Hopefully, you feel confident that the steps you take every day to prevent cavities and gum disease will keep your smile safe. The right approach to good oral hygiene has lasting benefits, but remember that even with a smart routine in place, regular dental exams are beneficial. At our Cedar Rapids, IA dentist’s office, our patients can look forward to dedicated preventive dental care whenever they see us. The visits you schedule help you stay protected by dealing with tartar, identifying early signs of trouble, and warning you about issues like gingivitis. In addition to these common concerns, our practice is also prepared to discuss problems like chronic jaw pain and teeth grinding. (more…)
Using Cosmetic Dentistry to Fix Teeth Conservatively
Dental treatment comes in many different forms, and certain types of treatments are often designed to address specific types of concerns. For example, when teeth are cosmetically blemished, the right custom-designed cosmetic treatment can often address it with minimal changes to your tooth structure. However, there are some concerns that cause more than just cosmetic problems for your teeth, but that may be successfully treated with minimally invasive cosmetic dentistry. The advantage is restoring your smile while also improving its overall appearance, and all while keeping the scope of your treatment minimal. (more…)
What It Means to Benefit from Dental Implants
Benefiting from dental implants can mean a variety of different things. For example, if you’ve recently lost teeth and dental implants are the first restoration you receive, then you can benefit from preserving your smile and preventing many of the consequences of losing your teeth roots. If you’ve worn a conventional bridge or denture for years already, then you might benefit from improving your restoration’s comfort, performance, and ability to preserve the rest of your smile. In most cases, the main benefits of dental implants stem from the fact that they can replace your lost teeth roots, thereby reestablishing the many different functions they’re responsible for. (more…)
What Dental Treatment Means After Tooth Loss
For most people, dental care generally means taking good, consistent care of their teeth by keeping them clean and free of things like tooth decay. Doing so is meant to help improve your chances of preserving your healthy, natural teeth for life and avoiding the need to replace one or more of them. However, if you do experience tooth loss, then your dental care will still revolve around preserving your smile, though this may require replacing the tooth as soon as possible with a highly lifelike prosthesis. (more…)
When Extracting a Tooth Is Really Necessary
The fact that tooth loss is a negative influence on your smile and oral health is no secret. That’s why much of your dental care is meant to help you avoid losing one or more teeth by restoring them when they’re compromised, or by addressing other concerns that could lead to their loss. However, there can be times when removing a tooth on purpose could be the best solution for preserving and protecting the rest of your oral health. Though such situations aren’t exactly common, the need for extracting the tooth when they occur can have serious implications for your immediate and long-term oral health. (more…)
A Look at How Dental Crowns Save Teeth
It’s one thing to know that a dental crown can restore a tooth, but it’s another thing to actually need a dental crown to save your tooth. As one of the more popular restorative dental treatments, dental crowns are often recommended when a tooth is severely compromised and at a heightened risk of being lost or needing to be extracted. Faced with potentially losing the tooth, you can feel more strongly the importance of saving it with a custom-made dental crown. (more…)
Root Canals and Your Oral Health
Most people recognize the term, root canal, and the fact that roots are important parts of their healthy tooth structure. However, root canals are most often recognized because of the potential problems that can be caused when they’re impacted by severe tooth decay. An internal infection, or decay, in your tooth’s structure can progress severely once it reaches the tissues inside of your tooth’s pup and root canal. Given the importance of your teeth roots to your oral health and the threat that can arise then the tissues inside of them become infected, root canal therapy can be an important step in restoring and preserving a tooth that’s severely decayed. (more…)
What Makes Modern Tooth Fillings Different?
Some of the most common dental health conditions, including cavities, are the result of natural things like the buildup of oral bacteria. They’ve been problems for people’s dental health forever, so treatments such as tooth fillings that are designed to address them are among the most frequently recommended dental treatments. Today, however, addressing such issues is different in several important ways than many patients expect. For example, modern tooth fillings can treat most common cavities with greater efficiency and more cosmetically appealing results than the metal fillings that patients may be used to. (more…)
Are Your TMJs Not Working Properly?
When something directly affects the health and integrity of your teeth, like damage or tooth decay, the signs and consequences can be obvious. The formation of a cavity and the increasingly worse toothache are common for most people who experience them. However, some conditions with your oral health aren’t always as direct or as common as tooth decay, and the signs that something isn’t quite right aren’t always obvious. For example, if you experience TMJ disorder, a condition that causes your jaw joints to malfunction, the consequences of it could vary greatly from the symptoms of others who experience TMJ disorder. (more…)
Things that Untreated Bruxism Can Lead To
When you ignore most dental health issues, they tend to get worse the longer they remain unchecked. For instance, a minor cavity can grow into a much more severe case of internal tooth infection if it’s given enough time. The same is true with a subconscious teeth-grinding habit, a condition often referred to as bruxism, and the damage that it could potentially cause to all of your teeth. The constant teeth-grinding that’s characteristic of bruxism can put your teeth under an immense amount of pressure and friction. If it remains untreated long enough, your bruxism could cause several more severe problems with your teeth and oral health. (more…)
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