Phasing comprehensive dental treatment..Phase one treatment
Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
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.
