As much as I like talking about some of the more “exotic” technologies that we have in our Charlotte dental office, such as Laser Dentistry, Cosmetic Dentistry, Six Month Braces, etc., our daily schedule is filled with what dentists usually call “Bread-and-Butter” dentistry. Things like the cases shown below, and as always – these are our patients and my photos, all originals!
Tooth-Colored Fillings to Fix Big Cavities on Front Teeth
For this young lady, given how big these cavities are, most dentists would have recommended porcelain crowns to fix them, and there would certainly be nothing wrong with that (see my recent post on Why Dentists Tell You Different Things), but we still have a lot of work to do on her back teeth, and so budget was a concern. Yes, we do recognize that dentistry is expensive, and I promise – we do our best to give you options that work financially as well as clinically – when possible. Sometimes we can, sometimes not. But anyway, we did get to use a lot of our technology for this young lady, including our Lightwalker dental laser to remove all the cavities, and the dental microscope for superb vision so I removed only what was necessary and no more. With no further ado:
Replacing Silver Fillings with Tooth-Colored Dental Fillings
Several times over my years blogging, I’ve talked about how safe silver fillings are, and I still firmly believe that the science supports that. However, there are times when silver fillings need to be replaced due to cracks, or cavities, or sometimes just because a patient doesn’t like the way they look, and that’s a perfectly fine reason to replace them. Don’t ask me to replace them to cure a disease, ’cause that’s flat out unethical and wrong, but if you just can’t stand the way they look – cool!
This patient came in recently because this tooth was a little sensitive to cold and to biting pressure, so although it didn’t look outright bad, I strongly suspected there was something going on underneath. Turns out the filling was breaking down around the edges, and there was definitely tooth decay underneath, and fairly deep, too. We sealed that area over and did a very natural-looking composite filling. You can just barely see the outline of the filling if you look, but hopefully you’ll agree that it looks a WHOLE lot better than it did as a silver filling!
A Cavity Can Look Small But Actually be Big
Last one from this week, a new patient who came to us specifically because we use a dental laser. And as I mentioned on our page about Laser Dentistry – you have to be specific when asking if a dentist is really a “laser dentist,” because not all lasers are created equal. Not many dentists in the Charlotte Metro area have a hard-tissue laser, which means it can be used on teeth and bone. Fortunately, we had a small opening in our schedule, so we went ahead and took care of her filling in less than 30 minutes, and by using our Lightwalker erbium dental laser, there was no shot, no drill, and she told us it didn’t hurt at all!
So sure, we do use a lot of cool technology, and we offer a lot of services typically only found at a dental specialist, but most of the dental work that we do for Charlotte families is this – “bread’n’butter” work that helps save your teeth. If this sounds like the kind office you’d like, please give us a call!
To make an appointment:
Request an Appointment Online or call us at 704-364-7069.
We’ll look forward to meeting you soon!
