Archive for the “general dentistry” Category
The importance of check ups at Weston-super-Mare dentists
It’s very easy sometimes to think that you can miss a couple of dental check ups because your teeth feel fine and you’re really busy. But whatever the excuse, missing a dental check up or not going every six months as dentists recommend could be putting your oral health at risk. Alongside good oral hygiene, a six-month check up is the most important way of ensuring your teeth and gums are healthy and free of disease.
With tooth decay being on the increase again and three quarters of adults in the UK suffering with gum disease at some point in their lives, it is more important than ever to look after your teeth. A dental check up will take no longer than half an hour and the more often you go, the less likely there is to be any problem.
Decay and gum disease can appear very quickly but are easily treated in their early stages. Your dentist will be able to thoroughly examine your mouth and make sure that your teeth and gums are not at risk. They will also perform a routine check for oral cancer and other nasty oral diseases as part of your check up. This could make a very important difference to your life, especially when it comes to oral cancer, which is treatable if caught in its early stages.
Brushing and flossing at home are obviously very important but even the most diligent oral hygiene routine can be at risk to the combined threat of gum disease and tooth decay. After all, if you think about it, it is most likely to be the spots you are missing where the problem starts. Dentists in Weston-super-Mare will also be able to design an oral hygiene routine to focus on the areas that may need most attention and are trained to help you keep your mouth in the best possible condition.
June 24, 2010 at 4:52 am | general dentistry | No comment
Prevent tooth decay with treatment from Chepstow dentist
Tooth decay can be a very serious and unpleasant dental condition. It can result in pain, ranging from mild to severe, infection and ultimately tooth loss. Tooth decay does affect some people more than others, but it is true that with a combination of good oral hygiene and regular dental check ups it is possible to avoid tooth decay altogether.
Tooth decay begins when plaque and bacteria are allowed to build up on the surface of the teeth. Plaque is a sticky, filmy substance that coats the enamel and releases acids from decaying bacteria. These acids gradually erode the protective enamel layer of the teeth causing small cavities to form. This is the first part of the decay process. Once the enamel has begun to decay, it will eventually be breached. This exposes the softer, bone-like dentin underneath. This is also easily eroded by plaque if it is not removed by effective brushing or the decay not repaired with a filling or dental crown. Tooth enamel will not grow back once it has gone so dental treatment will be required to sure up the tooth.
Within the dentin there are many small passageways that lead to the dental nerve. Extremes of hot or cold can aggravate the dental nerve when passed down these passageways. Again these will need to be sealed off or somehow protected with dental treatment. If this decay process is allowed to continue, it will eventually penetrate to the root canal and attack the dental nerve. This will be in the form of a bacterial infection. This may cause a dangerous abscess, which is not only painful but can cause the infection to spread. As well as the abscess, if the infection is allowed to attack the nerve it may destroy it, which could result in the loss of the tooth.
Tooth decay can be prevented by better oral hygiene to remove plaque and bacteria. If the process has already begun, treatment from a Chepstow dentist is essential to prevent any further suffering or damage.
June 17, 2010 at 3:48 am | general dentistry | No comment
Prevent dental injury with mouth guard from Chepstow dentist
With nearly half the teeth lost to dental trauma each year happening as the result of sporting injury, it is important that we do all we can to protect our teeth when playing sport. One of the easiest ways to do this is to wear a mouth guard fitted by a Chepstow dentist.
Physical sports such as rugby and boxing or any sport involving a fast moving ball can pose a threat to your teeth. Just one ill-timed tackle or unlucky deflection and you could be looking at one or more lost teeth that will be the source of great pain, embarrassment and financial cost. Knocked out teeth, if they cannot be replaced immediately, can require enormous amounts of costly and unpleasant dental work to restore. This could involve replacing the missing teeth with dental implants of dental bridges, both of which while effective are also pretty expensive.
Having a mouth guard will add a dimension of protection to your teeth as it spreads the impact across the mouth meaning individual teeth are less likely to be lost. Mouth guards are usually made of rubber which also cushions and absorbs some of the impact. While it is possible to buy mouth guards in sporting good shops, these are often generic and will not fit your teeth well. This limits the amount of protection they are able to offer. A Chepstow will be able to design and manufacture a mouth guard that will fit your specific teeth. Using dental moulds and x-rays, your dentist can make the mouth guard very accurate and comfortable and make any adjustments that are required. This may cost slightly more than a ready-made mouth guard from a sport shop, but the extra protection you will be giving your teeth could just be priceless.
For children, it is important to remember that their mouth guard will need to be changed more often to accommodate for their developing teeth and jaw. Ask your dentist for more details.
June 6, 2010 at 5:12 am | general dentistry | No comment
Protect teeth from sporting injury with mouth guard from Weston-super-Mare dentist
When playing a physical sport or a sport that involves fast moving balls, it is important to afford your body the maximum protection. This involves covering or padding any areas that could be vulnerable. One of the most vulnerable areas of your body when playing sport is your teeth. Over half the cases of knocked out teeth seen by dentists occur as the result of a sporting injury of some description.
It may be possible in some case to replace the tooth immediately but if not you will be looking at costly and painful dental treatment to restore the appearance of your teeth. This may involve a dental implant, dental bridge or partial denture. These will need regular dental care and even replacing at various points in your life. But there is a way to give your teeth an extra degree of protection when playing sport that could prevent lost teeth.
A mouth guard from a Weston-super-Mare dentist will cover the teeth and spread the load of any impact, thus protecting the individual teeth and preventing damage. Although mouth guards are available form most sport shops, these are generally quite ill-fitting and offer only minimal protection. A mouth guard from a dentist will be specifically designed to fit your teeth. This means it will be snug fit and offer more protection to your teeth. The fitting process is very simple and quick and when compared to the cost of dental restoration treatment, is really very cheap.
Dentists can also make mouth guards for children but it is important to have these changed regularly as developing teeth change very quickly.
May 3, 2010 at 7:21 am | general dentistry | No comment
How regular are your dental check ups with Bath dentist?
Dental check ups are one of the most effective ways of keeping your teeth clean and healthy and avoiding unwanted dental complications such as decay and disease. Although the majority of oral hygiene is carried out at home with brushing and flossing it is very important that you give your Bath dentist the opportunity to examine your teeth on a six-monthly basis to check for the telltale signs of dental disease.
Brushing and flossing will remove the majority of plaque and bacteria from your teeth and gums if performed correctly but all too often patients miss small spaces between the teeth and around the base near the gums. It is the areas that are hard to reach that your dentist will be able to examine and check for the onset of enamel erosion and tartar. Even the most effective dental hygiene routine can fall foul of decay in the harder to access parts of the mouth. Your dentist will be able to clean these areas and also give advice on how best to look after your teeth in the future.
Dental check ups serve a number of other purposes. Oral cancer is on the increase in the UK. This is a very unpleasant disease that can be treated effectively as long as it is caught early. Early treatment of oral cancer will give you a greater than 80 per cent chance of beating the disease, which otherwise could be fatal. Your dentist will check your mouth for the symptoms of oral cancer as part of a routine check up.
A dental check up should take little more than half an hour, which every six-months is hardly a lot of time. This half an hour could really make the difference to the health of your teeth and prevent the need for plenty more hours in the treatment chair repairing decayed teeth.
April 5, 2010 at 8:30 am | general dentistry | No comment
Treatment times reduced thanks to digital x-rays at Swindon dentist
Of all the modern technological advances in dentistry, few have been as revolutionary and useful as digital x-rays. They have reduced waiting times and treatment times and also made possible a new series of treatments that are changing modern dentistry.
Digital x-rays produce an immediate and three-dimensional image of the patient’s mouth and teeth onto a computer screen. This has replaced the old style traditional x-rays which produced two-dimensional black and white images. This ;also needed developing that could take up to several days depending on the number of patients.
Swindon dentists can now get an incredibly accurate image of the patient’s teeth almost immediately, which they can then use for further treatment. One of the newest methods of treatment is called Cerec. This allows dentists to produce dental restorations such as crowns, veneers and dental inlays in only one appointment. The process is able to work because of the images produced by the digital x-rays. The dentist can use this image to create a dental crown or veneer on the computer. When satisfied with the size and shape he can then utilise a computer-guided machine to sculpt the restoration from a single piece of porcelain. This takes as little as six minutes per tooth and represents an astonishing leap forward in dental technology.
Digital x-rays have not only improved the time of treatment but they have also improved its quality. The images available now are accurate to microscopic degrees. This has allowed treatments to become more accurate and means dentists no longer need to rely on clumsy and time-consuming dental moulds.
April 2, 2010 at 12:12 pm | general dentistry | No comment
Tips for Your Child’s Healthy Smile by a Bristol dentist
A child’s smile is such a lovely thing to see, the little mites are so full of life that when they smile they don’t care about how they look, although we as parents do. A Bristol dentist is advising their patients on tips to keep that smile healthy; one factor is a healthy diet without too much acid or sugar in the basic ingredients. What we put in our mouths as part of our dietary plan will affect our smiles in two ways, firstly the food has to go into our mouths and then it is consumed by the body, and gets into the blood stream. The vitamins in our system are fed to our gums, the same gums that are still fighting the bacteria that come with the food. It seems that we have to fight attacks on the teeth and gums from inside and out. Baby bottle diets can attack the teeth even before they start growing, bacteria is prevalent in all our food and it needs to be kept under control. Acid is a product of the bacteria that feeds off our food residue, we produce saliva to counteract it, but if we feed our babies with a bottle and then allow them to sleep we are damaging their teeth. Saliva stops producing when we sleep, so baby needs to be kept awake for at least 30 minutes after feeding to stop the build of this harmful substance. Sweet stuff will keep them quiet, but this also produces a lot of acid that attacks our children’s teeth; and in turn their smile. There is a lot more to our children’s smiles than the eye sees, and just a few conscious tips like these will help to keep their little faces smiling; and they won’t also have too many problems with decaying teeth.
March 5, 2010 at 5:54 am | general dentistry | No comment
A Bath dentist explains what foods to avoid for good dental health
Food is the fuel we need to keep our bodies working and we all have our favourites, but do we know which ones are good for our teeth. A Bath dentist has advised patients that although certain foods may be good for us, they are harmful to our teeth, on the top of the list are sugar and acid based foods and that doesn’t just mean sweets, chocolate and candy products. Literally any food that is hard to chew is not good for your teeth or gums, these foods will cause an abrasion on the gums and also at the same time scratch off the enamel that protects the surface of a tooth. Ice is a no-no and should be avoided like the plague, especially if you wear braces. Fruit is good for us and we are advised to eat five a day as apart of our diet, this will also help to keep our gums and teeth healthy through the vitamins they naturally have within them. However, fruit contains acid and it is this acid that harms our teeth. We therefore have to take counter action to avoid this rather than avoiding the fruit itself, and washing our mouths with water afterwards will go a long way to neutralising that acid. A swishing motion is needed to do this, think of it as a mouth wash, and indeed use a mouth wash after eating fruit especially citrus types and apples. Lots of so called healthy bars are also a no-no as they use sugar based chewy substances to hold the bars together. The food content may seem appealing and healthy with lots of natural seeds and nuts, but take a look at the labels to see what else they contain. It isn’t just a case of certain foods being good for our bodies; we need to be careful what they contain as our mouths are also part of our body.
February 14, 2010 at 8:06 am | general dentistry | No comment
Incredible developments in dentistry available at Bristol dentist
The boundaries around what is possible in dentistry are increasingly being pushed back as technology finds ways to improve treatment quality, shorten appointment times and find more efficient ways to deal with age-old dental problems. These technological advances have gathered momentum over the past two decades with treatments available now that could only have even been imagined thirty years ago.
These advances have impacted on every level of dentistry and it is useful to give a few examples to highlight the changes. Dental crowns are artificial caps that fit over damaged teeth to protect them from further damage. In the past, crowns were painstakingly manufactured in laboratories using a series of dental moulds and x-rays. Using a combination of metal and ceramics, the crowns were built up layer upon layer until they were the satisfactory shape. The dentist would then need to remove substantial amounts of natural enamel to allow the bulky crown to fit over the damaged tooth. Today’s technology means a crown can be sculpted from a single piece of porcelain in as little as six minutes. This has been made possible by the advent of digital x-rays and 3D imaging which allow the dentist to create an incredibly accurate and immediate image of the patient’s mouth. A computer-guided mill can then whittle the tooth to a similarly accurate degree. This technology can also be used in the manufacture of veneers and dental inlays.
Teeth whitening procedures have also developed significantly to be more effective and much safer and orthodontic straightening has seen a similar improvement. It is now possible to straighten teeth in a fraction of the time previously thought possible, and this can be achieved more discreetly and with less discomfort to the patient.
These are just a small selection of the incredible dental technologies available to all patients at Bristol dentists. Whatever the problem or dental concern there is a quick, affordable and aesthetically pleasing technology available to give you the best possible treatment.
January 14, 2010 at 5:13 am | general dentistry | No comment
End dental pain with help from Bristol dentist
Teeth have a very hard enamel exterior that is very durable and strong, but poor standards of oral hygiene or dental trauma can breech this tough exterior exposing the extremely sensitive dental nerve within the tooth. This can cause pain ranging from a mild sensitivity due to extremes of temperature in the mouth from eating and drinking to very severe pain caused by dental infections and abscesses.
Tooth enamel is commonly broken down by plaque acids and tartar in the mouth which, if not repaired with a filling or crown, can expose the pulp and nerve of the tooth to bacterial infection. If the nerve or root becomes infected the body will produce an excess of white blood cells to fight the infection. This can build up on a pocket around the tooth leading to a painful, pus-filled abscess. These can be very painful and can also lead to a spread of the initial infection.
Dental pain can also come in the form of erupting teeth or wisdom teeth buried beneath the gum. These can cause interruption to bite and painful irritation that is very uncomfortable. One of the common features of all dental pain is that it is very hard to control. For someone suffering dental pain it can seem there is little they can do to stop it. In most cases over-the-counter painkillers will be effective but patients should always see a dentist even if the pain appears to have disappeared. In cases of extreme infection or serious gum disease patients may require anti-biotics and more serious pain relief. It is important to remember in all cases of dental pain to see a Bristol dentist as soon as possible.
January 10, 2010 at 8:47 am | general dentistry | No comment
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