You're reclined in the chair, and you hear numbers like your hygienist is calling out lottery results: "Three, two, three. Four, three, four." Most patients have no idea what's happening. Some assume it's a grade. (It's not — nobody's failing.) It's called periodontal charting, or perio charting, and it's one of the most useful few minutes of your entire visit. Here's what we're actually doing. What is perio charting? Your gums don't attach to your teeth right at the edge you

A modern root canal is not painful. With current anesthesia and techniques, most patients describe the procedure as feeling similar to getting a filling. The pain associated with root canals is usually caused by the infected tooth before treatment, not by the procedure itself. If you have been told you may need a root canal, it is completely understandable to feel nervous. The words carry decades of cultural baggage. But the reality of a modern root canal is genuinely differe

If you wake up with a sore jaw, hear clicking or popping when you chew, or get frequent tension headaches, the cause may be your jaw joint — the TMJ. At our Bellevue office, Dr. Bauer treats TMJ disorders with a conservative, step-by-step approach, and for the right patients, therapeutic Xeomin can be a remarkably effective way to relieve the muscle tension behind the pain. Here's how we think about jaw pain and where Xeomin fits in. Dr. Bauer uses therapeutic Xeomin to relax

Here's a fun fact to chew on this Fourth of July: George Washington's famous dentures were never made of wood. The real story is stranger — and a lot grosser — than the legend, and it's a great reminder of just how far dentistry has come in 250 years. So as the country celebrates its founding, let's take a quick, slightly squeamish look at the mouth of the Father of Our Country. So What Were Washington's Dentures Actually Made Of? Forget wood. Washington's dentures were a wil