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My Blog
Posts for: February, 2016
Magician Michel Grandinetti can levitate a 500-pound motorcycle, melt into a 7-foot-tall wall of solid steel, and make borrowed rings vanish and reappear baked inside bread. Yet the master illusionist admits to being in awe of the magic that dentists perform when it comes to transforming smiles. In fact, he told an interviewer that it’s “way more important magic than walking through a steel wall because you’re affecting people’s health… people’s confidence, and you’re really allowing people to… feel good about themselves.”
Michael speaks from experience. As a teenager, his own smile was enhanced through orthodontic treatment. Considering the career path he chose for himself — performing for multitudes both live and on TV — he calls wearing an orthodontic device (braces) to align his crooked teeth “life-changing.” He relies on his welcoming, slightly mischievous smile to welcome audiences and make the initial human connection.
A beautiful smile is definitely an asset regardless of whether you’re performing for thousands, passing another individual on a sidewalk or even, research suggests, interviewing for a job. Like Michael, however, some of us need a little help creating ours. If something about your teeth or gums is making you self-conscious and preventing you from smiling as broadly as you could be, we have plenty of solutions up our sleeve. Some of the most popular include:
- Tooth Whitening. Professional whitening in the dental office achieves faster results than doing it yourself at home, but either approach can noticeably brighten your smile.
- Bonding. A tooth-colored composite resin can be bonded to a tooth to replace missing tooth structure, such a chip.
- Veneers. This is a hard, thin shell of tooth-colored material bonded to the front surface of a tooth to change its color, shape, size and/or length; mask dental imperfections like stains, cracks, or chips, and compensating for excessive gum tissue.
- Crowns. Sometimes too much of a tooth is lost due to decay or trauma to support a veneer. Instead, capping it with a natural-looking porcelain crown can achieve the same types of improvements. A crown covers the entire tooth replacing more of its natural structure than a veneer does.
If you would like more information about ways in which you can transform your smile, please contact us or schedule an appointment for a consultation. You can also learn more about the techniques mentioned above by reading the Dear Doctor magazine articles “Teeth Whitening,” “Repairing Chipped Teeth,” and “Porcelain Crowns & Veneers.”
After a dental examination revealed you had periodontal (gum) disease, you began undergoing treatment. Now after several cleaning sessions, the infection has subsided and your gums have returned to a healthy shade of pink.
But your gum care isn’t over — depending on the infection’s severity you may need to visit us more often than the normal six months between regular checkups.
Gum disease arises from dental plaque, a thin film of bacteria and food remnants built up on tooth surfaces due to poor oral hygiene. The bacteria cause an infection in the gums, which initiates a response from the body’s immune system that triggers inflammation.
Without proper treatment, periodontitis can come back in which the infection spreads deeper below the gum line. Pockets of infection can reoccur as gum tissues weaken and lose their attachment to teeth. This continuing damage can ultimately lead to both tooth and bone loss.
To stop the disease it’s necessary to remove all the infection-causing plaque and calculus (hardened plaque deposits) from tooth surfaces, including around the roots. This is performed manually and could require surgery once again to access areas below the gum line.
To guard against this it’s necessary for you to undergo regular periodontal maintenance (PM). Besides cleaning, PM gives us an opportunity to check for signs of returning gum disease and, if found, plan for another round of treatment.
Although not written in stone, the interval between PM appointments that seems the most effective for preventing recurrence is every three months. In cases of advanced, aggressive gum disease, appointments may need to occur at even shorter intervals, for example every two months.
PM for susceptible patients with decreased resistance to disease require extra time and effort for the hygienist, along with a renewed daily hygiene habit of effective brushing and flossing by you to keep the disease at bay. But preventing another occurrence of gum disease and its consequences is well worth this extra attention for the health of your teeth and gums.
If you would like more information on dental care after gum disease treatment, please contact us or schedule an appointment for a consultation.
