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When it comes to keeping your smile looking its best, good oral hygiene is a must! Good oral health habits should start early and continue throughout your lifetime. Here, Dr. Dale Scharine and Dr. Mark Pflum and our team at Elite Smiles Dental suggest five habits worth adopting that will help keep your teeth healthy:

• Brush and floss regularly. Brush gently at least twice a day, paying special attention to the gum line to rid your mouth of food and bacteria that may lurk in between your teeth. Floss at least once a day. Replace your toothbrush every three to four months or sooner if the bristles are frayed.
• Make regular visits to see Dr. Dale Scharine and Dr. Mark Pflum. Regular checkups (twice yearly) will help diagnose any dental problems early on when they can be more easily treated.
• Stop smoking. Did you know smokers are four times as likely as nonsmokers to develop periodontal (gum) disease? Tobacco, whether in the form of cigarettes, pipes, cigars, or chewable tobacco, increases oral and throat cancer risks, and raises the risk for candidiasis, an oral fungal infection. Smokeless tobacco contains sugar, which furthers your risk for cavities.
• Limit your alcohol intake. Heavy drinking dramatically increases the risk of developing mouth and throat cancers.
• Eat healthy. Avoid snacking on foods that contain high levels of sugar or starch. We encourage you to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, which are known to help stimulate the flow of saliva to re-mineralize tooth surfaces and neutralize cavity-causing bacteria.

To learn more about the habits you should practice in between your visits to Elite Smiles Dental, or to schedule an appointment, please give us a call today!

Happy Holidays! Our dental office is all decked out for the festive season, as we celebrate both Christmas and New Year.

Please note our holiday hours: We will be closing on Christmas Eve at 1:00 pm and will be closed Christmas Day as well as the day after Christmas. Our office will re-open with regular hours on Mon. Dec. 30. We will be open New Year's Eve until 1:00 pm and we will be closed on New Year's Day. We will re-open with regular hours on Thur. Jan. 2.

If you have an extreme dental emergency over the holidays, you can always contact our team members on-call by dialing our main office phone number and following the prompts. We will attempt to triage any issues over the phone and will make an emergency visit to the office when needed.

As you enjoy the season's festivities, remember to indulge in holiday treats like cookies and candy in moderation. And always brush your teeth after enjoying these sugary delights to maintain good oral health.

We also highly suggest taking some time to take care of yourself. Make sure you are seeing your physician for regular checkups, following up with all age-appropriate testing, and seeing your dentist at least twice per year. This will ensure that health issues are caught early when they are treatable or even preventable!

This holiday season, we’re excited to offer a special deal on Go! whitening kits. These kits include 10 sets of professional-strength universal whitening trays, which can be used daily for 30 minutes to 2 hours. You may see your teeth brighten by up to 8 shades! While these are recommended for ages 14 and up, please note they won't lighten crowns or fillings. Originally priced at $91, they're now available for $69.95—a perfect gift for teens or as a stocking stuffer. Many of our team members have used the Go! trays and we decided to carry these in our office because we felt they worked much better than the Crest white strip professional strength or any other brand of universal trays on the market.

We can’t wait to hear how your holiday went at your next appointment and make sure to visit some of our favorite spots including the Christkindl Market on Broadway in Green Bay and the Green Bay Botanical Gardens for their "Garden of Lights".

We want to wish our family of patients a very Merry Christmas, a happy New Year, and joyful celebrations for all other holidays that your family celebrates at this time of year.

Many of our patients at Elite Smiles Dental have been asking us about brightening their teeth lately, and today we thought we would discuss the options available to you to put the sparkle back in your smile!

Over-the-counter products – You’ve probably seen over-the-counter whiteners such as whitening strips on store shelves. While whitening strips may work for some, they do have certain restrictions. For example, they are not nearly as effective when crowns or fillings are involved. Teeth that are stained gray instead of brown or yellow typically don’t respond as well to these types of whiteners. Whitening strips typically save you money but take longer to work and also require discipline on your part to keep them in place for the right amount of time each day.

Whitening at our office – This type of whitening can be done right at Elite Smiles Dental. A whitening agent is applied directly to teeth and a special light helps accelerate the whitening process. This may be accomplished in one session or take several appointments. You should expect to spend anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes at each session. If you have a mix of natural teeth and fillings or crowns, Dr. Dale Scharine and Dr. Mark Pflum may recommend bonding or veneers on your natural teeth instead of regular bleaching. Teeth whitening at our office can be used to correct many tooth discolorations which may have been caused by staining, aging, or chemical damage to teeth. Using the latest in whitening technology, we can offer a safe method for creating the beautiful smile you've always wanted.

At-home whitening – If you choose this option, Dr. Dale Scharine and Dr. Mark Pflum will take a mold of your teeth and create a custom-fit whitening tray. Gel whitening solution is poured in the mouthguard-like tray, and the tray is worn for a pre-determined amount of time, generally from a couple of hours a day to every day during the night, until you’re back in our office for an evaluation.

Give us a call at our convenient Appleton, WI office to schedule an appointment! Whiter teeth are one just one visit away at Elite Smiles Dental!

At Elite Smiles Dental, we love to celebrate the holidays with vigor! Dr. Dale Scharine and Dr. Mark Pflum would love to share some unique ways of celebrating Thanksgiving from beyond the Appleton, WI area to the national level!

When Americans sit down to dinner on the last Thursday of November, the day that Abraham Lincoln designated as the day on which Thanksgiving would be celebrated, they do so thinking that the first Thanksgiving feast was held at Plymouth in 1621. According to National Geographic, the Spanish explorer Francisco Vásquez Coronado and his men celebrated a feast of Thanksgiving in Texas in 1541, giving Texas the distinction of being the first place where Thanksgiving was celebrated.

Different Types of Celebrations

Native Americans had rituals around which they celebrated in hopes of ensuring a bountiful harvest. The Cherokees had a Green Corn Dance that they did for this very purpose. The Pilgrims (not to be confused with the Puritans,) rejected any type of public religious display. They held a three-day long non-religious Thanksgiving feast. Although they said grace, the focus of their celebration was on feasting, drinking alcohol (they did have beer,) and playing games.

The Pilgrims at the Plymouth Plantation celebrated a different day of Thanksgiving in 1623. Plagued by a crop-destroying drought, the settlers prayed for relief. They even fasted. A few days later, they got the rain they so desperately needed. Soon thereafter, they received another blessing when Captain Miles Standish came with staples they couldn't otherwise get. He also told them that a Dutch supply ship was en route. In gratitude for the abundance of good fortune, the Plymouth settlers celebrated a day of prayer and Thanksgiving on June 30, 1623.

The Story of Squanto

No discussion of Thanksgiving is complete without a discussion of Squanto, or Tisquantum, as he was known among his people, the Patuxet Indians. It is believed that he was born sometime around 1580. As he returned to his village after a long journey, he and several other Native Americans were kidnapped by Jamestown colonist, Thomas Hunt. Hunt put them on a ship heading to Spain where they were to be sold into slavery.

As fate would have it, some local friars rescued him and many of the other kidnapped natives. Squanto was educated by the friars. Eventually, after asking for freedom so he could return to North America, he ended up in London where he spent time working as a ship builder. By 1619, he was finally able to get passage on a ship headed to New England with other Pilgrims.

Upon arriving at Plymouth Rock, he learned that his entire tribe was wiped out by diseases that accompanied earlier settlers from Europe. In gratitude for passage on their ship, he helped them set up a settlement on the very land where his people once lived. They called the settlement Plymouth. Since they knew nothing about how to survive, let alone how to find food, Squanto taught them everything, from how to plant corn and other crops, how to fertilize them, how and where to get fish and eels and much more.

After a devastating winter during which many settlers died, thanks to Squanto's teaching, they had an abundant harvest. After that harvest, they honored him with a feast. It is this feast of 1621 which was celebrated between the Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians that is widely considered the first Thanksgiving celebration.

About the Meal of the Plymouth Settlers

Surviving journals of Edward Winslow that are housed at Plymouth Plantation indicate that the first Thanksgiving feast was nothing like what Americans eat today. The meal consisted of venison, various types of wild fowl (including wild turkey,) and Indian corn. There were no cranberries, stuffing, pumpkin pie, potatoes, or any of the other “traditional” foods that appear on modern menus.

Today, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November, the day that Abraham Lincoln designated as the holiday. It is still a day of feasting, and for some, a day of prayer and thanksgiving. For others, it is a celebration of gathering, especially for families. Still others may celebrate in entirely different ways, including watching college football bowl games, or by playing family games.

If you ever wonder why you're so tired after the Thanksgiving meal, it's because turkey contains an amino acid, tryptophan, and it sets off chemicals whose chain reaction combine to make people sleepy.