We want to help your smile stay healthy and bright, which helps you avoid issues that could threaten your teeth and gums. With preventive dentistry, our team can offer care to prevent and manage serious concerns! In today’s blog, your team at Delight Dental Care in Kansas City, MO, talks about helping smiles with our preventive dental care.

Starting with Your Checkup Visit

A key part of our preventive dentistry approach is the checkup. You need one every six months, and that goes for every member of your family. With a checkup, we have a chance to monitor your smile and catch the issues that could threaten your oral health, such as cavities, gum disease, and bruxism, in their early stages, often before you experience painful symptoms. Our team will examine your smile with digital technology for an accurate and precise diagnosis. We can then create a treatment plan to restore the health, function, and beauty of your smile. For kids, this is a chance to help them better understand their own oral health and the importance of caring for their teeth and gums, even into adulthood.

Cleaning Your Teeth

Preventive dentistry also means cleaning your teeth, which we do as part of your routine checkup visit. With a cleaning, we will gently but thoroughly remove all plaque and tartar from your teeth with an ultrasonic scaling device and a manual pick. We then polish the teeth to brighten them and also make it harder for plaque and tartar to accumulate. The process helps boost your oral health and lowers the risk of cavities and gum disease, and also fights bad breath and teeth stains too.

Treating Bruxism

Bruxism refers to chronic teeth grinding, which can happen nightly and places serious pressure on your teeth. This can wear down structure so teeth appear shorter, and crack or chip the outer structures too, allowing cavities and infection to occur. With preventive dentistry, we can help! Our team can create a custom oral appliance, one that is worn at night like a mouthguard. Once in place, this helps shift the jaw to ease underlying stress and strain, and at the same time places a soft barrier between the upper and lower jaw to prevent damage to your teeth. The oral appliance is easy to use and clean, and it can travel with you too if you have one last summer vacation on the horizon! We can also repair any damage to your teeth with bonding or a custom crown.

Care for Children of All Ages

Preventive dentistry also helps little smiles too. As we mentioned, we want to see your children for a routine checkup and cleaning every six months. But we also offer unique preventive treatments to help lower the risk of tooth decay in little smiles. For example, we can apply fluoride to the teeth in a varnish form, which coats the teeth and strengthens the outer enamel to make decay less likely in the months to come. Application only takes seconds, and kids just need to avoid food and drink for about a half hour.

We also know that kids may have trouble reaching the rear teeth, allowing cavities to flourish there. But with dental sealants, we can coat these teeth in a thin acrylic layer known as a dental sealant, so no food and drink particles can become trapped there and the risk of cavities is much lower. Again, this only takes seconds to apply and kids just need to avoid eating or drinking for about thirty minutes. When in place, sealants can often last years, decades in some cases!

Counseling Services

Our team wants to talk to you about your oral hygiene routine! With our counseling services, we can discuss ways to improve how you brush and floss each day, and how to choose healthier snacks and meals to lower the risk of complications like tooth decay and gum disease. With better oral hygiene habits, teeth of all ages can stay strong and free of decay and infection, and you can avoid the impacts of gum disease too.

If you have any questions about how we help smiles with preventive dentistry, or if you want to schedule a visit now, let us know. This is actually the perfect time to schedule a back-to-school checkup and cleaning for your kids.

Schedule Your Appointment for Preventive Dentistry

If you want to keep your smile strong, then talk about preventive dentistry with Dr. Diana Tabakh, DDS. To schedule your appointment, please call Delightful Dental Care in Kansas City, MO at (816) 942-7669 today.