Dental Examinations and Cleanings

Regular dental exams are critical for maintaining your oral health, so don’t wait to book your next appointment. Though brushing and flossing are an important part of maintaining your teeth and gum health regular exams are important because they allow your dentist to catch small problems that can become worse over time.

Dental Fillings

When bacteria in your mouth encounter sugar, they digest the sugar leaving a by-product called lactic acid. This acid burns a hole (called a cavity) in your enamel and can then penetrate the underlying tissue called dentin. Left untreated, this cavity gets deeper and bigger, and can eventually affect the nerve of the tooth, initially causing sensitivity (toothache) and potentially a painful abscess and even tooth or bone loss. To prevent a cavity from reaching this level of severity, the decaying tissue of the tooth needs to be removed, and the remaining cavity in the tooth needs to be filled. We call this a filling.

Bridges

A bridge is a device used to replace one or more missing teeth. In some cases, the device is secured to special types of crowns on either side of the missing teeth called abutments. Other times, the bridge is held in place by two dental implants that are installed in the jaw bone; one on either side the device. The abutments are attached to a row of false teeth, which are designed to look and feel like natural teeth.

Wisdom Teeth Removal

Wisdom teeth are an extra set of molars that usually emerge around the age of 19. Some people find that their wisdom teeth erupt easily, aligning with their current teeth without causing any problems.
However, due to evolutionary changes to the human mouth, many patients don’t have space for their wisdom teeth to come in properly. As a result, wisdom teeth often cause alignment and bite issues, move teeth to incorrect spaces, or get stuck beneath the gum line, which can cause an infection.
To prevent this sort of problem, many patients need to have their wisdom teeth removed. If the tooth has already emerged from the gum, we may be able to simply pull the wisdom tooth. However, if the wisdom tooth has been impacted below the gum line, the tooth may need to be removed surgically.