’s left of your now-exposed tooth, and we’ll let you know if you should attempt temporary reattachment.

Dental crowns are an excellent way to salvage a damaged tooth, but they aren’t indestructible. If you have any questions about a damaged or fallen crown (or if you have any other dental questions), call our Portland office today. We also serve patients from Beaverton, Lake Oswego, and the surrounding cities.

The Numbers

• An estimated 35,000 patients are newly diagnosed with oral cancer each year.
• More than 25 percent of those diagnosed will die of oral cancer.
• Oral cancer is almost as common as leukemia and has been shown to be deadlier than cervical or skin cancer.
• Twenty-five percent of those diagnosed with oral cancer exhibit no recognized risk factors (such as tobacco and alcohol abuse).
• The number of patients under 40 to be diagnosed with oral cancer is rising rapidly., especially in women.

Prevention is Daily

The most obvious path to prevention involves abstaining from tobacco altogether and keeping alcohol intake to a minimum. Maintaining excellent oral hygiene and visiting your dentist semi-annually are also imperative to warding off the disease. Dr. Milfred will monitor the condition of your gums, cheeks, and tongue and check for signs of oral cancer each time you visit. If you have questions about signs you can watch out for, we would be more than happy to educate you. The more attention you give to your oral health, the more likely you are to avoid being diagnosed with oral cancer.

Early Detection is Vital

As mentioned, Dr. Milfred will screen his patients for oral cancer with every visit, but it’s also up to the individual to call us immediately upon sight of any abnormalities. Oral cancer can present itself in the form of red or white spots or patches dotting the inside of the mouth. Detecting and removing these epithelial dysplasias as soon as possible, hopefully before they become cancerous, is perhaps the most effective way to stop oral cancer in its tracks.

If you have any questions about oral cancer—how to prevent the disease and signs to be on the lookout for—call our Portland office today. We also serve patients from Beaverton, Lake Oswego, and the surrounding cities. Help us help you fight this deadly disease!

And then there’s the whole matter of viewing them. Often, the only way to look at a traditional X-ray is on a small lightboard. This can make it hard for dentists to see minute details and explain to patients how their smile is doing.

But the problems don’t stop there. With traditional radiography, there’s also the question of what to do with all those X-rays. The simple answer is that they have to be kept somewhere, which requires extra space and an organizational system.

But with digital radiography, patients can look forward to a safer, more comfortable visit, while doctors don’ t have to worry about storing and organizing X-rays for future use. That’s why Dr. Milfred’s Portland office has invested in this revolutionary technology.

Greater Safety for Out Patients

Because digital radiography emits up to 90% less radiation, it’s safer for our patients, and for us, too. And because a digital file can be easily stored, copied, or transferred, we don’t need a complicated filing system or tons of extra storage. Instead, we can just save your X-rays to our computer, where Dr. Milfred can access them any time they’re needed.

How Does Digital Radiography Work

With digital radiography, your X-rays can be taken with just a tiny sensor. Compare this with the uncomfortable process of taking your X-rays the old fashioned way.

And because the screen you’ll be viewing your X-rays on is by your chair, you don’t have to worry about squinting at a small lightboard. Instead, Dr. Milfred can project your results on your chairside monitor, and even highlight or zoom in on important areas to make viewing them easier.

If you have questions about digital radiography, or want to schedule your next visit with Dr. Milfred, give our office a call today. We serve patients from Portland, Beaverton, Lake Oswego, and surrounding areas.