The dental professionals at Iredell Pediatric Dentistry are focused on providing excellent dental
care to all patients. Your family’s dental health is important to us, and we want to make sure
every family member is comfortable at our office, regardless of their age or needs. Our office
utilizes the latest dental procedures and technology to keep your smile healthy and bright.
Dr. Scott grew up in Idaho and from an early age, people knew he was different. For one, he didn’t want to grow up farming potatoes, as much as he liked to eat them. Second, he enjoyed learning about medical stuff. I know, how weird huh.
One thing he did enjoy growing up was operating heavy equipment for his grandpa’s construction company. When most kids were driving sports cars on their PlayStation, he was driving a 65-thousand-pound loader or a giant haul truck. He may have smashed a few traffic cones while learning how to operate them though.
Growing up in a tiny town in a forgotten state (ya, Idaho is a real State), he loved the small town feel and the sense of community it had.
He grew up hunting, fly-fishing, boating, hiking, dirt biking and basically all things outdoors in the mountains of his home state. With the likes of Yellowstone National Park and Jackson Hole just a few hours from his house, there was no shortage of adventure.
Dr. Kristin Miller is a Mom herself and treats kids with kindness, compassion, and the highest level of care. She knows what it’s like to trust someone else with her little ones and that it is a huge responsibility. Her passion for treating kids as a Dentist Mom helps her understand that the struggle is real, and she believes good oral health and tooth education begins at an early age and strives to make the dental office a welcoming place for all her patients. Although all these things make her pretty awesome, she relates so well to our families because she has her own two young daughters and an awesome husband.
Dr. Miller graduated from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, and served four years in the U.S. Army. After serving the greatest country, and getting her dental degree at the elite University of Missouri – Kansas City, School of Dentistry, she knew she needed to find the coolest kids in the nation and serve their dental needs. Obviously, she was successful as this search landed her in North Carolina.
Dr. Miller is pretty focused on helping her community to put it lightly. As a small example of this, she participates in numerous dental outreach opportunities both in her local community and across North Carolina such as the NCDS Missions of Mercy, Give Kids a Smile, Team Smile, the Sandy Ridge Baptist Dental Bus (Hickory, NC), and the Foothills Veteran’s Stand downs.
I attended Guilford College on a football scholarship. After graduating I taught and coached in the public school systems of North Carolina and Virginia for 5 years before enrolling in the UNC School of Dentistry. I was elected President of the student body before my senior year in dental school. I began my practice in Statesville in 1976 and limited my practice to pediatric dentistry. I was on the staff at Iredell Memorial Hospital and Davis Hospital and utilized both hospitals to care for very young children as well as the special needs community. It has been my privilege to serve the people of Iredell and surrounding counties. I am looking forward to being a part of Iredell Pediatric Dentistry.
A pediatric dentist is a dentist that has received additional specialized training necessary to provide the best care to your children.
When you’re looking for a qualified pediatric dentist for your child, you want to be confident you’ve selected an individual who has the right skills and knowledge to take care of your child’s oral health competently and compassionately.
A shortcut to ensuring your chosen dentist has the training to provide high-quality juvenile dental care is to ask if they are a certified pediatric dentist.
Your child’s oral health is essential to their overall well-being. Unfortunately, almost 28% of children under five have cavities or some level of tooth decay. Cavities in the primary teeth can be painful and even affect your child’s adult teeth before they erupt.
Untreated tooth decay and cavities can lead to an infection in the teeth, gums, or even the jaw. Practicing good oral hygiene, including annual dental checkups, can keep teeth and the surrounding tissue healthy.
As children enter their teen years, maintaining good oral hygiene is important. Braces, fluctuating hormones, nutrition, and mouth jewelry can contribute to dental issues ranging from tooth decay to tongue and gum infections. Understanding teen dentistry needs and learning about the different services pediatric dentists can offer them helps ensure that your child receives the appropriate treatments and procedures when necessary.
Preventative dental care positively impacts a child’s development. Studies by the CDC show that maintaining healthy teeth and gums in childhood leads to better overall health and wellness in adulthood. While office visits play a critical role in dental prevention, good long-term dental habits usually are developed at home.
By understanding more about preventative care, you can become proactive about your child’s oral health.
Laser dentistry is the future, but why? They can be used for many things in dentistry. Some of those things have a long way to go before we’d consider them “better” than traditional means. One procedure in which lasers are obviously better than traditional means is tongue-tie and lip-tie releases, aka a frenectomy.
Tooth extraction is the surgical removal of your child’s permanent (adult) or primary (baby) teeth. While the idea of “surgical removal” sounds scary, the process is very simple, straightforward, and safe.
If your child feels frightened about their upcoming tooth removal, help them understand what will happen. It’s normal to feel frightened of something new, but if you stay calm, your child will feel more reassured.
Approximately 36% of Americans avoid dental visits because they’re afraid or anxious. In extreme circumstances, you may end up losing teeth, developing an infection, or developing oral cancer by refusing dental care. Fortunately, the dental team at Iredell Pediatric Dentistry in Statesville utilizes dental IV sedation techniques to help their patients get the necessary dental care without experiencing pain or anxiety.
A frenectomy is an in-office treatment in which an isolate of connective tissue under the tongue (lingual frenum) or the tissue connecting the upper lip to the gums (labial frenum) is removed to relieve tongue-tie, lip-tie, and related problems.
Any procedure involving the removal or modification of binding tissue on the body can be called a frenectomy or frenotomy. During the infant stage of development, frenectomy surgeries are quite common. Pediatricians and dentists often check for lip or tongue-tie conditions during routine checkups. However, it is common for these issues to go undiscovered well into adolescence.
Experts recommend that a child’s dental cleanings begin within six to 12 months of the eruption of the first tooth. It’s important to establish an early baseline exam of the teeth, oral tissues, jaws, gums, and bite to compare against future development and growth.
Dental emergencies can happen at any time, anywhere. Children and teenagers can require emergency dental care for numerous reasons.
Stay calm, regardless of the reason you need emergency care. Not only will this help you best assess the severity of the dental emergency, but it’ll also help your child stay calm.
Apply at-home first aid as necessary, then follow up with a trip to the dentist or emergency room (ER), as detailed below. Don’t hesitate to call 911 if you believe the injury requires immediate professional medical attention.