What is Conservative, Responsible Dentistry?

Seeking dental treatment so that your smile looks its best and is equally healthy is important. The best way to get there is through oral health care that is conservative and responsible. Our dental office has developed procedures that meet these specifications to help our patients get strong and beautiful smiles. Our philosophy of conservative and responsible dentistry helps to:

Preserve Natural Oral Structures

In any dental treatment plan, keeping as much of your natural tooth structure (enamel, roots, and tooth walls) is important. While dentistry has come a long way in providing replacements for natural structures, it’s important to preserve any healthy parts of teeth. Our Edmonton dentists recommend treatments that target only decayed or weakened parts of teeth, and allow you to keep as much of your own natural teeth as possible.

For example, placing zirconia crowns on severely damaged teeth does not require as much alteration of tooth structure as a metal-over-porcelain crown might, which is why we offer this kind of restoration.  For patients with missing teeth, dental implants provide independent replacements that do not cause damage to healthy oral structures, like gum tissue or existing teeth.

Help Patients Keep their Smiles Strong and Healthy

Part of helping to preserve the health and strength of your smile is a routine of thorough, proactive care to spot problems before they cause big issues that damage your teeth. We employ comprehensive oral health check-ups and responsible gum health routines that allow us to provide the care patients need to protect their teeth and gums. Visiting the dentist for check-ups helps to minimize the need for more extensive dental restorations later and reduces complications due to gum disease.

Encourage Conservative Treatment

While there are any number of treatments to address a specific dental problem, there are some that are more conservative than others. In the event of moderate tooth decay, a crown can certainly be used to restore your tooth, but placing an inlay or onlay can help you keep any un-damaged dental enamel. When designing cosmetic and restorative treatment plans, we help out patients avoid more aggressive treatment and select the options that will be most appropriate for them. 

If you have questions about cosmetic dentistry, dental restorations, and gum health, contact our Edmonton dentists for more information about our conservative and responsible treatment plans.

Why Your Periodontal Health Matters

When caring for your smile, your first concerns are likely to make sure that you don’t develop any cavities and that your teeth look beautiful. While these are good oral hygiene goals, ignoring the health of your gums in the process can be detrimental to your smile. 

If you’ve been leaving the care of your gums out of your daily health routine, consider the following:

Your Gums are the Foundation of Your Smile

Soft tissue is supportive in nature, in that it allows your teeth to remain strong and in-place. Damage that weakens gum health, such as the formation of pockets of infection below the gum line, also weakens your teeth’s healthy foundation. Without good support, teeth begin to loosen and may even fall out in severe stages of periodontal disease.

Poor Gum Health Has a Negative Aesthetic Effect

As gum disease begins to develop and soft tissue shows signs of disease, they begin to look red and puffy. Later, as pockets of infection develop, gums can pull away from teeth, making your smile look overly-toothy and/or exposing teeth’s roots. The progression of periodontal disease is highly negative, both in terms of your oral health and the way your smile looks.

Unhealthy Gums Mean an Unhealthy Body

Studies demonstrate a link between the health of your smile, and how healthy you are overall. The increase of oral bacteria that is present in certain stages of gum disease as well as generally poor soft tissue health can put you at greater risk for systemic health problems, like heart issues and diabetes.

Without Healthy Soft Tissue, You May be Ineligible for Certain Dental Treatments

Patients with missing teeth, who want the gaps in their smile filled by dental implants, need their gum tissue health under control before implant dentistry can be performed. As implant surgery requires the placement of implants through soft tissue and bone, gums need to be able to heal properly before the final restoration can be placed. The presence of gum disease interferes with healthy healing processes and will need to be treated first.

If you’ve haven’t been flossing to keep gums clean, or if you’ve been neglecting visiting the dentist, it’s still possible to achieve better oral health. Our Edmonton dental office offers periodontal therapy to combat signs of gum disease, and has developed efficient, responsible hygiene programs to help you regain the health of your smile, and overall wellness. Contact our office today if you have questions about gum health and periodontal treatments.

Sleep Problems and Their Effect on Teeth

It’s common for people to have light sleep problems. Issues like occasional snoring aren’t necessarily serious issues, but people who suffer from significantly disrupted sleep caused by sleep apnea, or loud, frequent snoring are at-risk for other issues beyond a bad night of rest.

Sleep problems impact the health of your teeth in ways that you might not imagine.

Flattening of Dental Enamel

Patients with sleep apnea, and those with sleep disordered breathing, are often teeth grinders as well. Grinding your teeth at night puts a tremendous amount of pressure on dental enamel – much more than you would experience with regular oral function. Bruxism, the formal name for habitual teeth grinding, can more or less destroy teeth by flattening dental enamel.  Moreover, all of this pressure on teeth and joints can create upper-body muscle aches, ringing in your ears, and frequent headaches.

Orthodontic Problems

For children whose jaw alignment and teeth are developing and changing, severe snoring can be a sign of airway obstruction that causes orthodontic problems. Young patients who struggle to breathe while sleeping often pull their jaws forward, unknowingly, to attempt to open relieve blockage of airways. This involuntary jaw movement throws off alignment and creates wear on front teeth.  Treatment with orthodontic appliances, like metal braces, or night-time oral appliance, can help properly align the jaw and prevent further malocclusion (poor bite alignment) by preventing airway obstruction and involuntary forward jaw movement.

Added Cost for Dental Care

Without preventive measures, sleep disorders can require the restoration of worn-down teeth, which puts an added expense on routine dental visits. The best way to care for your teeth, if you have a sleep disorder, is to prevent disrupted sleep patterns from damaging your teeth in the first place. While night guards to protect teeth are an added cost as well, it’s a far more economical solution, compared to restoring several teeth with dental crowns, or other prosthetics.

The dentists at Diamond Dental believe that dentistry is an important part of healthcare and your overall health.  If you have a sleep disorder, or experience disrupted breathing during sleep, it’s important to seek help from your health care team, including your dentist!  Prevention in sleep disorders is key to save the health of your smile, and promote healthier sleep for greater well-being. Contact Diamond Dental to learn more about the services we provide for sleep apnea patients and teeth-grinders.

Welcome to our blog!

We're excited to announce the official launch of our Diamond Dental blog.

We'll be posting helpful dental tips, news from the dental industry, news from our practice, and more about the latest in dentistry.

We built our practice on the notion that we're there for our patients when they need us and we want our online presence to be a reflection of that principle. We hope this blog provides an extra level of service to our current and future patients.

If you would like to stay up to date on the latest from Diamond Dental, simply click the RSS “Subscribe to feed” link located on our website and subscribe. Our subscribers will be updated when we make a new blog post.

Here's to your best oral health ever!