Teeth Cleaning
Dental Hygiene is crucial to your overall health. We recommend our patients visit our clinic twice a year to ensure their optimal oral health and to avoid cavities and identify any oral health issues as early as possible. During a routine cleaning, the dentist will scale and polish your teeth, take necessary x-rays and provide oral hygiene instructions. During a dental exam the Dentist will perform an oral cancer screening and discuss findings and concerns you may have.
Plaque is the bacterial film that your dentist will remove from your teeth during your dental hygiene appointment. It is a film that oral bacteria forms on your teeth and gums after eating foods that produce acids. These foods may include carbohydrates (sugars and starches) such as candy, cookies, bread, crackers, and cereal.
WHY TEETH CLEANING IS IMPORTANT?
When plaque remains on your teeth for an extended period of time the tooth may start to decay which can lead to cavities, allowing the bacteria to ‘eat away’ at the surfaces of your teeth and gums. Plaque can also lead to gum irritation, soreness, and redness. Sometimes your gums may begin to bleed. This gradual degeneration can often cause gums to pull away from teeth. This condition is called receding gums. Long-term plaque can lead to serious problems. The bacteria can also form pockets of disease around tooth structures that will eventually destroy the bone beneath the tooth. This is why it is important to see the dentist on a regular basis.
Endodontic therapy or root canal therapy is a sequence of treatment for the infected pulp of a tooth which results in the elimination of infection and the protection of the decontaminated tooth from future microbial invasion. Root canals, and their associated pulp chamber, are the physical hollows within a tooth that are naturally inhabited by nerve tissue, blood vessels and other cellularentities. Together, these items constitute the dental pulp.Endodontic therapy involves the removal of these structures, the subsequent shaping, cleaning, and decontamination of the hollows with small files and irrigating solutions, and the obturation (filling) of the decontaminated canals. Filling of the cleaned and decontaminated canals is done with an inert filling such as gutta-percha and typically a eugenol-based cement.Epoxy resin is employed to bind gutta-percha in some root canal procedures.Endodontics includes both primary and secondary endodontic treatments as well as periradicular surgery which is generally used for teeth that still have potential for salvage.