Root Canal Treatment Alleviates Pain and Saves Your Tooth

Root Canal Treatment Alleviates Pain and Saves Your Tooth

If you’re undergoing your first root canal treatment, it’s understandable if you’re apprehensive. So, let’s cut to the chase about your biggest fear: a root canal treatment doesn’t cause pain, it relieves it — and saves your tooth too. You need this procedure because decay has spread deep into your tooth’s inner pulp. The infection has already attacked the nerves bundled within the pulp chamber, the source of the pain that led you to us in the first place. The real concern, though, is the infection continuing to travel through the canals of the tooth root. If that happens, you’re … Continue reading

Regenerating Lost Bone Can Make Dental Implants a Reality

Regenerating Lost Bone Can Make Dental Implants a Reality

Every day the forces you generate when you bite or chew can exert enormous pressure on your teeth. And day after day your teeth remain stable and secure, thanks to an intricate system of periodontal ligaments, attaching gum tissue and bone. The latter element is especially important — healthy bone makes healthy teeth. And vice-versa — the same biting forces are transmitted through the tooth root to the bone via the periodontal ligament to stimulate new bone growth to replace older bone that has dissolved (resorbed). If a tooth’s missing, however, the bone doesn’t receive that stimulation, and the resorbed … Continue reading

Professional Whitening Offers an Effective Way to Restore Your Smile’s Luster

Professional Whitening Offers an Effective Way to Restore Your Smile's Luster

Your teeth were meant to shine! Tooth enamel’s polished translucence, framed by the dentin layer beneath it, has a way of vibrantly catching the light when you smile. But tooth wear and structural changes as you age can dim that shine. Add to that staining caused by foods and beverages or disease and your smile could further lose its luster. On your supermarket or pharmacy oral hygiene aisle you’ll find dozens of products promising to restore that lost luster, including toothpastes, whitening kits or even chewing gum. While such products work to some degree, our dental office may have the … Continue reading

Porcelain Veneers Could Change Your Appearance for the Better

Porcelain Veneers Could Change Your Appearance for the Better

We now have an amazing repertoire in dentistry to restore the look and function of damaged or missing teeth. From tooth-colored crowns to life-like dental implants, we can turn an embarrassing smile into one you’re confident to show the world. But what if your teeth are visually unappealing but structurally sound? Perhaps they’re slightly irregular or discolored — do you still need the “heavy artillery” in our arsenal of restoration options? Not at all — dental veneers that provide amazing aesthetic results with minimal tooth preparation may be an appropriate restoration choice for you. As the name implies, veneers are … Continue reading

Neil Patrick Harris: What the Oscars Host Treasures Most

Neil Patrick Harris: What the Oscars Host Treasures Most

A few days before the Oscars, Vanity Fair magazine asked Academy Awards host Neil Patrick Harris to name his most treasured possession. Was it his Tony award statuette for best leading actor in a musical? His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame? The stethoscope he wore while playing teenaged doctor Doogie Howser on TV? No, as it turns out, the 41-year-old actor’s most treasured possession is… his wisdom teeth. Yes, you read that correctly. “Oddly, I still have my four wisdom teeth,” Harris said. “I refuse to let them go or I’ll lose my wise parts.” How odd is … Continue reading

Metal Dental Amalgam: Still a Safe and Effective Tooth Filling

Metal Dental Amalgam Still a Safe and Effective Tooth Filling

With all the new tooth-colored fillings for cavities, it’s easy to overlook metal amalgam. While this mainstay of dental care for over a century might not be as attractive as composite resins or glass and resin ionomers, it still has the advantage of strength and durability. Amalgam is a stable metal alloy usually made up of silver, tin, copper and mercury. The metals are proportioned and mixed precisely to guard against “free” mercury molecules, which could pose a health hazard. The mixture is pliable at first, but then sets hard once molded into the prepared area of the tooth. Besides … Continue reading

Master Illusionist Benefits from the Magic of Orthodontics

Master Illusionist Benefits from the Magic of Orthodontics

Magician Michael Grandinetti mystifies and astonishes audiences with his sleight of hand and mastery of illusion. But when he initially steps onto the stage, it’s his smile that grabs the attention. “The first thing… that an audience notices is your smile; it’s what really connects you as a person to them,” Michael told an interviewer. He attributes his audience-pleasing smile to several years of orthodontic treatment as a teenager to straighten misaligned teeth, plus a lifetime of good oral care. “I’m so thankful that I did it,” he said about wearing orthodontic braces. “It was so beneficial. And… looking at … Continue reading

Lasers Beginning to Change Some Root Canal Procedures

Lasers Beginning to Change Some Root Canal Procedures

As in other parts of medicine, lasers are beginning to change the way we provide dental care. More and more dentists are using lasers to make earlier diagnoses of dental disease or provide surgical treatment. One area prime for change is the treatment of teeth with deep decay and in danger of being lost. For decades now, the best way to save teeth in this condition is with root canal treatment. In this common procedure we access the pulp, remove the infected tissue with specialized hand instruments, and then fill and seal the pulp chamber and root canals with a … Continue reading

Kathy Bates Plays It Smart With Professional Teeth Whitening

Kathy Bates Plays It Smart With Professional Teeth Whitening

Academy Award-winning actress Kathy Bates knows how important it is to present your best face to the world — and one of the most important features of that face is a beaming smile. But there came a point when she noticed something was a little off. “I’ve always had good teeth, but it seemed to me as I was getting older that they weren’t looking as good,” Kathy explained in a recent interview with Dear Doctor magazine. That’s when she decided it was time to take action. Kathy had orthodontic treatment when she was in her fifties, and she keeps … Continue reading

Johnny’s Teeth Aren’t Rotten Any More

Johnny's Teeth Aren't Rotten Any More

Everyone has to face the music at some time — even John Lydon, former lead singer of The Sex Pistols, arguably England’s best known punk rock band. The 59-year old musician was once better known by his stage name, Johnny Rotten — a brash reference to the visibly degraded state of his teeth. But in the decades since his band broke up, Lydon’s lifelong deficiency in dental hygiene had begun to cause him serious problems. In recent years, Lydon has had several dental surgeries — including one to resolve two serious abscesses in his mouth, which left him with stitches … Continue reading