When you develop a dental cavity, or if a tooth is infected or damaged, treatment is crucial for avoiding worsening symptoms or the loss of your tooth. Likewise, if a tooth is missing, replacement is crucial for protecting your oral health. In today’s blog, your Kansas City, MO, dentist talks about how we repair smiles of all ages with custom and lifelike restorative dentistry.
Dental Fillings
When people see us with toothache, this is often due to tooth decay. Cavities form when injury, teeth grinding, or plaque buildup caused by poor oral hygiene leads to weakened enamel. The sensitive inner dentin is then exposed to bacteria, allowing cavities to form. Restorative dentistry is needed to avoid infection or the risk of tooth loss. With a dental filling, we can treat the cavity and ensure lifelike results. The material we use, composite resin, can be shaded to blend with your tooth and placement only takes one visit. You can then avoid discomfort and smile with confidence again.
Same-Day Dental Crowns
For more severe decay, or for a cracked or chipped tooth, we could place a crown. Dental crowns cover the visible portion of your tooth. We can also use them to improve bite balance and chewing function, and to also aid in securing dental prosthetics like dental bridges. Instead of ensuring two to three visits to create and place them, we can use CAD/CAM technology and an onsite milling machine to design and place them in the same visit. Created from ceramic, these will be color-matched to blend with your smile seamlessly.
Root Canal Therapy
An infected tooth could lead to severe discomfort and pain when you eat and speak. Without treatment, you risk losing the tooth altogether and slowing infection to reach other parts of your smile. We can help with restorative dentistry. The root canal procedure allows our team to comfortably remove infected tissues and then add a new filling to the tooth. We finally cap the tooth with a crown. Despite its reputation, most people find the procedure comfortable and comparable to a simple dental filling.
Tooth Extraction
Sometimes, a tooth cannot be treated with a filling or crown. In these scenarios, we will need to remove the tooth to prevent the spread of infection. In addition, we can take out several damaged teeth, remove them to make room for orthodontic treatment, and to also prevent wisdom tooth impaction, taking out these additional implants before they can even erupt. We take steps to ensure your comfort, including local anesthesia and sedation.
Dental Bridges
When you have lost between one and three teeth in a row, you need a prosthetic. Otherwise, you risk the onset of misalignment, TMJ disorder, bruxism, and complications with how you eat or speak. A dental bridge is a custom prosthetic that consists of new teeth with crowns attached to one or both ends. We connect these crowns to your abutment teeth, the ones on each side of the gap in your smile. The resulting bridge fills the gap and can stay in place for 10 to 15 years on average.
Full and Partial Dentures
What if you have more advanced tooth loss? This can really impact the quality of life, from how you eat and speak to the strength of your jawbone tissue. To avoid complications, we could offer removable dentures. Partials address multiple gaps spread out across your smile, while fulls replace every tooth on one or both arches. They can be removable, or we can use dental implants to support them. Implant options preserve your jawbone strength, so you avoid further tooth loss and an aged appearance, and your new teeth can stay in place for decades as opposed to just 5 to 10 years.
Dental Implant Bridges
We could also use one to two dental implants to support a dental bridge, again allowing your new teeth to stay in place for decades to come, as this stimulates jawbone growth to prevent the loss of mass and density that occurs following tooth loss. You will be able to enjoy new teeth that look and function like natural ones.
If you have any questions about how we treat tooth loss or other restorative concerns, then contact our team today to learn more. We can see you soon and help restore your smile to optimal health, beauty, and function again!
Ready for Restorative Dentistry?
Contact Delightful Dental Care in Kansas City, MO by calling 816-942-7669 to learn about how our team can repair smiles and prevent major complications with an array of restorative and prosthetic treatment options.