Smiles Across Generations: A Family-Focused Dental Journey with Dr. Christopher Trinh

Angelina Huang: 00:00:02

Welcome to the Dentistry for Kidz podcast. We are Angelina and Cameron and we love candy. Do you all love candy? We've learned how to enjoy all the candy we want without getting cavities or getting in trouble with our dentist wants to learn our magic. Join us discover how to enjoy sweets and have nice bright, clean, shiny white teeth. Let's go.

Cameron Huang: 00:00:27

Welcome to our latest episode of Dentistry for Kidz where we bring insights from the best in the world of Family Dentistry. Today, we're thrilled to welcome a true gem in the dental community. Dr. Christopher Trinh. With over 24 years of dedicated service Dr. Trinh has been brightening smiles in Las Vegas since 2002, not only just as a general dentist, but as a compassionate provider for families. Dr. Trinh's passion for dentistry goes beyond the clinic. He's a shining example of community spirit, often volunteering with nonprofit organizations to offer free dental care to those in need. His efforts reflect a deep commitment to not only improving oral health but to also nurturing the well being of his community. He believes in creating a positive and welcoming atmosphere for all family members, ensuring that a visit is always pleasant and reassuring. Welcome, Dr. Trinh.

Cameron Huang: 00:01:20

Dr. Christopher Trinh: Hello.

Cameron Huang: 00:01:21

So our first question today is what inspired you to become a family dentist, and what do you love most about your profession?

Cameron Huang: 00:01:31

Dr. Christopher Trinh: Well, what inspired me was, at one point I was young, I was in a refugee camp. And of course it being in a in a refugee camp, there was no dentists there. You know, I had pain, I had two dates. And fortunately, there was a volunteer, Jenna's, I believe she use one switch one. And his fiancee came, and, you know, they would come and stay in it for a few weeks. And, you know, I was fortunate to have him work on me and relieve me up my pain. So it was since then, my dream was to become a dentist, and to go back to the same refugee cow. But unfortunately, when I, by the time I graduated, that refugee camp had been close. So you know, I didn't get a chance to go there. So to how should I say, to me, or to achieve that goal that I have to to do something good to give back to the community. Since I couldn't go to a refugee camp, I decided to join Suchi you know, and just volunteer my time to do some free dental work for the less fortunate people or people in need. So that's, you know, why I choose to become a dentist, you know, just to be able to help others as well. So

Cameron Huang: 00:03:04

that is such a touching story. Thank you. Why is it important for children to start dental visits at an early age? And how does it benefit them in the long run?

Cameron Huang: 00:03:17

Dr. Christopher Trinh: Well, it's important so that number one, they learn the proper, you know, brushing technique, how to take care of their teeth, the earlier they learn about the proper techniques, it's so it will allow them my whole, you know, to prolong the health of their teeth, you know, you can, if you know how to brush how to floss properly, chances are, you're going to be able to keep your teeth a lot longer and prevent your team from having in decades long runs and it also you start early. And they've let's say you have a good experience, you tend to keep going back to the dentist's, you know for break lips cleaning for regular checkup, you know, it's just like having a hard you know, you maintain your car, you know, every 3000 miles every three months, the more often you maintain your car, you can be able to keep your car a lot longer. So it's the same thing. You know, if you come to the dentist's more regularly, you can be able to keep your teeth you know and maintain your oral health care, you know, much longer

Cameron Huang: 00:04:33

and what can parents do at home to help maintain their children's dental health?

Cameron Huang: 00:04:39

Dr. Christopher Trinh: Well, one, parents can remind the kids of you know, brushing their teeth, you know, at least twice a day, once in the morning, once at night before going to bed. You know also, you know as parents, we can look at technologies, you know, see what's available out there like for example, electric toothbrush right now What a pig's right? And floss, certain electric toothbrush, you know, this Sonicare or a beetus different type, you know, some people gone to the circle of motion of the electric toothbrush, some like a rectangular, you know, and also there's different types of floss. There's mint taste, you know, and then some people just don't like it, they just prefer like no taste at all. So, one way to pans can help is at home is to provide or to buy whatever the kids need, you know, to to help them maintain their or health care. Or I see. And

Cameron Huang: 00:05:49

do you have any advice for children who might be nervous about going to the dentist?

Cameron Huang: 00:05:56

Dr. Christopher Trinh: Well, for children who are nervous going to the dentist, I think, one, first of all, like, I think the earlier they go this, the better would be for them. And I think nowadays, you know, kids coming in that the more knowledgeable they are, the more likely you know, they can be less fearful. Unless they have some kind of bad experience, you know, but for kids, for most kids, right, let's say they come to my office, and I would, you know, first of all, I would say oh, hey, you know, everything I do is just gonna be very simple. We're just gonna take a look at your teeth. Let's say for example, it's three years, okay? Covenants, a, you know, I'm just gonna have to count arms, it can I count your twos. Okay. And then you're gonna feel some water spraying on your teeth, just washing your teeth. And, you know, for brushing, you know, let's say we use a cofee polishing is like a machine that we use in the head, you know, this is like, just like a electric toothbrush that you normally use at home that I'm using on you. And I just tell them to breathe, just relax and breathe. And then sometime in the past, you know, I sink to them. You know, you're my sunshine kind of deal, you know, and then have parents I'm okay, I want to do tennis, it's okay to have the parents sit in a room, you know, holding hands, whatnot, as long as the parent don't freak out. And, you know, some time parents being in a room and some parents, you know, very good at helping out. But some parents, you know, they just keep asking the kids or, you know, the nervous, you know, a year old case, you know, even the kids was, you know, doing well was doing fine in some time. It's to parents that trigger to kids, you know, nervousness So, my advice for the kid is, you know, come in, just relax, breathe, you know, where your friends you know, we just gonna help you, you know, teach you how to take care of your teeth, you know, better. So, that's just my advice.

Cameron Huang: 00:08:24

I see why you're so popular among kids now. But thank you. And can you share some essential dental care tips to practice at home?

Cameron Huang: 00:08:37

Dr. Christopher Trinh: Well, my tip is, you know, make sure that you know, when you wake up, you brush your teeth, right? If you can, you know you have time try to brush it you have to eat and of course, you know, lunchtime you know, when you eat, make sure you brush your teeth again if you can I have floss in my car in my office, at home, but everywhere just to help me clean my teeth you know right after I eat. Also at nighttime, you know, make sure you brush before you go to bed and floss. And most people don't know this but I advise patients to let's say they can eat something acidic. For example, they drink lemon juice it oranges, grapefruit, whatever it is, you know, I would or drink orange juice and I would suggest that they wait 30 minutes before brushing their tea. Because sometimes what happens is acidic. That stay on your now it kind of loose ship you're an animal in our little bit in any way. You take your brush and brush it away. Sometimes you can brush it off, you're now you're not gonna be able to see it. It's very minut it's very micron, you know, microscopic but it's just enough How to do that. And also, you know, for kids who drink a lot of soda, I strongly recommend against that. Because you know, soda has chemicals in there that will cause erosion, a lot of cavities. So I would say, kind of refrain from drinking a lot of soda, like cold that cold things like that. And not in too much candies. So, the My advice to?

Cameron Huang: 00:10:34

Well, like, so you covered our next question, I was gonna say, How does diet affect children's mental health? And what should they avoid? or consume more of? Yeah, so

Cameron Huang: 00:10:48

Dr. Christopher Trinh: no, no, Coca Cola, no diet, Pepsi, you know, you can't eat a lot of veggie, it's helped. You just gotta be careful as far as what you put in your mouth, because normally, we have no whole material fluoresce in our mouth. And it's the enzyme, you know, that the bacteria produce, when they break down certain food that left in our mouth that costs cavities. So extremely important, you know, what you eat, you know, the frequencies of it, you know, for sure, if somebody eat a lot of candies, and they'll brush their teeth, and eat a lot of sweet thing, a lot of chewing a lot of soda, and, you know, not brushing it, not flossing, the teeth, all that stuff kind of stays in there. And eventually, you know, it's perfect environment for you know, about Cheerios in our mouth, too. So, you know, having a party, it's up breaking your enamel down and up causing a whole bunch of cavities. So, yeah, I will say refrain on that.

Cameron Huang: 00:11:54

Gotcha. Now, what are some of the coolest or latest trends that you think people should know about in dentistry?

Cameron Huang: 00:12:05

Dr. Christopher Trinh: Well, you know, there's a different type of toothbrushes, you know, that has timers on there, that people can use that tell them like how, like, long they've been brushing, there's probably indicators they can put in their teeth. And, and, you know, it shows them, like, where, let's say they brush their teeth, but they, you know, they think they brush it well enough. And, and this tablet, they can choose and unable to, you know, kind of left, it can show it was like an indicating material that show where they didn't do a good job. And, you know, the showed up this pot still present. So they can go back in there and clean that up. There's different types of fluoride mouthrinse for kids that have different flavor, that it can use dental office, sometimes they have to varnish, or they can put on the kids up to the brush that I mean, after they do a regular cleaning the profi cleaning, they put on a kid's mouth. Those are the things that, you know, I think it's pretty cool of what it is. And of course, you know, you can buy certain things. This is more 20 You know, to have certain figures, you know, type of toothbrushes, but you know, it's mostly manual toothbrushes, like different shapes, different characters that you know, kid can use. Yeah, so those are some of the things that would help you know, some of the kisses become more how should I say? Interested in brushing?

Cameron Huang: 00:13:53

Oh, I want to check into some of those things now.

Cameron Huang: 00:13:56

Dr. Christopher Trinh: Yes.

Cameron Huang: 00:13:59

And can you tell us about your volunteer work with organizations and its impact on the community?

Cameron Huang: 00:14:09

Dr. Christopher Trinh: Well, my volunteer we're a mainly volunteer with an organization called su chi every now and then. I think twice at least twice a year. They have an outreach, you know, with a whole bunch of data's hairdressers, pharmacy, pharmacists, a optometrists sometime, we would go well in the past we would have, we would go to the Salvation Army where we set up you know, like, field chair, dental chair. So we were portable dental chairs that we will work on, let's say, for my events or anybody that needed some dental work done there. So we would do Cleaning, exam extraction, fillings, things that we are able to do at the site. Without much complication, or, you know, most of the time, we do think that it's a little bit more simple. Because there's certain thing that was wire a lot, let's say this a lot more complex procedure than we would have to refer a patient to like a dental clinic or something like that. Because, as you know, we work in a in like, a portable sight, like a portable chair, portable unit, we have we do have a limitation. So. So yeah, that's in the past, we volunteer at Salvation Army. And recently, we started setting up event, certain high school, you know, to provide dental health care to some high school student or, you know, the communities around there that doesn't have dental insurance or, or have limited funds, that sometimes going to a regular dentist could be very costly for them. So we try to do whatever we can at the site for these individual. Basically, we try to serve the under privilege. Yeah. So that's what we do for these community. You know, we try to give back by doing nice outreach. That's

Cameron Huang: 00:16:31

amazing. Do you have any fun dental facts or trivia that kids might find interesting?

Cameron Huang: 00:16:40

Dr. Christopher Trinh: Dental fast? Yeah. You know, it's funny. The one internal fact that I presented moving forward, as I may have mentioned earlier, like a lot of not a lot of people realize even adults, that they don't realize that they eat something acidic, like oranges. So those are things like that, that they should not be brushing their teeth immediately, because some people they want to eat these things right before bed, they take a toothbrush to it. But ideally, you want to wait at least 30 minutes. So that is something that I think most people don't realize, including her dots. So. So that's one thing that I want to share with everybody.

Cameron Huang: 00:17:29

That's good to know. And before our last question of the day to sum up this awesome interview, what message would you like to give your young patients or parents about taking care of their teeth?

Cameron Huang: 00:17:46

Dr. Christopher Trinh: Well, my devices, sometimes we get really busy with our lives. And if you don't feel any pain, you just kind of put everything on the backburner and go oh, I will do this later. Do this later. Before you know it. It's just several months down the line, you're way past your due, but I strongly suggest that you know, try to keep going to the dentist's at least every six months, you know, for checkup cleaning, because what that does is allow you to maintain your oral health care. But let's say if you happen to have a cavities, or something else is going on in there because, you know, when people come for dental and checkout, we don't just do dental checkup and we don't just check on a tipper we check on the oral tissues, you know, within the mouth in which check the throat you know, some patients, you know, they might have like an abnormal growth right, you know, it potentially it could be cancer so, if they go regularly we you know, we catch on to that, you know, we can refer the patient to an oral surgeon or let's say, we find something in the throat we can refer them to the EMT, you know, eye ear nose, throat doctors, you know, for further evaluation. So, it's an as far as dental like chief concern, you know, like I said, if you have a cavity and we catch it early, then all you need is maybe just a feeling but the longer you wait, Kelly will continue to spread and then we'll turn to potentially root canal or even loss of tooth array and it can kind of be more costly, down the line, you know, and then also, you know, some people brush and floss and they think they are doing a great job but sometimes we checked it and then it's, you know, they not flossing, right? But not brushing right? Then now is myopic, the supporting structure around the tooth. You know, it's gum on the bone then They might have periodontal disease. So these are the things that if they come in regularly and we can detect it early, you know, we can help resolve the problem, you know, a lot sooner rather than later. You know, so overall, I think it's extremely important, you know, both parents, you know, and kids should try to come in doesn't matter how busy you are, you know, just kind of make it because that's in the long term. I mean, it'll, it will help maintain your oral health, you know, in the long term is also going to help save a lot of money, you know, for your family. So that's just my suggestion.

Cameron Huang: 00:20:42

That was amazing. And mind blowing advice to anyone who will ever hear that.

Cameron Huang: 00:20:51

Dr. Christopher Trinh: Well, thank you.

Cameron Huang: 00:20:52

Thank you so much for joining us today for this interview. You are so talented and amazing.

Cameron Huang: 00:21:04

Dr. Christopher Trinh: Well, thank you Cameron. Really appreciate your time and effort to try to educate and reach out to your peers to let them know you know, how important it is to maintain their oral health very much appreciate you and what you're doing for the community.

Cameron Huang: 00:21:23

Thank you so much, and have a lovely night.

Cameron Huang: 00:21:27

Dr. Christopher Trinh: Okay, you too. Thank you.

Cameron Huang: 00:21:29

Thank you for listening to the Dentistry for Kidz podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with a family member or friend. Be sure to like and subscribe to our channel to help us complete our mission to see bright smiles from all around the world. Thank you