You know you live in a sugar-saturated environment when nearly half of all kids experience decay in their primary (baby) teeth by the age of 11. Yet even if you strive to eat healthfully and help your kids practice good hygiene at home, problems can arise. This is one reason why regular dental checkups and […]
Dental Restorations
Composites Are Strong – and May Get Even Stronger (and You Can Thank Nature for That)
You often hear dentists who use mercury amalgam insist that fillings made with the stuff last longer than fillings made with tooth-colored composite. Of course, if that were true, it would be all the more reason to avoid them! Think of all the extra years of inhaling the vapors constantly released from one of the […]
There’s No Regrowing Teeth (Not Yet, Anyway)
When folks hear about curing tooth decay naturally, some seem to picture a perfectly healed tooth that looks exactly like the others around it, white and strong and unblemished. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. A human tooth is made of three main layers of tissue. The smooth, thin, glossy layer on the outside is […]
No Filling Lasts Forever
When a tooth needs a filling, it’s never just a one-shot deal. As we’ve noted before, all dental restorations eventually need further work. Even the strongest, most durable materials don’t last forever. Fillings wear down. Sometimes they leak. Sometimes they break. And this cycle gets expensive. A 2004 report from Delta Dental’s Data and Analysis […]
From the Archives: The Facts About Dental Implants
Originally posted April 10, 2014 Sometimes – when advanced gum disease has substantially weakened the supporting bone, say, or when a tooth is so deeply infected that only a root canal can give the appearance of “saving” it – tooth loss is inevitable. So what do you replace it with? Once upon a time, bridges […]
More on BPA in Tooth-Colored Composite Fillings
Choosing which materials to use to repair, replace, align or cosmetically enhance teeth isn’t a simple matter. In each case, the dentist has to consider a wide of factors related to where and how they’ll be used. Bicompatibility is also a fundamental concern, at least to the biological dentist. While there are some materials, such […]
The Facts About Dental Implants
Sometimes – when advanced gum disease has substantially weakened the supporting bone, say, or when a tooth is so deeply infected that only a root canal can give the appearance of “saving” it – tooth loss is inevitable. So what do you replace it with? Once upon a time, bridges were our go-to solution. They […]
The Metal-Free (R)Evolution
Here’s an interesting statistic we ran across recently: Glidewell – a major dental lab based in Southern California – reports that over the past five years, the proportion of crowns made of porcelain fused to metal has dropped from 65% to just 20%. As the company’s director of clinical education told Dr. Bicuspid, “That’s […]