- Dental ExaminationAn orthodontic assessment should be done for children at the approximate age of 7, and at each regular dental exam and cleaning. Some of the areas to be assessed are the following...
- Teeth Cleaning
- Fillings
- VeneersIf your front teeth already have large fillings or are discolored, veneers, bonding or crowns may be the better choice. For crooked, crowded or rotated teeth without large fillings or discolorations, orthodontic treatment might be a preferable option.
- CrownsChoosing which one is right for you depends on your time commitment, need for immediate results. Veneers and crowns are finished in 2 treatments over two weeks, while braces and mouth tray therapy usually require 1-3 years of treatment.
- Dental Bonding
- Root Canal TreatmentA: The easy answer is to call your dental office and explain exactly what causes the discomfort. Discomfort to biting or cold after a small to medium filling is done may be normal, but it should be addressed if it persists longer than a few days. There are a few reasons why biting might hurt, but are often easy to resolve. The most common reason is simply that the filling was made thicker or higher than the previous tooth structure or older filling. At the end of a filling appointment, the dentist asks the patient to bite on a marking piece of paper that shows if part of the filling is too thick and requires adjustment. However, being numb or open for a long time, can sometimes cause a person to bite incorrectly on the paper and therefore not show the dentist where the filling needs proper adjusting. If the filling is left too high, a person often feels that their bite is different than before the filling was done after the freezing wears off. Normal eating then causes increased forces on that tooth pushing it down into the jaw and inflaming the tooth supporting ligaments and bone. If the person is a night time grinder, bruxer or clencher, they may even be woken up in the middle of the night with a toothache. A visit back to the dental office to recheck the bite and adjust the filling may be all that is needed. If adjustments have not helped after a few days to a week, and the tooth is only sensitive to biting then the problem may be either a cracked tooth or fluid under the filling. The dentist should remove the filling (at no charge) and check for cracks in the tooth that may not have been initially visible during filling placement. This can be done with the use of an intraoral camera and loupes (magnifying lenses on glasses) that give those dentist wearing them a better view of their work. Other ways to check for a crack are with the use of dies and fiber-optic lights to trans-illuminate the tooth. If no cracks are visible, then the dentist should consider that excess fluid under the filling was causing the discomfort (except in very large cavities or removal of big fillings where the nerve may be irreversibly irritated requiring a root canal).
- Dentures
- OrthodonticsA: For adults, many options are available including veneers, crowns, bonding and orthodontics (braces or alignment therapy using laboratory fabricated mouth trays like in Invisalign.)
- Invisalign Orthodontics
- BracesFor children, all the adult teeth do not become visible until approximately age 12. Therefore, between the ages of 7 and 10, crowding may become a problem without obvious signs to a parent. This can best be determined by asking your dentist if your child might need braces. Most dentists have enough basic orthodontic knowledge to answer why braces are needed, what is the problem, and what age it should be treated.
- Teeth Whitening
- General DentistryDr. Tom Houston is a member of the Ontario Dental Association, Canadian Dental Association, Academy of General Dentistry and Burlington Dental Academy.