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HEALTH SENSE: Dr. Evan Wheeler on kids’ power toothbrushes
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Power toothbrushes vs. ordinary toothbrushes for kids
By Dr. Evan L. Wheeler, D.D.S. D ental experts agree that regular tooth brushing, no matter how high tech or low tech the gadget, and flossing does prevent tooth decay.
The technology of power toothbrushes has come a long way in the last 20 years. Kids have many options to choose from that range from Super Mario to Sparkle the Unicorn. The No. 1 Amazon-selling kids power toothbrush is ORAL-B Pro-Health battery-powered Disney’s Frozen.
However, I recommend the third bestseller, known as Philips Sonicare for kids rechargeable electric toothbrush. Trying to get your children to brush their teeth can sometimes be quite the struggle, but if you can inspire enthusiasm in children with decorated power toothbrushes, daily brushing becomes easier.
The American Dental Association has researched both ordinary and power toothbrushes and has determined that power toothbrushes are better at removing plaque. Plaque is a collection of bacteria that forms on the teeth and produces acid. The acid dissolves tooth structure, which causes cavities. Long-term plaque on teeth can cause gum irritation and inflammation, which contributes to bone loss, also known as periodontitis.
All of this can come at a great cost, including your teeth, at the dentist. That is why we highly recommend good oral hygiene habits at home to prevent costly dental visits.
The most important thing you can do for your dental health besides good home care habits is regular exam and cleaning appointments every six months. Your dentist and hygienist can remove the buildup (calculus) on your teeth that is not able to be removed by brushing and flossing. By coming in twice a year, you can head off more-complicated expensive procedures. It is kind of like changing the oil in your vehicle. If you never change the oil, all the sludge and carbon byproduct builds up and damages the engine. Same thing with long-term calculus built up on your teeth. The damage it causes results in your gums bleeding, bone loss and ultimately tooth loss.
We have encouraged the use of Philips Sonicare power toothbrushes, and as a result many of our patients’ chair time during hygiene appointments has decreased immensely. And some even call it a spa day for their mouths.
I believe that the Philips Sonicare is the most powerful of electric toothbrushes and the most effective. With regular brushing and flossing in combination of periodic dental exam and cleaning appointments, you can keep your teeth and gums healthy. You can prevent costly dental visits and maintain a healthy mouth. Little dental problems turn into big dental problems when
untreated.
As a general rule, children up to the age of 7 should have adult supervision while brushing. This is to make sure kids completely clean all surfaces of their teeth, even hard-to-reach places where plaque often accumulates, such as back molars or the lower bottom teeth next to the tongue. Children under 8 do not possess the necessary wrist dexterity to brush as thoroughly as needed. The American Dental Association has more suggestions for parents to help their kids develop good dental habits:
• Take your child to see the dentist regularly. First visit should be when incisors erupt or start to grow in, which is normally at about 18 months of age. • Encourage your children to drink from a cup by 12 months. Sippy cups work really well.
• Start brushing your kids teeth as soon as the first tooth appears, a pea size amount of toothpaste on a finger brush works really well.
• Limit the snacks and sugary drinks, including juices and sports drinks, your child consumes. Make sure there are regular meals.
• Never put a baby to bed with a bottle. A child can get baby bottle tooth decay. We know sometimes it does happen, but try to not let it become a habit. • Dental sealants by the age of 6 to prevent the most prevalent decay (pit and fissure decay).
• In low fluoride areas, supplements can strengthen the enamel of the tooth and protect it from acid attack, thus reducing decay.
Dr. Evan L. Wheeler has been practicing dentistry in Fairbanks since 1997.
A grateful life
Blaze Bell happy to be in recovery
By Aliza Sherman T he word “Gratitude” is tattooed on Anchorage DJ and singer Blaze Bell’s wrist as a reminder to keep a positive attitude and to signify how far she has come in her life.
“The opposite of self-pity is gratitude,” Blaze explains. “Knowing that self-pity is my downward spiral, I have to have that constant reminder to get out of those moods.”
For Blaze, self-pity was only one of the negative and destructive ways she dealt with a series of traumatic events she experienced in the course of a single year.
At the age of 19, Blaze woke up to find a masked man in her bedroom. She was beaten and sexually assaulted during the violent home invasion, and although she survived, the experience drastically altered the course of her life.
After the ordeal, she was prescribed “a slew” of medications, including an antidepressant, something for anxiety, sleeping pills, and pain pills.
“I went from having nothing in my system like that to having five different It took Blaze Bell several years before she was able to turn her life around. Today, she owns a business managing her band, Blaze and Eric. Foto Isabel
things. It was way too much for my system and my mind,” she recalls.
That same year, Blaze’s stepfather left the family and then her biological father passed away.
“I needed to check out. I have been kind of surviving and now I don’t want to die, but I just really need a break from this reality because I have no idea how to handle it. So the beginning of my addiction was at that point,” says Blaze. She started abusing some of the prescription drugs she had on hand. She reasoned that since a doctor gave the pills to her, how bad could it be? It wasn’t illegal, she thought.
After a few years of abusing prescription drugs, she turned 21 and began to drink. Then she developed an eating disorder, bulimia. She later learned that
eating disorders and addiction are common reactions to assault and abuse.
“These are things that nobody wants to talk about. Nobody wants to say word ‘rape.’ Nobody wants to talk about an eating disorder. I feel like that’s one of the reasons they’re so prevalent. But it’s the kind of things we suffer in silence. So it feels really important to me to just say that is something I went through.” Getting sober Blaze says she flirted with sobriety off and on for years. She would attend 12-step meetings to appease her mom or her boyfriend at the time because she was “behaving badly.” She admits she wasn’t really going for herself but for them when they expressed concern about her drinking. Then she would leave the meetings, go to a bar, and drink.
Learning she was pregnant with her son motivated her to stop drinking for a time, although she confesses that she
Ash Adams photo
“I thought ‘I’m clearly not an addict’ because I had just went 10 months with nothing so it should be fine, right? And it wasn’t.”
had double vision when she looked at the positive pregnancy test because she was still intoxicated from the night before. Because she understood that pregnant women should not drink, she decided to go cold turkey.
While she managed to stay away from alcohol during her pregnancy, she admits she went about it the wrong way and had to “white-knuckle it” with little support. While experiencing the drastic effects of pregnancy hormones, she didn’t have any healthy coping skills because she hadn’t needed them with alcohol to mask her emotional pain.
A week after giving birth to her son, she went out with friends to celebrate and was offered champagne. “I thought ‘I’m clearly not an addict’ because I had just went 10 months with nothing so it should be fine, right? And it wasn’t.”
Blaze started drinking again, but this time she had a baby. She says her alcohol consumption was never at the level it had been before giving birth, but it was still something she did secretly. “I had lot of shame around it, and I could feel myself instantly going back into that ‘poor me’ headspace. And for me, I’ve learned that self-pity is by far the worst emotion I can start spiraling on. If I start feeling sorry for myself, I make bad decisions.”
A few months later, she learned she was pregnant again, this time with a
“I basically did the opposite of all my first ideas. Clearly my brain was not working right. I needed to rewire it. I needed to get very uncomfortable in order to change. And I was finally a little bit willing to.”
girl, and she realized she needed to stop drinking for good.
She didn’t want to get off of alcohol the same way she had during her first pregnancy because she had been miserable, and it didn’t stick.
She began attending a different 12-step group specifically for women, something that made her uncomfortable at the time because she didn’t have any female friends.
She recalls sitting in the back of the room with a hoodie on, crying and not talking to anyone. She didn’t pretend to be happy anymore, but she did everything she was told.
She worked the 12 steps of recovery, she called another woman from the group on a daily basis, and she showed up early to make coffee and be present. Slowly, she started to get better.
“I basically did the opposite of all my first ideas. Clearly my brain was not working right. I needed to rewire it. I needed to get very uncomfortable in order to change. And I was finally a little bit willing to.” The turnaround Blaze made the decision to put as much time, energy, obsession and money into her healing as she put into her addiction and she admits that was a lot on all fronts. That’s when she began to see positive results in her life.
She invested in a life coach, went to counseling, and says she says she is obsessed with workbooks, because she knew that the process of writing can help things shift so much more quickly. She also started volunteering, pointing out that a negative place for many people is being obsessed with themselves and their own problems. A positive way to deal with self-obsession for her has been to get out of the house and do something nice for someone else.
Blaze works with STAR (Standing Together Against Rape) leading support groups, providing her perspective to staff, and even speaking with police about the experiences of victims of trauma. She was also voted in as president of Victims for Justice.
Working with both of these groups has additional meaning for Blaze
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Blaze Bell received the First Lady’s Volunteer of the Year award in May 2019 from Rose Dunleavy. The award said of Bell that “she is someone whose personal light has had a positive impact on countless community members who want to improve themselves, as well as heal from any past trauma.” Photo courtesy Office of Gov. Mike Dunleavy
because they were two of the organizations that helped her when she couldn’t help herself after the violent assault she experienced. In 2019, she received a First Lady’s Volunteer of the Year award for her work.
“It’s a testament to how far I’ve come. They trust me and trust my opinions. I get to show up as someone who was once a client who can give a really unique perspective and I can be there for other clients as well,” Blaze says. Today, Blaze’s life is filled with music. She owns a business managing her band, Blaze and Eric, performing at weddings and at venues such as O’Malley’s on the Green and Sullivans restaurants in Anchorage. She also owns her own DJ business and teaches piano, voice and guitar a few days a week.
“I’ve got this really amazing life that I feel I’ve created, and it’s all around music and I’ll be bringing in more dance, which has been my number one passion my whole life. I one hundred percent believe I create my reality, and I love playing around with that and experimenting with that.” A new day A typical day for Blaze starts with a six a.m. spin class to get her endorphins flowing.
“I’m a morning person which is super uncool in the music world, but I’m just embracing it now,” she says with a laugh. She gets her kids ready for school, then spends some time on personal development such as meditating, journaling or tapping, a therapeutic technique also known as Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT, where she rhythmically taps acupressure points on her head and body to release or redirect negative emotions. “I try to do five minutes up to thirty minutes tuning into myself, setting my mood right.”
She sings or DJs several times a week. Most of her non-working time is spent playing with and caring for her kids.
“It’s a huge deal that my kids have never seen me in my addiction. I’ve shown up for them the best I could their whole life and continue to do so,” she says.
Blaze is also a certified health coach and an empowerment coach. When people reach out to her to get advice or support around sobriety or recovery, she responds because she knows how hard it is to reach out for help.
A lot is different in Blaze’s life since she stopped drinking. She has been clean and sober and eating disorder free for over eight years, and she is eager to continue to tell her story to help others.
“I know there’s some girl sitting in her bedroom right now who is going through things, but she hasn’t told anyone. And that feeling is so lonely, and it’s so powerless, and it feels like there is no hope. It is really, really important to me to let people know things can change.”
The trajectory of Blaze Bell’s life and career are a brilliant example of how things can change for the better.
Find out about Blaze online at BlazeBell.com.
Aliza Sherman is a freelance writer in Anchorage. Comments about this story? Email editor@AlaskaPulse. com.
University Fire Department with Baby Violet and her mom, Yelena Bohan.
Hey baby! What’s your hurry?
Alaska moms share their stories of those times the baby just couldn’t wait
Nan Blakeway and her son Jesse Scottsdale Blakeway. He was born in the driveway of a Fairbanks midwife’s clinic 33 years ago, in a Chevrolet Scottsdale Suburban. Photo courtesy Jesse Blakeway.
By Kris Capps Alaska Pulse Monthly W henever Jesse Scottsdale Blakeway shares his full name, people assume that he is named after Scottsdale, Arizona. Not true. He was born in the back seat of a Chevrolet Scottsdale Suburban in a driveway in Fairbanks, Alaska, 33 years ago. When his parents pondered what to name him, his grandmother jokingly suggested “Scottsdale” as a middle name. It stuck.
He’s an active-duty member of the U.S. Coast Guard now, but that bit of family trivia always leads to fun conversations.
“When I tell people in Alaska, they seem to understand how this could happen,” Jesse said from his duty station in New York. “But people from the Lower 48 have a much harder time understanding the truly unique area that we live in.”
Jesse grew up in Healy, 110 miles south of Fairbanks.
He’s not the only baby who did not make it to the hospital or the midwife in time. Statistics of how often this happens were not easily available, but plenty of parents were willing to share their stories, with some even telling harrowing tales of treacherous icy roads as they drove north on the Parks Highway, one of Alaska’s main highways. Here are some of those stories.
Room service Nathaniel and Gabrielle Grimes, who live south of Nenana, did everything right in December 2018 when their second child was two weeks overdue. They got a hotel room in Fairbanks and expected to rush to the Alaska Family Health and Birth Center when labor began. the hotel, son Jayson made his surprise debut. technician, but even so, delivering his own baby was a little scary, he admitted. ‘Oh dear God,’ “ he said.
Delivering babies isn’t something that the University Fire Department does very often.
Danielle Mayo and her daughter Kayla.
They got a hotel room in Fairbanks and expected to rush to the Alaska Family Health and Birth Center when labor began.
Ninety minutes after settling into the hotel, son Jayson made his surprise debut.
Nathaniel is an emergency medical technician, but even so, delivering his own baby was a little scary, he admitted. “I was smiling, but inside, I was like, ‘Oh dear God,’ “ he said.
Lost in Fairbanks Sometimes mothers can’t make it to professional help, even if they live in Fairbanks.
Yelena Bohan’s baby made it clear that she was coming three weeks early in June 2018. Yelena decided to drive herself to the midwife/birthing center. She didn’t make it.
While trying to find a shortcut, she turned down a side street and found herself suddenly, hopelessly lost. Luckily, her 14-year-old daughter was with her and called 911.
University Fire Department emergency personnel arrived promptly. Good thing. Baby Violet was born shortly after they arrived.
The emergency crew initially tried to get her to lie down in the back seat of The Grimes family includes Nathaniel and Gabrielle Grimes, big brother William and new arrival Jayson, who was born in a hotel room at The Wedgewood Resort. Courtesy of Nathaniel Grimes
her car.
“I’m not gonna do that,” she told them. “I just got my car detailed.”
A crew helped her onto the stretcher instead. She was barely into the ambulance when Violet was born.
Her advice for others in that situation? Bring a reliable copilot.
Due date Danielle Mayo of Healy thought she had plenty of time to get to Fairbanks to deliver her second daughter 14 years ago. Instead, Kayla arrived exactly on her due date, en route to Fairbanks.
It was Feb. 20, 2006, and roads were covered in black ice as she and her husband, Kevin, frantically sped north. When they got just a few miles north of Healy, her contractions were 55 seconds apart and she realized they should call an ambulance.
They continued driving until they met the ambulance, halfway between Clear
Sky Lodge and Nenana. It was so icy that paramedics had difficulty holding the gurney still when trying to get her on it to transport her to the emergency vehicle.
Her water broke as they drove over the Tanana River bridge at Nenana, and Kayla was born at the Parks Monument, just south of Fairbanks and the community of Ester.
Danielle clearly remembers the entire crew crammed into her hospital room afterward.
“They were so excited,” she said. “They are so used to everything being tragic. Nothing like new life. So they were pretty stoked. It was the best hands-on training EMTs could ever get.”
Family members had been following caravan-style in two cars and were a little disappointed the baby had already been born when they arrived. And no, they didn’t name her Kayla Ester, to commemorate her Parks Highway birth site. She is Kayla Rose. Skinny Dick’s Sometimes others benefit from those early on-the-road deliveries.
Evan Venechuk was born in his family’s Chevrolet Suburban on Oct. 13, 1991, just as the family vehicle drove past Skinny Dick’s Halfway Inn at Milepost 328 Parks Highway during a raging snowstorm.
He was delivered by his 12-year-old sister, Chelsea, who had been spending time during lunch hour with Tri-Valley School’s lunch lady, Nan Blakeway, who is the very same Nan Blakeway who gave birth in her own vehicle in 1987.
“She educated that girl,” said Evan’s mom, Cheryl Venechuk. “Even gave her a little book. She told her, ‘if this happens this is what to do with your mom.’”
There were no cellphones in those days and sometimes vehicles were temperamental on that long drive.
“None of our cars or trucks worked that good,” Cheryl said. “We were just lucky they made it from Nenana to Healy.”
It had been 10 years since her third child was born, so Cheryl figured labor would be awhile for her fourth child. But when contractions started, she knew they had to go.
So husband, Tim, and all three little Venechuks, ages 12, 10 and 8, piled into the vehicle.
Chelsea was super attentive, Cheryl recalled, timing contractions and following everything she had learned from the lunch lady. She delivered her own brother, exclaiming, “Mom, mom, it’s a baby.”
Evan is now 28 years old and moving to Juneau for a job in geomatics, which means he’ll be collecting data on geographic information.
That special day was commemorated by an artist friend who created a multipanel illustration telling the story. It hangs in the Venechuk living room.
Contact Alaska Pulse Monthly staff writer Kris Capps at 459-7546. Email her at kcapps@AlaskaPulse.com
In the Fairbanks/Interior area, call Laurence Oakes at (907) 459-7548 or email loakes@AlaskaPulse.com
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February 2020 Vol. 1, No. 2 FREE
In the swim At 91, Haines’ Joan Snyder an advocate for wellness
• Getting slimed means a job well done for Fairbanks woman • Terrifying diagnosis leads Anchorage woman on medical journey • Early intervention may have saved Alaska attorney general’s life • A Soldier’s Heart helps former Marine overcome trauma • Alaska welcomes its first babies of 2020 • Southcentral Foundation celebrates Russian Christmas • Kachemak Bay club keeps local residents on the run • Go Red and stay heart-healthy this month • Military medics a lifeline for Alaskans
