Thursday, December 18, 2014

Why X-Rays are VERY important.

Here is an example of why taking regular X-Rays is very important.
This X-Ray is of a 13 year old boy. 
Everything with his teeth looked normal, with one exception.
The X-Ray showed something that was out of place. 
Can you find it?




The answer is further down the page.






Not yet.







Almost there.






1 more time.






Okay here we are. 
There is an adult tooth the is literally sideways in the mouth. 
Not simply tipped a little.
Sideways.
This patient had to go to the Oral Surgeon and have the tooth 
removed through the front of the jaw bone.




The idea of getting X-Rays can be scary to some.
But for this patient to have simply waited to see what
would have happened naturally could have lead to much 
bigger problems down the road.






Monday, December 8, 2014

How does an implant work?

Many people are still nervous to get an implant. 
One of these factors is that they don't know how an implant works.
Here is a step by step of what the process is like. 

#1 A patient comes to the office with a tooth broken off to the gums. A bridge is possible, but that would mean shaving down the teeth on either side of the broken one. They are great teeth and that doesn't make a lot of sense. So an implant is chosen.



#2 After the tooth is removed a drill is placed into the hole. This is very important. No new hole is drilled. There is a hole there already. We simply shape the hole to fit the implant. Extraction is more stress on patient then the shaping of the hole.




#3 The implant is placed in the hole. A temporary tooth was glued into the empty space. No on ever leaves with a hole in their smile ; ) After 12 weeks of healing the new, permanent, tooth will be placed on the implant and all will be well.



Implants are an amazing way to simply, that's right I said simply, replace missing teeth. If you have concerns I have plenty of patients that have been through this procedure that could tell you all about it. Let me know if you have any questions.