Our Blog

Email? Text? Phone call? You can choose how you’d like to receive appointment reminders and other communications from our office. Patients have told us they love these features, and beginning this month we’ve added even more.

Now you can:

• Check appointments online
• View your account balance and insurance payments and print your statement
• Make secure payments online
• Set up online account & reminders for dependent patients in your family
• Customize how we communicate with you, choosing to receive email, text message reminders, or both!

And much more.

And when you’re through, you can give us your feedback via our online survey so we can keep improving our practice. You can check out our new system today by going to our website at www.maleydental.com and clicking on Patient Login.

You water the garden three times a week, you change your car's oil every three months, and you replace the batteries in your smoke detectors once a year. Your teeth need to see your dentist on a regular schedule, too.

While daily oral hygiene habits are essential to good oral health, professional dental cleanings at our office ensure your teeth are treated to a deeper level of cleaning. We recommend for most of our patients to have a checkup at least every six months. In addition to a thorough cleaning and polishing of your teeth, these regular visits help us detect and prevent the onset of tooth decay and periodontal (gum) disease. During your visit, we’ll check the health of your mouth, teeth, gums, cheeks, and tongue. We’ll also check old fillings and restorations, as these can wear away over time from constant chewing, grinding, or clenching.

If you are predisposed to oral diseases, you may need to visit our office more often than every six months. Factors at play in these diseases include age, pregnancy, tobacco use, medical conditions (such as diabetes, dry mouth, or HIV infection), along with how well you take care of your teeth on a daily basis.

Make sure your teeth get the professional attention they deserve – If you’re overdue for your next cleaning, check with our office to schedule an appointment!

Dental X-rays are an essential and invaluable tool to help assist Dr. Bob Maley in evaluating your oral health. With X-rays, we can see what’s happening beneath the surface of your teeth and gums and identify oral health issues otherwise hidden during a visual exam, including:

· small areas of decay between the teeth or below existing restorations (fillings)
· infections in the bone
· periodontal (gum) disease
· abscesses or cysts
· developmental abnormalities
· types of tumors

If left untreated, these problems can lead to expensive, time-consuming, and painful conditions, so it’s
important to find and treat them early. Dental X-rays are extremely safe, and our team is certified in the proper use of our digital X-ray equipment. The amount of radiation that you are exposed to from dental X-rays is very small compared to your daily exposure from things like atmospheric radiation and naturally-occurring radioactive elements, as well as medical X-rays you may have gotten at your doctor’s office or hospital. In fact our digital system dramatically decreases the already minimal amount of exposure even further. Dr. Bob Maley and his team try to be as conservative as possible when prescribing x-rays but do need them to see what is going on where our eyes can't see.

You know what they say, “if someone offers you a mint, take it!”

It’s one thing to subject the world to the after effects of one onion and garlicky meal, but chronic bad breath needs to be dealt with. Bad breath, also called halitosis, can result from poor dental health habits and may be a sign of other health problems. Bad breath can also be made worse by the types of foods you eat and other unhealthy lifestyle habits. If you’re concerned you may be suffering from it, talk to Dr. Bob Maley and team. We can help identify the cause and, if it’s due to an oral condition, develop a treatment plan to treat it.

There are many reasons for bad breath:
• If you don't brush and floss daily, particles of food remain in the mouth, collecting bacteria, which can cause bad breath, not to mention tooth decay and gingivitis.
• Bad breath can be caused by dry mouth, which occurs when the flow of saliva decreases. Saliva is necessary to cleanse the mouth and remove particles that may cause odor.
• Tobacco products cause bad breath. If you use tobacco, ask us for tips on kicking the habit.
• Bad breath may be the sign of a medical disorder, such as a local infection in the respiratory tract, chronic sinusitis, postnasal drip, chronic bronchitis, diabetes, gastrointestinal disturbance, liver or kidney ailment. If this is the case, we may refer you to your family doctor or a specialist to determine the cause.

The good news is there are many ways to help eliminate bad breath from your life.

Maintaining good oral health is essential to reducing bad breath, so schedule regular dental visits with Dr. Bob Maley for a professional cleaning and checkup. Brush twice a day with fluoride toothpaste to remove food debris and plaque, and don’t forget to brush your tongue, too!

We always say St. Paul is a small town in a big city. Knowing your neighbors and having lots of great independent places to eat, drink and shop--many you can walk to--are some of the best parts of being in the Highland Park/West 7th neighborhood. If you're new in town, we've got some recommendations that will make you love St. Paul from the start. Here are some of our team's favorite hotspots:

Favorite pizza place: Punch Pizza on Cleveland or Cossetta's on West 7th
Best place to run for lunch: Rusty Taco or Shamrock's
Best seafood: Coastal Sea Foods on Grand and Snelling
Best place to grab an appetizer to bring to a party: St. Paul Cheese Shop (try the goat cheese and chutney--yum!)
Favorite date night: A movie at the Riverview Theater right across the Ford Bridge--Best popcorn EVER and $3 movies
Favorite place to get office treats: Trader Joe's on Randolph and Lexington
Best place to buy a gift: Patina on Ford Parkway
Best walk or bikeride: Along the Missippi River Boulevard

Some say St. Paul is a hard community to break into. If you're new to town, give us a call. We'll welcome you as a new neighbor and --we hope--a patient. But we'll also help you figure out how to navigate the town.

We will be rolling out our new Facebook Timeline page soon and would love for you to check it out!

You’ll find all the useful information that was there before, but now in a fun, new layout. When you Like us on Facebook, you’ll be able to check out photos of our office, find out about new events and contests, or you can even leave a note about how much you enjoyed your visit at our office. We love hearing your feedback to make our practice serve you and your family even better. To make life even easier, if you “Like” us on Facebook, you’ll automatically receive updates from our office right on your own news feed!

See you on Facebook!

Whether you’ve been a patient of ours for years or just started visiting our practice and have a follow-up question for Dr. Bob Maley or our team, or if you’d simply like to drop us a quick line, we’d love to hear from you! Our online communications are just another way to share important information about your dental health and happenings at our practice.

Please visit Dr. Bob Maley and our team on the following networks:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MaleyDental
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/DrBobMaley
Blog: http://www.maleydental.com/blog

See you online!

Dr. Bob Maley is out of the office this week on a mission trip in Chimbote, Peru. He joins 50 health care workers from all over the U.S. in delivering free care to the poorest of the poor in an area served by Fr. Jack Davis and Sister Peggy Byrne and the Friends of Chimbote.

Grind, grind, grind. If you live with a teeth grinder, you may be familiar with this unpleasant sound. Did you know teeth grinding, or bruxism, is common in children as well? In fact, three out of 10 kids grind or clench their teeth, usually in response to losing teeth, jaw growth or other discomforts, such as allergies or infections. Teeth grinding is typically a passing phenomena as most kids outgrow it by the time they reach their teenage years. An important thing to remember is that kids frequently grind their teeth in response to stress, and taking measures to reduce or eliminate stress can help solve the problem.

The first step of recovering from teeth grinding is noticing the problem. Symptoms of teeth grinding include:
• Sensitivity in the teeth
• Tightness or pain in the jaw
• Dull headaches, earaches, or facial pain
• Chipped, worn down, or loose teeth

If your child is a teeth grinder, Dr. Bob Maley and team may be able to help. Please give us a call at 651-224-0001.

Dr. Bob Maley and his team are always available to answer your questions about your teeth and dental treatment. We strive to provide our patients with quality care in a warm, family-friendly environment.

We also recognize that the most important questions are our responsibility to answer. Some of the questions that we hear in the office include:

• Will bleeding hurt my teeth?
• What is gingivitis?
• Does the bone grow back after rootplaning and scaling?
• Why do my gums bleed?
• Why do you take panographs and bitewing? What's the difference?
• Does an electric toothbrush really do anything?

All of the answers to these questions vary from patient to patient, and we are happy to answer them for you! The next time you have an appointment with us please ask us. We want your dental experience to be informative and comfortable.

Thank you for taking the time to visit our blog. Please check back often for weekly updates on fun and exciting events happening at our office, important and interesting information about dentistry and the dental industry, and the latest news about our practice.

Feel free to leave a comment or question for our doctor and staff – we hope this will be a valuable resource for our patients, their families, and friends!