Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Cosmetic Bonding

What do you do if you have a small gap in between your teeth?
You could get braces. 
You could get crowns or veneers. 

But both of those options are expensive and time consuming. 

What if there was a way to close gaps that didn't cost a lot that 
could be done in 1 appointment?

There is!
It's called cosmetic bonding. 
Here is a case that I just did today. 

Before

 After

Cosmetic bonding is a small amount of filling material that
is placed on the side of 1, or both, teeth in order to close the gap. 
There are other types of cosmetic bonding but the same concept applies. 
It's as strong as a normal filling because that's what it is. 

No numbing shots
No big bill
No weeks or months of treatment 




Monday, November 14, 2016

Which floss is the best?

People ask me which type of floss is the "best" type of floss. 
Thin Floss
Thick Floss
Waxed......
Unwaxed.......
Floss on a handle
etc.
etc.
etc.

The answer to this is easy. 
The best floss is ........whichever floss you will use. 
The percentage of people who will floss daily is around 40%.
And the number of people who will never floss is around 20%.

So the "type" of floss you use is not nearly as important 
as actually "using" the floss.  Because it really doesn't matter.





Wednesday, November 9, 2016

What is a Root Canal?

People ask me all the time....
"So what exactly is a root canal"?

Well it's really not that complicated. 
Let's make it a little easier to understand shall we.

The inside of your teeth are hollow. 
There is a CANAL running through them like a 
canal that carries water.

The canals run down the entire length of the the ROOT.

The canals in your roots carry the nerves of the teeth. 
When the nerve dies, and/or becomes infected, it will cause
pain and/or infection. 

A root canal is simply going into the ROOT to clean out the CANAL. 
Thus ROOT CANAL. 

The picture here simplifies it really well. 
The tooth on the left has a cavity that has gotten down into the nerve.
After a root canal, the picture on the right, there is no longer a nerve in 
the canals. There is now a filling. 

No nerve .......... No pain. 







Thursday, November 3, 2016

Why do I need regular dental visits?

Some people refuse to come to the dentist unless it hurts 
or unless they can see something wrong in the mirror at their house.

These very same people are usually the ones that end up with the 
largest amount of crown, root canals, and broken teeth. 

Below is a perfect example of why REGULAR dental
visits are so important. 

The tooth below did not hurt. 
The patient couldn't see anything wrong with it. 

Once we took a digital image and blew it up a little however, 
the problem became very clear. 

There is a crack in the tooth. 
We were able to remove the cracked portion and place a new 
filling that will, hopefully, stop this small crack from progressing 
into a much larger problem in the future. 



The after image.

Please do not wait for pain, or actual tooth breakage, 
before you go see your dentist.