Tag Archive for: Crowns

Dental Hygiene and Preventive Dental Care

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The mouth is a sensitive area that needs particular care. We often consume products that we know are not very healthy for us but sometimes we forget that these products are also unhealthy for our teeth. From coffee and cigarette stains on the teeth to the sweet tooth products that cause decay in our teeth, dental hygiene and preventive dental care are crucial. Regardless of what we eat, we should always maintain a great dental hygiene routine. If we establish a good dental hygiene and preventive dental care routine as children, it will become second nature. In addition, this will be the same routine that we pass onto our children in order to keep the cycle of good dental hygiene and preventive dental care running.

Dental Hygiene

Dental hygiene is your daily home oral hygiene routine, while preventive dental care is the oral hygiene routine performed by your licensed dentist. Dental hygiene that is performed daily will help keep your teeth healthy for decades. If this routine is not established, you may be on a lifelong journey of toothaches, cavities and gum disease. By having a great dental hygiene daily routine combined with professional preventive care; you will have an A+ in dental care and health.

What is Included in Dental Hygiene?

Many people think that brushing their teeth is sufficient dental hygiene. Brushing your teeth is an important step in good dental hygiene, but it is certainly not sufficient enough to keep your mouth healthy. In addition to brushing twice a day for a period of time long enough to get your teeth really clean, you must floss every day. Like I always say, only floss the teeth you want to keep. In addition, using fluoride toothpaste may help to strengthen your teeth and protect against cavities.

Preventive Dental Care

Your preventive dental care is performed at your dentist’s office. Your oral hygiene checkup should be every three to six months, depending on your periodontal health. Your dental hygienist will perform an extensive cleaning which will reach every corner of your mouth and your dentist will be able to advise you where you may need to give special attention to during your home dental hygiene routine. Your dentist’s office will perform the normal tooth polishing, but will also remove plaque or tartar from your teeth, take x-rays in order to determine if there are any problems and perform a total examination of your mouth and teeth.

Why are Dental Hygiene and Preventive Dental Care Important?

Dental hygiene and preventive dental care are important because they help keep your teeth and gums healthy. With improper or a lack of dental hygiene and preventive dental care you will inevitably suffer from toothaches, cavities and periodontal disease. Left untreated, these conditions can worsen. If this happens, more extensive procedures such as root canals, tooth extractions, crowns, bridges or dentures may be necessary. No matter your age, regular visits to the dentist are imperative to maintain good oral health.

Dr. Kelaher

What are Some of the More Modern Dental Tools?

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Modern dentistry has come a long way from the dental world of the past. No longer do patients have to suffer at the hands of dentists who use crude instruments and little or no advanced pain management or painkillers. These days it is more likely that the dentist will use futuristic dental tools that not only make the dental procedures less painful, but more effective and faster as well.

One of the most modern tools in the dentist office these days is the computer. Computers and computer monitors are even used right at the dentist’s chair, so that computerized cameras can take pictures of the teeth and gums and X-Ray images can be projected in clear view right in front of the patient. The computer can display dental records and photos of the mouth from previous visits, and having these computer images right in front of the dentist’s chair helps the dentist work and also helps him or her to communicate with the patient and explain procedures.

Air abrasion tools are another modern fixture in many dentist offices. Instead of using an old fashioned conventional drill, the dentist can now use a high-speed air drill. This type of drill can remove plaque and debris, open up and clean out cavities, and help to smooth over rough spots in a chipped tooth. Because the tool uses air – plus tiny bits of aluminum oxide – to do the abrasive drilling work, the procedures are far less uncomfortable and noisy than ordinary drilling techniques. If the dentist is expert with an air abrasion tool there is no real pain at all, the work done is much more precise and pinpointed, and the recovery time after a procedure is shorter. Patients do not even have to have anesthetics or painkillers when an air abrasion tool is used effectively and expertly in lieu of an old style dental drill.

Another great tool that some dentists have in their office is a computerized machine that sculpts dental crowns. In the past, dentists had to measure for crowns and then send the measurements out to a special laboratory where experts would carve and shape the new artificial teeth by hand. The process was painstaking, expensive, and time consuming – but was not nearly as accurate as work now done by computer sculpting. These days the dentist who has one of these newer devices can plug computer data about the exact measurement specifications of the crown into it, and then tiny robotic arms shift, turn, and swivel around the crown, carving it perfectly. The process can be done within an afternoon, and the patient can have an entire crown installation done during a single visit to the dentist. This saves time, money, and the discomfort and inconvenience to the patient that is caused by delays and imprecise sculpting.

Dr. Kelaher

One Visit Crowns, Inlays and Onlays

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One thing that all of us share in common these days is our lack of free time to take off from work and other obligations in order to do things like keep our dental appointments. But fortunately dental technology has kept pace with the times, and now many forward-thinking dentists and leading edge dental offices have the capability of one-visit crown or inlay procedures. These kinds of processes used to take several steps that had to be scheduled out over multiple visits, and that cost more time, money, and hassle.

Typically a crown, inlay, or onlay will be recommended by your dentist when she or he believes that a cavity filling or similar repair to a damaged tooth is not going to be sufficient. When a tooth is chipped or cracked, for example, the portion of strong healthy tooth left over may be too small to ensure a tight fit of a filler material. Or if a cavity is too large and extends across enough of the tooth – or perhaps an old filling that is really big is getting replaced – then the dentist may suggest capping the whole area with a crown. That can help to ensure that the repair lasts longer, does not work loose and fall out, and that once the remedy is completed the repair looks attractive in a cosmetic sense.

Whatever the reason for doing this kind of dental procedure is – and regardless of how it started and what the desired outcome may be – it is always a rather complicated and involved process. There are several critical steps involved, and that is why conventional methods of doing this kind of inlay or crown can take several days or weeks spread across a few visits to the dentist. The new one-day procedures, however, combine state of the art technology like computer measurements and imaging with medical robotics to eliminate most of those unwanted delays.

In order to ensure that the new onlay or crown is a perfect fit, it has to be sculpted exactly to the dimensions of the part of the tooth it will replace. The first step is extremely accurate measuring. Because high-tech imaging can reproduce this area precisely, that cuts down on time before the crown is made and also eliminates much of the extra grinding and polishing after crowns are installed. Next the actual crown has to be built using synthetic materials or substances like porcelain or gold, but many advanced dental practices have robotic machines to do this while you wait. By making hundreds of precision cuts, the machine – which is computer run – can carve a crown within an hour or two.

Last but not least you get back in the dentist’s chair and the new crown or inlay is cemented into place, polished for a great fit, and then checked for stability. You can leave the office the same day with a completely new crown after just one visit. Of course you will probably want to schedule this kind of half-day dental visit ahead of time, so it is a good idea to make those plans during your routine visits when the dentist first discovers that you have a need for crowns and discusses your options with you.

Dr. Kelaher

Full Mouth Rehabilitation

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It Can Be the Solution to Everything From Migraine Headaches to Missing, Cracked and Chipped Teeth.

When you have migraine headaches, pain in your face, neck, and shoulders or numbness in your fingers and arms…making an appointment with your dentist probably isn’t the first thing you think about. But it should be considered… because a misalignment of your jaw can result in each and every one of these problems. And if in conjunction to those symptoms, you have missing, worn, broken, chipped or cracked teeth, a full-mouth rehabilitation (also called full-mouth restoration or rejuvenation) could be the solution for every one of those difficulties.

Think of it as being similar to restoring a house whose foundation needs some stabilizing and whose walls and floors need replacing or refurbishing. A full-mouth rehabilitation procedure does the same thing for your mouth… working on each individual problem and using different products to create an overall solution that is healthier and more aesthetically pleasing.

It is no longer necessary to deal with migraines or neck pains that are caused from misaligned jaws or imperfections in your bite position. Dentistry now has a variety of technologies that can move your jaw back into its natural position, which as a result will eliminate a plethora of uncomfortable or even painful symptoms.

My name is Dr. Kelaher, and as a dentist, I begin a full-mouth restoration by first diagnosing any bite or jaw misalignment problems that may exist along with assessing the condition of your gums and if they are healthy enough to support repaired or reconstructed teeth. From that point, I look at each tooth in your mouth (or a space where a tooth is missing), assess the reasons for any uneven wear or tooth deterioration, decay or loss, and then begin a treatment plan for repairing existing damage or replacing teeth that are no longer there.

Because of advanced dental technologies, teeth that could not be saved several years ago and would simply have been pulled can now be saved. Depending on your existing teeth and gum structure, procedures can vary from periodontal procedures to strengthen your gums to bridges, partial dentures or dental implants to fillings, crowns and veneers.

As a result of a full-mouth restoration, you will not only no longer deal with headaches and pains that may have hampered your daily activities, you will also have a healthy mouth and a beautiful smile.

Even though a full-mouth reconstruction can be relatively complex, it doesn’t have to be a long process or a complicated procedure from the patient’s perspective. Depending on the procedures that are required for your particular mouth, a full-mouth restoration can actually be completed in as few as two or three visits. However, in more complicated cases where periodontal issues are involved, it could take twelve months or longer.

No matter how many different approaches may be needed for your particular rehabilitation, the surfaces of your corrected teeth will all match perfectly, leaving you with a beautiful smile. And with no more migraine headaches or neck pains to deal with…you’ll definitely have something to smile about!

Dr. Kelaher

Highland Dental Group
100 Highland Avenue, Suite 103
Salem, MA 01970

Phone: (978) 740-5135

Office Hours

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  • Saturday Closed
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