Carolina Oral & Facial Surgery, P.A.

How to Make Your Own Ice Cream

'ice cream'As you may or may not know, July is officially National Ice Cream Month! While it is fun to go and grab ice cream from your local shop down the street, it can be more fun and rewarding to make your own ice cream for you and your family to enjoy. Ice cream is also a great treat to enjoy after different types of oral surgery. You don’t need an ice cream maker in order to make delicious, creamy ice cream. Just follow our instructions below!

Servings: 2-3

Ingredients:

– 2 cups of milk
– 3 tablespoons of sugar
– 2 teaspoons of vanilla

Materials:

– 3-4 cups of ice
– 2/3 cup salt
– 1 quart sized Ziploc bag
– 1 gallon sized Ziploc freezer bag

Instructions:

– Combine milk, vanilla and sugar in quart sized bag
– Press any air out of bag and seal tightly
– Mix ice and salt in gallon sized bag
– Place quart sized bag into gallon sized bag and seal tightly
– Shake the bag vigorously for about 5 minutes.
It will be very cold, be careful!
– Liquid inside smaller bag should start to harden
– Let bags sit for a few minutes with ice in large bag surrounding small bag
– Open bags up and scoop ice cream out
– Enjoy!!

As you can see, it isn’t hard to shake up some ice cream that the whole family can enjoy, using fairly standard household ingredients. Use chocolate/strawberry milk instead of regular milk to change the flavor, or use half and half for a creamier product. This year, celebrate National Ice Cream month by making your own ice cream at home!

Thank you to all who participated in Oral Cancer Awareness Month

Thank you to all who participated in Oral Cancer Awareness Month. On your behalf our office will be donating to the Oral Cancer Foundation.
Please continue not only this year but every year with routine dental visits with your dental provider. And do not forget your monthly self exams. It cannot be said enough, early detection is your fist line of defense against oral cancer.
Thank you again for your participation and support.

Oral Cancer and HPV

Oral Cancer Awareness Month is coming to an end but oral cancer itself is on the rise. Each year there is an estimated 42,000 new cases in the United States. With the number of oropharyngeal cancer linked to HPV rising dramatically over the past few decades.
I came across this article with The Oral Cancer Foundation that was interesting in regards to HPV and oral cancer that our office wanted to share.

The HPV Connection

It’s I Want You to Be Happy Day!


Today is I Want You to Be Happy Day!

If missing teeth are stopping you from being your Happiest, give our office a call and see how Dental Implants can improve your mood and your smile.

Children’s Dental Health Month: Our Top Tips!

February is Children’s Dental Health Month, a time of year when we like to remind our patients and their families that good oral health starts at birth!

Here are our top ten tips for keeping your child’s mouth healthy for a lifetime of happy smiles!

  1. Make Brushing Fun! Music and apps can be your best friend during the bedtime routine – use them to time your child for 2 full minutes of brushing fun!
  2. Brush twice, floss once per day: Yep! Even little ones need to floss to stimulate gums and remove cavity-causing food and bacteria.
  3. Babies: start seeing your family dentist before your first birthday, or after your first tooth erupts.
  4. No bottles at bedtime! Falling asleep with a bottle in the mouth contributes to decay and the misalignment of teeth.
  5. Parents: set a good example! Make sure your kids see you brushing and flossing so that they naturally assume it’s a normal part of everyday (twice) life.
  6. Limit sweets, especially stick ones and hard candies to keep the “sugar bugs” at bay.
  7. Choose H2O! Drink water and avoid soda, sports drinks (and even juice).
  8. Send healthy snacks to school such as carrots, cheese, apples and nuts. These foods are good for your teeth, mouth and your whole body!
  9. Disclosing tablets: A fun way for kids to check up on how well they are brushing is with disclosing tablets, which contain a dye that lights up plaque and food residue missed during brushing.
  10. Remember, it’s just as important to take care of “baby” teeth as it is the permanent ones.

Stay up to date and find more great tips for your kids at www.mouthhealthy.org.

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New Oral Cancer Screening Test: Salivary Diagnostics

With April being Oral Cancer Awareness month, I wanted to share information about one of the newest oral cancer screening tests to date, salivary diagnostics. A good oral cancer exam, by an oral health professional, is still the gold standard in detecting oral cancer.  It is always best when an individual’s cancer can be detected early and treated.  Unfortunately, all of the current oral cancer screening tests using special stains and light exams that only detect surface irregularities. This approach may lead to unnecessary surgery for rough but non-cancerous areas. There is a great deal of interest in using different lights to look for genetic abnormalities, but until now, only looking at some of the suspicious tissue under a microscope could determine if it was cancer. 

A new test gets us closer to detecting cancer utilizing a unique approach that evaluates distinctive protein biomarkers that are commonly produced by oral cancers. This technique is more specific than lights or stains and holds promise as a screening test. The test to examine saliva is called salivary diagnostics. A patient spits into a small sample tube that is then sent off for analysis. This process has the advantage that it can indicate oral cancer in areas that are harder to see in the doctors office such as behind the tonsils in the oropharynx and near the base of tongue. Hopefully, salivary diagnostics can realize its potential as an easier way to screen for oral cancer in higher risk individuals who smoke or chew tobacco products. If you have additional questions regarding this test, please contact our office for further information. 

 

Bart D. Williams III, M.D., D.M.D., FACS

July is National Cleft and Craniofacial Awareness and Prevention Month

Each year in the United States, about 2,600 babies are born with a cleft palate and 4,400 babies are born with a cleft lip, with or without a cleft palate. These conditions, along with other birth defects of the head and face, are called craniofacial birth defects. July is National Cleft and Craniofacial Awareness and Prevention Month. It is a time to increase awareness and to better inform our communities about these conditions. I have the privilege of caring for children with craniofacial defects through the Facial Anomalies and Cleft Evaluation Team (FACET) in Greenville. Our team meets monthly to evaluate and create care plans for children with cleft lip and palate anomalies. FACET is affiliated with Greenville Hospital System.

Thanks for your continued support and dedication to improving the lives of families and children affected by craniofacial conditions!

 

 

WISDOM TEETH… IN OR OUT?

 

For many teens and their parents, it’s a debate on if or when their child should have their wisdom teeth removed. This is a fairly common question for some families when they are referred to my office for evaluation. Many people are glad to part with third molars, better known as wisdom teeth, when they are having pain related to these teeth. Others may not have symptoms but their referring dentist has recognized an abnormal eruption pattern on X-ray or has seen signs of developing associated dental problems. Wisdom teeth may be counted as part of the normal set of teeth but they are the most common teeth to have abnormal shape and eruption affecting neighboring dentition.

Wisdom teeth are the last set of molars to erupt, usually at about the age of 18. Not everyone has all four third molars, and not every wisdom tooth breaks through the gum. Some never erupt. Some erupt only halfway or come in crooked. When there’s not enough room for the wisdom teeth to break through the gum, they’re “impacted.” The wisdom teeth can tip or rotate in the jaw, push against other teeth or become lodged against the jaw bone. If wisdom teeth push only part of the way through the gum, they can become susceptible to decay and a gum infection called pericoronitis. No one seems to question extracting an extra tooth such as a mesiodens when it is causing crowding or risking damage to adjacent teeth. Similarly, dental X-rays can determine pathology or compromised eruption patterns of third molars. One can wait until pain or peripheral damage occurs but by waiting too long for removal of problematic third molars, the solution is usually more difficult and there tends to be more risk of complications over time.

I believe our team does a fantastic job to educate families and patients about wisdom teeth extraction surgery. We want everyone to feel 100% vested in their treatment and recovery process. I ask our patients to not believe all the “friend surgery stories”, crazy YouTube videos, and other social media presentations. Chances are, if the story ends up on social media, it is like “the fish that got away”…it gets bigger every time. We care for one patient at a time and prefer to not have social media stories to share.

Hopefully, this presents an overview of why we have consultations to discuss third molar removal and to ensure our families and patients are well informed.  Enjoy your summer!

Bart D. Williams, III, MD, DMD, FACS

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Carolina Oral and Facial Surgery Celebrates Special Mothers

COFS Mothers Day

Carolina Oral and Facial Surgery is celebrating the special mothers in our lives! We would like to give our patients an opportunity to tell us about their Mom. Please share with us in a few words why your Mom is your HERO. Is it her unconditional love and support? Is it her great sense of humor? Is it her impeccable fashion sense? You tell us…

Please feel free to send us an email at [email protected] or drop off your note at the office. We will be drawing at the end of the month for one Mom to take home a fabulous SURPRISE!

Help COFS Support the Oral Cancer Foundation

Dr. Williams and several members of the COFS Team

Dr. Williams and several members of the COFS Team

Thank you for helping us support the Oral Cancer Foundation!  Please remember that for the month of April, COFS is donating $1.00 for every  new like to our Facebook page and for each patient that mentions seeing our blog at www.carolinaofs.com when they visit either office.

     OCF                FACT

     HPV                HPV2