General Treatment

Fillings | Composite Bonding | Root Canals | Tooth Extractions

Our practice can provide a wide range of dental services. We can typically provide every type of dental service without having to refer you to other specialties. This flexibility saves you time and keeps your total dental care within one practice. Our emphasis is on total preventive care for our patients. Total care begins with regular hygiene visits, regular checkups and continued home oral health routines.

Our practice also provides the highest-quality services for restoring mouths that have been damaged by dental disease and injury and common problems that require cosmetic dentistry. Our primary goal for our patients is to achieve and maintain optimum oral health through advances in techniques, technologies and by maintaining their scheduled dental exams.

Fillings

The concept of a “filling” is replacing and restoring tooth structure that is damaged due to decay or fracture with an artificial material. For over a century, dentists have been using mercury amalgam as fillings for cavities. As a result of the ongoing health controversy surrounding the use of mercury, our office policy is to use white fillings.

The controversy is ongoing, sometimes bitter, and confusing to many. It was once believed that if a tooth was filled with amalgam, the mercury in the amalgam would harden and become inert. Now we know that's not true, and that low levels of mercury vapor are released over time.

Mercury is a poison that in large doses can cause brain damage, kidney malfunction, memory loss, and depression. We do not recommend replacing existing mercury amalgam fillings, because the levels of mercury vapor released have not been shown to be a health hazzard. However, we have chosen not to place a known poison in our patients mouths.

White composite fillings offer many benefits other than the abscence of mercury. They are much more natural looking, and never discolor neighboring teeth or tissues as mercury fillings are prone to do. Their durability has greatly improved in recent years.

Comparing White Fillings Versus Silver Amalgam Fillings:

White fillings bond to the tooth; they strengthen the tooth by restoring most of its original shape. Silver amalgams, on the other hand, weaken the teeth and make them more susceptible to breaking. Broken teeth can be very expensive to replace; white amalgam can actually save time and money in the long run.
White filling composites are preferred by most patients. This is due to the natural color, strength and overall appearance and feel. Composites are naturally more comfortable.
Hot and cold sensitivity is greatly reduced with composite material compared to the silver/mercury amalgams.
Restorations with composites require less removal of tooth, less structure to place than those with amalgams and especially with new cavities. Dramatically smaller holes are needed with a composite.
White fillings are healthier because no traces of mercury are used, unlike silver amalgams.

Composite Bonding

Bonding is a common solution for:

Fixing or repairing chipped or cracked teeth
Reducing unsightly gaps or spaces between teeth
Hiding discoloration or faded areas on the tooth’s surface

Often used to improve the appearance of your teeth and enhance your smile. As the name indicates, composite material, a plastic resin filled with ceramic particles, is bonded to an existing tooth. Unlike crowns, composite bonding removes little, if any, of the original tooth.

Composite bonding has many advantages:

It is a typically completed in one visit.
It does not reduce the tooth’s original structure and is relatively inexpensive compared to porcelain crowns or porcelain veneers.
Composite resins come in many different shades.
Composite bonds, however, are not as durable and long-lasting as veneers and crowns and may need to be re-touched or replaced more frequently.

Composite bonds stain more easily and therefore require proper care and regular cleaning. In order to ensure the longest possible duration of the bonding, composites should be brushed and flossed daily. Common staining elements include coffee, tea, tobacco, foods and candy.

Root Canal

A root canal is a procedure that extracts decayed pulp from the central part of the tooth, reshapes the canal and replaces it with strengthening filler.

A cavity is the result of superficial decay of the enamel of the tooth. Left long enough, this decay can burrow into the deeper reaches of the tooth, causing extensive damage to tooth structure. When the damage goes beyond what can be treated with a filling, dentists can perform a root canal (or endodontics), preserving the tooth and retaining its original integrity; thereby, saving a tooth that in the past would have to have been pulled.

Procedure:

The patient undergoes anesthesia.
A dental dam is used to isolate the tooth.
The tooth is opened to allow for removal of infected or dead dental pulp.
The tooth is comprehensively cleaned, including any cracks and canals.
With special tools, the doctor reshapes the canals.
Medication is placed in the canals, a temporay filling is placed, and the patient is dismissed.
At a second appointment, the tooth is again opened and cleaned.
The canals of the tooth are then filled with a biocompatible filling material.
A temporary covering is used to cover the access opening

Teeth that have undergone root canal therapy are usually brittle and susceptible to fracture. Most all teeth treated with root canal therapy require posts and crowns to restore them to proper strength and function.

Third Molar Extractions

Your third molars are more commonly called "wisdom teeth." Usually appearing in the late teens or early twenties, third molars often lack the proper space in the jaw to erupt fully or even at all. This common condition is called impaction. When any tooth lacks the space to come through or simply develops in the wrong place of your jaw and becomes impacted, problems can arise. Primarily, damage to adjacent teeth and crowding occur.
In certain cases, the wisdom tooth that cannot come through becomes inflamed under the gums and in the jawbone, causing a sac to develop around the root of the tooth that then fills with liquid. This can cause a cyst or an abscess if it becomes infected. If either of these situations goes untreated, serious damage to the underlying bone and surrounding teeth and tissues can result.

To potentially stave off this result, an extraction of one, several or all of the wisdom teeth may be advised.. Ask our staff for more information regarding tooth extractions if you feel you may need one.