Restoring Tooth Functionality With Style

Repairing or replacing a damaged tooth doesn’t mean that your smile should suffer

When sharks lose a tooth, another one simply comes through. Unfortunately for us mere humans, this doesn’t happen once our childhood teeth have been replaced. Instead, any tooth loss or damage means that dental care is required. Often, in the past, this has meant a degree of restoration which enables our teeth to more or less function as we need them too, but often at the expense of a nice looking smile.

Thankfully, at Alexandra Dental Care, we are able to make use of the many advantages of modern aesthetic dentistry, and the loss of a tooth or significant damage to a tooth no longer means that our Burton and Ashby patients have to settle for ‘second best’. Innovations in dentistry over the years means that we are able to offer treatments that not only restore function, but look great too.

Fillings

This is a treatment that most of you will probably be familiar with. Few of us have lived such a ‘perfect’ lifestyle that we have not consumed sugar or skipped brushing when we were younger, often leading to some tooth decay and a cavity that needed filling. In the past, this would traditionally have been done using amalgam filling. This dark material, made from a combination of metals, is certainly excellent as far as its strength is concerned. Unfortunately though, it is a very dark colour and is highly visible. Even when used on rear teeth it can be seen when we laugh or yawn.

As an alternative to amalgam fillings, we are able to offer white dental fillings for our patients. These are made from a resin based material that can be adjusted to match the colour of the natural tooth. Not only are they more aesthetically pleasing but are also chemically bonded to the tooth once it has been prepared and often require less natural tooth to be removed before placing the filling.

We can also remove amalgam fillings and replace them with white fillings for those who wish to do so.

Broken or damaged teeth

After fillings, the use of a dental crown is often the next step available to dentists when a tooth has suffered more significant damage or has broken in a certain way. Although crowns may have not changed a great deal over the last few years, there are subtle improvements which make them more aesthetically pleasing, in particular the ability to match the colour of the crown to the original tooth. This makes the joint line virtually invisible to all but those who closely inspect it.

In addition to this, patients of Alexandra Dental Care no longer have to visit us on two separate occasions to have a crown fitted. Traditionally, these would be prepared by taking impressions of the damaged tooth once it had been shaped, and these would then be sent to a laboratory for the crowns to be prepared. The patient would then have to return for a second appointment where the crown would be fitted. Our use of CEREC means that this is no longer the case and impressions are now taken digitally and then fed into a computerised system which will mill your new crown from a single block of porcelain. This takes approximately one hour and you can often have your new crown fitted on the same day.

Missing teeth

Finally, the one that we try to do all that we can to avoid. There are many high quality restorations available to use but sometimes either a tooth is lost or reaches a stage where it is impractical for it to remain and it will then need to be extracted. Traditionally, dentures were the most commonly used restoration, and these have undoubtedly improved in quality over the years. It is now possible to match the colour of your gums to that of the dentures but, although they are an improvement on their predecessors, they are unlikely to look or feel as a natural tooth would.

Instead of dentures then, we are able to provide our patients with a great innovation in the form of dental implants. These don’t ‘just’ replace the missing crown part of the tooth, but also the root. Although this part of the replacement may not affect the appearance, it does improve both the feel and the functionality of the replacement tooth. Needless to say, a replacement tooth with an artificial root offers a strong degree of security and will not move around in the mouth as dentures can occasionally do.  From an ongoing aesthetic point of view, it is worth noting that if the rest of your teeth change colour and the crown part of the implant does not, the crown section can be replaced without invasive treatment, leaving you with a natural looking smile.

Our Swadlincote dentists will always do what we can to provide you with the best and most appropriate treatment possible. Not only do we care about making sure that you have strong and functional teeth, but also do what we can to provide you with restorations that look great too.

If you would like to find out more about the restorative and cosmetic dental solutions that we offer, please give us a call today on 01283 216347.

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