Once a dentist has finished a comprehensive dental examination, he must come up with a treatment plan to help meet the patient’s dental goals.These usually are:Comfort, function, stability and esthetics.More plainly: Look good, feel good, chew well and last a long time.
To reach these goals, we often divide dental treatment in to two phases.Phase one treatment involves the treatment of active disease.Phase two treatment involves repair of damage caused by the previous disease.In some cases, phase one treatment will be all that is required, in other situations, phase one and phase two treatment can be accomplished at the same time.Sometimes, phase one treatment must be completed prior to phase two treatment.
Phase one treatment…stopping disease.
Creating healthy gums.This usually involves gum treatment.The goal is to have healthy gums that do not bleed.This usually means a trip to the dental hygienist for a deep cleaning.If the gums are still inflamed after initial gum therapy, laser gum therapy, chemical gum therapy or surgical gum therapy may be needed.
Creating healthy teeth.This involves fixing any cavities that have formed.These can be new cavities, or cavities under and around old fillings.Worn teeth must be examined and the cause of the wear determined.If it looks like the wear is due to grinding the bite must be stabilized.If the damage is caused by acids, the source of the acids that dissolve the teeth must be found and eliminated or reduced if possible.
Creating a healthy bite.This part of dental treatment is not as familiar to the general public.In order to function properly and to reduce wear, the bite must be checked to ensure that the lower teeth move into the upper teeth in a way that maximizes the biting forces and reduces the strain on the muscles and jaw joint.Many times the phase one treatment for this problem may be an appliance that is worn at night to help relax the muscles and prevent wear.Phase one bite therapy may involve balancing the bite by selective tooth adjustment.
After the disease is halted phase one treatment is either completed, or the final part of the phase one treatment may be to move the teeth.This is done to allow the bite to be as good as it can be.Teeth are moved with braces.
Following phase one dentistry, the teeth and gums should be in a state where they are not infected or inflamed and the teeth are where they need to be. At this point, all treatment is either completed and only regular check ups and maintenance is required or it is time to start restoring the teeth to their ideal form and function…phase two treatment.
I will discuss more about phase two dentistry in our next segment.
Previously, I have discussed dental goals, for the most part everyone has the same goals:teeth that look good, feel good, chew well and last a long time.
The first phase of treatment is phase one treatment, where the object is to stabilize the existing teeth and gums.This is achieved by placing fillings where there is decay, treating gum disease and stabilizing the bite.
After phase one treatment, it is time to move to phase two treatment.This is where, missing teeth are replaced, damaged teeth are restored to optimum function and any esthetic improvements are made.
To maintain proper function and stability, it is important to replace any teeth that are missing.While it is true that many people are missing teeth and get along quite fine, this is more to do with the adaptive nature of the human body than the fact that the teeth are not necessary.The teeth are arranged in an arch, disruption of the continuity of the arch results in aberrant biting which must be compensated for.Loss of an opposing tooth will result in the opposite tooth drifting down.If you have a tooth that has lost the tooth in front of it, this will result in tipping forward of the back tooth.Over time this changes the bite and may result in excessive wear, TMJ symptoms or further tooth loss.
Teeth can be replaced with either dental implant supported crowns, fixed bridgework or removable bridgework.The rule is, fixed is better than removable, an implant is better than a bridge.
Teeth that have been badly broken down by decay or wear, or teeth that have excessively large fillings can be restored with crowns.A crown is much like an outside filling.It is cast and becomes a solid unit that fits over the damaged tooth, it is shaped and acts like a tooth.A crown can be either gold, porcelain fused to gold, milled ceramic or cast ceramic.What material is used depends upon the situation.
Esthetics can be improved by using whitening, bonding, veneers or crowns, again depending on the situation.
While sometimes simple and sometimes complex, there are very few dental conditions that modern dentistry cannot improve.If you want to enjoy a comfortable, functional mouth that also looks great, ask your dentist for more information.
Once a dentist has finished a comprehensive dental examination, he must come up with a treatment plan to help meet the patient’s dental goals.These usually are:Comfort, function, stability and esthetics.More plainly: Look good, feel good, chew well and last a long time.
To reach these goals, we often divide dental treatment in to two phases.Phase one treatment involves the treatment of active disease.Phase two treatment involves repair of damage caused by the previous disease.In some cases, phase one treatment will be all that is required, in other situations, phase one and phase two treatment can be accomplished at the same time.Sometimes, phase one treatment must be completed prior to phase two treatment.
Phase one treatment…stopping disease.
Creating healthy gums.This usually involves gum treatment.The goal is to have healthy gums that do not bleed.This usually means a trip to the dental hygienist for a deep cleaning.If the gums are still inflamed after initial gum therapy, laser gum therapy, chemical gum therapy or surgical gum therapy may be needed.
After the disease is halted phase one treatment is either completed, or the final part of the phase one treatment may be to move the teeth.This is done to allow the bite to be as good as it can be.Teeth are moved with braces.
Following phase one dentistry, the teeth and gums should be in a state where they are not infected or inflamed and the teeth are where they need to be. At this point, all treatment is either completed and only regular check ups and maintenance is required or it is time to start restoring the teeth to their ideal form and function…phase two treatment.
I will discuss more about phase two dentistry in our next segment.
