Dental Implants Are a Permanent Alternative to Dentures

If you are wearing dentures, dental implants are an alternative solution that look and feel like natural teeth. While dentures are practical and provide patients with the appearance of a full set of teeth, they never feel quite natural. Implants, on the other hand, feel the same as the rest of your teeth so there is no way to tell which teeth are natural and which teeth are replacements.

Over seventy percent of adults over the age of sixty-five experience some form of tooth loss. Even young adults suffer from this age old problem, with around thirty percent of those over thirty five suffering from tooth loss. If this happens to you, it is important to decide how you want to replace the missing tooth. An experienced cosmetic dentist can help you to determine which solution will best fit with your lifestyle and the goals you have for your appearance.

Dental implants are ideal for people that have an active lifestyle and don't want their teeth to slow them down. Once the implant is installed, patients can eat all of their favorite foods, speak normally, and care for the implant as they do the rest of their teeth. This is a brush and go solution because as long as remember to practice good oral hygiene at home, along with visiting the dentist twice a year, you will never have to think about your replacement tooth again.

How the Process Works

In order to receive dental implants, you need to schedule a consultation with an experienced dentist. Our staff are experts at using this technology and able to determine if your gums and jawbone are in good enough health to schedule the procedure. If they are not, there are specific dental treatments that can get them ready. During your examination, a mold will be taken of your mouth so that the lab can create a synthetic tooth, or teeth, that is the right size and shape to blend in with your other natural teeth. If you want to have your teeth whitened now is an excellent time to do so because the synthetic tooth will be made to match your natural ones.

The first step in the procedure is to have a titanium post implanted under the surface of your gums. This piece will be secured to your jawbone and eventually the two will fuse together, creating an extremely durable synthetic root system. An abutment will be attached at the surface of your gums. Once the gums are healed the new tooth will be attached and put into position. This allows a cosmetic dentist to create a perfectly straight beautiful smile that looks and feels amazing. The entire process takes several months since your gums and bone need to heal after the implant procedure. During that time, you may want to wear temporary or immediate dentures so that no one will know that you don't have a full set of teeth. To learn more about the process or to schedule an examination, call today.

General Dentistry  >  Cosmetic Dentist

As a General Dentist We Treat Athletes That Have Injured Their Teeth

If you are an athlete, a trip to the general dentist is in order before you start the game.  According to the American Dental Association, the majority of adult tooth injuries are due to playing sports.  Since most adults only play casually with friends, this means that even a pickup game of basketball or tossing a ball with your kids can lead to tooth damage.  In order to protect your teeth, you need to keep them in good health.

We recommend that you have your teeth cleaned twice a year so that we can remove the bacteria and plaque from your teeth that can lead to a tooth infection.  It is important to keep your teeth cavity free and to prevent gum disease because if a random ball hits your face and there is an infection, your tooth will be more likely to break or be knocked out.  Think of it like a pond that becomes frozen in the winter.  A solid sheet of ice can support kids playing on it for hours, but one small crack can cause the entire thing to shatter when someone steps on it.  Teeth that are infected are like a pond with a small crack.  They cannot withstand the impact of something hitting them.

It is also important to strengthen your teeth by brushing with a soft toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste.  Fluoride is a mineral that when placed onto your teeth will help them to be stronger.  You can further strengthen your teeth by eating a healthy diet that contains lean protein, nuts, cheese, yogurt, and green leafy vegetables.  This, combined with trips to our general dentist office can keep your teeth and gums in excellent health.

We also recommend that you wear a mouth guard while playing sports.  This prevents hundreds of thousands of injuries on an annual basis.  When considering high school and football players alone, the American Dental Association claims that over 200,000 injuries are prevented every year due to wearing a mouth guard.  When you consider how many different sports and age groups there are, it is clear that this simple device is a fantastic way to protect yourself from injury.

If you take these precautionary steps and still injure your teeth, we can restore them in our general dentist office.  If a tooth is cracked or chipped, we can use a dental veneer to correct it by placing the veneer onto the surface of the tooth.  It will look completely natural and make it possible to eat and speak like normal.  If the tooth is severely cracked or a lot of enamel is missing, we can use a dental crown to restore the tooth instead.  This provides a greater level of stability because it can surround the tooth entirely.  This is a durable procedure that can help your teeth to function as good as new after a serious injury.  If a tooth has been knocked out, we can replace it as well by using either dental implants or a dental bridge.

If your tooth has been injured, schedule a dental appointment right away.

Emergency Dentist  >  Dental Office