Trying to Heal My Teeth With Xylitol

I grew up with fantastic dental care and I never had a cavity all through my growing up years. At 26 I went to the dentist and found out that I had 3 cavities, which was a shock to me because I thought 1 cavity would be the end of the world. After getting them filled a week later I thought," Man I'm glad that's over and those are taken care of." I naively thought that I could just move on and not have another cavity or problem. 6 months later I returned for a cleaning and I found out that I had 5 more cavities that needed to be filled. Where did these come from if I was just at the dentist 6 months earlier?

One month later I went back to the dentist because of a stinging pain in one of my molars. I had a crack that needed to be drilled and filled. I'm now writing this post with another molar that's in pain. I believe I have another crack in my tooth right next to the tooth that had the first crack. What is going on with my teeth? I don't want to accept that cavities and other more extensive procedures are just going to be a part of my recurring 6 month dental visits. Even if I had all the money in the world, it is terribly uncomfortable to sit in a chair for 2 hours while your mouth is being stabbed and drilled and filled.

I turned to the internet and searched for hours trying to find an answer about why my mouth seems to be falling apart. If I could figure out why I was getting cavities, I would have a better chance at getting rid of them. When you search basic terms like "how to stop/avoid cavities" you'll see nothing but ads and websites for big dollar companies that want you to buy their toothpaste and mouthwash.

I then started searching to find out if teeth could actually heal themselves like every other part of your body. (I always found it interesting that dentists just say that once enamel is gone it is gone and that gums recede) The search results got very encouraging, because they were saying that teeth, under the right conditions, are meant to remineralize and heal themselves. The problem was that certain diets yield an acidic mouth that your saliva can't overcome to heal your teeth. I found many claims that xylitol, a natural sugar, can control the acidity in your mouth enough to allow your body to remineralize your teeth.

I'm personally trying some of the things I've learned and I've altered much of what I do to care for my teeth. I don't usually believe these types of things until I experience it for myself. So far I've been using the proper dosage of xylitol and the recommded toothpaste and mouthwash from Dr. Ellie Phillips and I can safely say my teeth feel smoother and less sensitive. I'm not expecting the crack in my tooth to heal itself, but if this turns out to be a way for me to stop having cavities I will be thrilled. So far I haven't found any negative reviews or studies saying that this method doesn't work. I'm usually able to find an equal amount of outrageous claims, both negative and possitive, and in this scenario I'm overwhelmed with possitive results. I have some additional links below that I found interesting along with a pretty comprehensive video that goes over just about everything I've been researching. Because of the dental myths page I stopped using my Sensodyne toothpaste and my teeth actually feel better. The toothpaste could have been contributing to weak and more crack prone teeth. My real hope is to stop getting cavities and problems with my teeth. A small hope is that my hygenist will commend me on my brushing and flossing and I'll be able to tell her what I've really been doing. I wish I could say it was because I followed my dentist's advice. So far he's been agreeable and hasn't really told me what products are best, but he's a huge advocate for simply brushing and flossing. So far his advice hasn't made my mouth feel any better so I've had to start figuring things out on my own. I think I've learned a lot and I would love to hear any feedback from anyone else with similar problems and what you've done.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylitol
http://www.xylitol.org/
http://askdrellie.blogspot.com/
http://www.drellie.com/
http://www.cda.org/member_benefits_&_resources/patient_education_tools/factsheets/xylitol
http://www.drellie.com/Xylitol.php
http://www.drellie.com/Dental-Myths.php

Why Polish Your New Car

When you get a car from the factory you might assume that it is in the best condition it will ever be in. Why wouldn't it be, it's new right? It is true that everything is in great condition and the paint looks pretty great. It was just sprayed on and buffed at the factory. Why on earth would you want to polish your new car? In all honesty, most people shouldn't. If you desire perfection in your ride, however, you'll love the look of a freshly polished finish.

When a car is painted at the factory it is done so in very controlled conditions and then covered with a very durable clear coat. The car is then buffed at a fairly low speed which gives the car a good general shine. If you were to zoom in and look at that paint with a magnifying glass you would essentially see a bunch of jagged peaks and pits in the clear coat. When you wax the car you basically sand the top of those peaks to create a flat surface which reflects light and makes the car shinier. 

When you polish the car with an actual high speed polisher you have more power to remove the majority of the bumps and peaks all together. When you get closer to a perfectly flat surface you achieve a mirror like finish. That is the difference between a shiny new car and a car that you can use as a mirror. As I said above, most people would never buy a new car and think to go get it polished. It already looks good and has a great finish. Polishing a new car would only be if you want to have a car that turns heads. You'll notice people staring at your car for multiple reasons. It is so dang shiny and they also like seeing the reflection of their wheels in your door going down the highway at 70 miles/hour. 

Basics Of Painting A Room

If you're going to paint a room you will need a few basic painting tools. You will need paint, of course, brushes, rollers, roller handles, tape and a paint tray. Depending on the height of the walls and the amount of surface area you need to cover, you may need a ladder and an extension pole.

1. Start off by taping all edges of your room that you don't want painted. This will usually include the base boards, crown molding, windows and any additional fixtures or outlets on the wall. It's easier to simply remove the face plates on your wall outlets. 
2. Cover the ground of the room you're painting with plastic sheeting so you don't get paint on your flooring. Modern paints have very concentrated and potent dyes that can be a nightmare to extract from carpet or other porous surfaces. 
3. Make sure your paint is mixed well and then pour it into your paint tray that you plan on using with your roller. Only pour enough paint into the tray so that there is still enough space on the ramp to roll off the excess paint before moving over to the wall. 
4. Make sure the room you're in is well ventilated. Paint fumes can make you sick so leaving a window open and having a high volume fan move air around is highly recommended.  
5. If this is the first time you've painted a wall you will initially want to be very careful to apply paint in a very even and uniform fashion. If you are painting a solid color, especially white, you will quickly realize that paint is VERY forgiving when it dries. The depth of color that is added by the moisture in the paint fades away into a very even finish once the paint dries. My recommendation is to do your best to apply an even coat of paint and just keep moving on to the next parts of your room.
6. Get as close to the edges with your roller as you can. It takes much longer to paint with a brush than it does with your roller so you'll want to save time and just be careful with your roller. 
7. After you've covered the majority of square footage with your roller you'll have to touch up your edges with a brush. Again, paint is very forgiving so you can be pretty aggressive. You're not painting canvas, so just go for good, even coverage. 
8. Let your paint dry partially before removing your tape. You can check the side of your paint can for normal dry times. There should be a dry time for re-painting and a complete dry time. 
9. If you are covering a darker color with a fresh coat of lighter colored paint you will usually have to go over your first coat with a second. Sometimes you can get away with one coat if you prime the wall first or use a quality paint with primer mixed in. 

After you've pulled your tape and re-attached your face plates you'll be amazed at how much better your room looks with a simple coat of paint. 

University Of YouTube

The traditional educational process is a thing of the past. The process was simple. You go to kindergarten through high school and then attend college. In college you choose some specific field of expertise and you go through a road-map of classes that should impart the necessary information for you to become useful to an employer in your desired industry. The most exciting thing to come along was the brief stint of laser disks, weren't those awesome. 

Now that the world is almost completely flat and communication across the world happens on a whim, a student has nothing holding him back from learning from a famous professor across the country. When I was in college I eventually learned that I could learn the material in my classes better by simply searching for instructional videos on YouTube. Math is a great example of where YouTube proved useful. I was struggling in my civil engineering classes because my professor was extremely dry and assumed we understood all of his jargon. (The average grades in his classes were very low and he lowered his passing grade standard to 55% because he would have had such a horrible pass/fail rate.) Anyway, I found that I could search the chapter title for each of our lessons on YouTube and find a great video from some student or professor that would explain the content better. Better yet, there's a rating system on YouTube that allows users to show whether the content is useful or not. This allowed me to quickly find videos that would teach me in a far superior manner to what I was paying for in school. 

This brings up the main problem. I was paying the college for my education but I was learning the actual content online and not from the college that was getting my money. In some cases the only thing college offered was accreditation that made a diploma worth anything. If YouTube would offer a standardized system that facilitated knowledge testing for various disciplines, they could be the best university in the country. Teachers would be determined by their skill in teaching and knowledge transfer. Professors would have to remain creative. There would be no such thing as that old musty professor that uses the same overhead slides for 30 years. Teacher reviews are inefficient. The better review system is to let each viewer say whether the video was useful or not. I continue to learn from YouTube. I believe there is great opportunity in online universities and I think YouTube has the best possibilities with its access to vast amounts of content. I'm excited to see what's happening when my kids are ready for college.

Why Can't I find My Ads On Google?

If you're a business owner that is running Ads on the Google's Adwords platform you have probably wondered at one time or another why your ads don't show up every time you search for your desired keywords. It seems simple; if you're paying Google to advertise your business when someone searches for a keyword, you should show up.

There are many reasons why your ads may not be showing up on Google whenever you search. I'll list some of the main reasons here:

• Your Adwords daily budget is too small. Since Adwords requires you to pay to play, you have to consider whether or not you're paying enough for the advertising exposure you desire. I've heard people complain about not seeing themselves for every search on keywords like "shoes" when they have a $20/day budget. If your ad is clicked on 5 times during that day your budget will be spent and you'll be back to play the next day. 
• Your bids are too low. You may wish to pay 20 cents for every click to your site, but if you're competing in the insurance category, you're about $10 too low just to start. You are entering an auction every time someone performs a search on one of your keywords and you just aren't being as aggressive as your competitors.
• You're targeting the wrong, or right, area. I've seen people get all hot and bothered because they couldn't find their ads when searching from an area that they don't even serve. Perhaps you're a business owner that's out of town and you're searching for your ads. If you're outside your business' service area, your ads will "hopefully" not be showing. 
• Your ads might be disapproved. Google takes it upon themselves to know a lot about advertising and online business they've put specific guidelines in place that are, in most cases, beneficial to the user experience of people that Google things on Google. If your ads are FILLED WITH TONS OF CAPITALS or you just can't seem to scratch a coherent thought into an 85 character advertisement, I hope Google keeps you out of the game. The last thing Google wants is to see their SERP filled with crummy ads.
• Lastly, Google says that even when you're doing everything perfectly you will still not be guaranteed a placement on their SERP every time. Even an unlimited budget and all the PPC genius in the world will not guarantee placement every time. As long as you have more than 10 competitors there will always be a chance that they will show up instead of you. 

If you still have questions around this popular topic, I keep very up-to-date on the latest PPC trends. I'd love to answer any questions or add to my list of future posts.