Frequently Asked Questions
Dr. Duckworth answers your Frequently Asked Questions


How often should I brush my teeth?
How often should I floss my teeth?
Flossing once a day is sufficient if it’s done properly. The recommended time is after brushing your teeth just prior to going to bed. This is followed by vigorously rinsing your mouth to wash away the newly loosened plaque. After you fall to sleep, the amount of saliva that your body produces goes way down. You don’t have a natural mechanism to dilute the plaque and help wash it away. This is the reason it is recommended that you floss just before bedtime, so the least amount of bacteria is left in your mouth when you are most susceptible, while you sleep.
What is plaque?
What causes a cavity?
Why should I have my teeth cleaned and how often?
Why do I need a root canal?
Why do it? 1.) To relieve the pain. 2.) Because infections of the head and neck are very serious and can be deadly! 3.) It saves the tooth, which can then maintain proper spacing and keep the jaw in harmony.
Why do I need a crown?
Why are some crowns gold and some porcelain?
Gold
+ solid metal, it will not break
+ more conservative, there is less tooth reduced
– it is gold colored
Porcelain
+ very natural looking
+ the technology, techniques and materials are getting better every day
– requires more tooth reduction
– glass – it can break, though it rarely does
What are veneers?
What are implants?
What is TMJ?
Over the years, we’ve alleviated hundreds of patients’ headaches that usually were misdiagnosed as migraine headaches. Correcting a patient’s bite cannot help true migraine headaches, BUT muscle tension headaches are often a different story. One way to help tell the difference is by rubbing the muscles in the area of your temples (temporalis muscles). If it makes the headache feel better, it may well be a muscle tension headache.
I explain it to patients in the following way. Suppose you have a pebble in your shoe under your heel. You walk around all day on your toes, so it doesn’t hurt, right? After about a week of this, the muscles in your lower and upper leg hurt. Your knee and maybe even your hip hurts. Do you need to have your hip worked on, or your knee? Very likely NOT! Why wouldn’t we try to remove the pebble? Why wouldn’t we let you walk normally again and see if your body, moving as it was designed to, makes the problem go away? It has worked over and over again for my patients.
Don’t say, “I have TMJ.” It’s the same as saying, “I have knee.”