Microscope-Enhanced Dentistry

What is Microscope-Enhanced Dentistry?

When patients first walk into our treatment rooms (you can check them out in our Google Office Tour) to get work done, it’s not uncommon for them to look at the dental microscope hanging from the ceilings and ask, “What the heck is that?” And it’s no surprise that they do, because VERY few dentists (less than 3% of family dentists) use a dental microscope.  After using a dental microscope for almost everything since 2009, I truly couldn’t imagine practicing without one for a number of reasons.  In fact, I only know of 1 other general dentist in the Charlotte Metro area who does microscope-enhanced dentistry, and that’s my dentist, Dr. William Linger.

But why should you care if your dentist uses a microscope?

A Dentist with a Microscope Saves You Money

Seriously – I’m not kidding.  Because I work with microscopes all the time, you will spend LESS time and money at my Charlotte dental office. It’s the honest truth for one VERY SIMPLE, but VERY POWERFUL reason:

Because I see at 5.5x up to 12x magnification, I treat your teeth more conservatively.  But what does “more conservative” mean?  It means that I take away less tooth when fixing it.  Without the magnification & lighting of a microscope, dentists can’t see super-well in your mouth.  After all, the mouth is a pretty dark place.  It’s harder for them to know if they’ve gotten all the tooth decay or cracks out.  Studies show that dentists usually remove more than they need to do, just to be sure they got it all.

With a microscope’s brilliant LED lighting and extreme magnification, I see extremely well.  Seeing that well, I remove ONLY what has to be removed.  I can see EXACTLY when I got it all!  So because I do microscope-enhanced dentistry, aka minimally invasive dentistry, I do the following for you:

• Keep your fillings smaller = less expensive
• More teeth that other doctors would do crowns for, I do fillings = less expensive
• Teeth with cracks – I can remove them before the tooth breaks = less expensive and less pain
• Do more root canals that don’t need crowns to hold the tooth together = less expensive, longer-lasting
• Do more root canals faster and easier = less time and more comfortable

By catching and fixing problems while they’re small, the treatment is less expensive, faster, and keeps more of your healthy tooth.  The more of your tooth structure we keep, the better.  It means that you’ll have more tooth to work with if there’s a different problem later on.

How Teeth Look Through the Microscope

Another benefit of microscope enhanced dentistry is the ability to document your treatment with photos and videos.  What are the benefits to documenting your treatment through a microscope?

• Show you by projecting the live video feed or snapshots on the big TV screens on the wall or ceiling
• Send photos or videos to specialists for consultation
• Send photos to insurance for pre-determinations or appeals if they aren’t paying
• Full-color record of the problems treated so we can refer back to them in the future

Here’s are some photos I’ve taken through my microscope over the last few years.  This gallery showcases just how well a dentist sees when performing microscope-enhanced dentistry:

If this is the kind of super-conservative, minimally-invasive, less expensive, and more comfortable kind of dental treatment you’d like for YOUR family, 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!