All About Endodontics & Tooth Discoloration

Latest Dental News: What is Endodontics?

Have you brushed and flossed after every meal since you were tall enough to reach the toothpaste, but still find yourself with a yellow smile? Trust me, the likelihood is that it’s not bad genetics causing you to hide and feel self-conscious about your smile.

How Did My Teeth Turn Yellow?

Even those who maintained perfect oral hygiene find themselves dissatisfied with the yellow smile age has forced them to bear. It’s a simple fact that the porcelain-like enamel that protects our teeth withers away over time. Eventually, all that’s left is the yellow dentin that lurks below.

Factors that stain your teeth are:

• Smoking – Nicotine seeps into and gnaws away at tooth enamel
• Drinking dark colored beverages, such as coffee, tea, soda pop and red wine stain teeth
• Grinding and clenching teeth causes miniscule cracks to appear, paving the way for staining agents to infiltrate enamel
• Aging naturally causes tooth enamel to decay

Kinds Of Stains

The stains that cause tooth discoloration fall into two categories: surface, or extrinsic stains, and intrinsic stains.

Surface stains gather on the surface of your teeth. Frequent exposure to dark beverages, tobacco and sugary foods cause these stains to accumulate.

Intrinsic stains gather inside your teeth and are the result of aging and trauma.

Eliminating Tooth Discoloration

Luckily, advancements in modern dentistry provide countless tooth whitening options to those wishing to brighten their smile.

If you’re looking to just remove surface stains, any tooth whitening procedure will work. However, intrinsic stains are more difficult to remove and require an extensive time commitment. The most common method to remove intrinsic stains is a take home bleaching kit.

The Quickest and Safest Tooth Whitening Technique

One of the most efficient tooth whitening techniques on the market is Zoom! Tooth Whitening. In just forty-five minutes, your teeth will be whitened up to eight shades. Additional benefits to Zoom! Tooth Whitening as opposed to other tooth whitening procedures are:

• Whitens teeth to a greater degree and in a quicker amount of time
• Leaves your teeth less sensitive than other tooth whitening procedures
• Has follow-up gels you can apply to guarantee the best results

Ensuring A Successful Tooth Whitening Procedure

The first step in addressing your tooth discoloration is a consultation with your cosmetic dentist. The goals of this meeting will be to determine if your oral health is satisfactory for having your teeth whitened.

In the twenty-four hour window after having your teeth whitened, it’s essential that you avoid dark colored beverages, acidic and sugary foods and nicotine products. Otherwise you’ll be compromising the success of your procedure.

Source: Causes of Tooth Discoloration

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Cosmetic Dentistry: Great Way to Improve Face Look

Discolored, chipped or missing teeth can affect self-confidence. A person may be reluctant to smile with parted lips if they feel their teeth are unattractive.

Cosmetic dentistry can make substantial improvements to every kind of smile. There are techniques to deal with discolored, chipped, gapped, crooked or missing teeth.

In severe cases, orthodontic treatment may be needed. This is a specialized branch of dentistry that corrects jaw and teeth misalignments with devices such as braces. You can simply ask your cosmetic dentist, or specialist for further information and advice on improving the look of your smile.

Many people ask me what exactly Cosmetic Dentistry is and what is consists of... Below is a little description:

COSMETIC DENTISTRY

This style of dentistry is any treatment which:

" Improves the look (or aesthetic aspect) of the teeth.

" The services available are bleaching for the front teeth.

" Reconstruction of the teeth with crowns or veneers

" Orthodontic treatment to change the position of the teeth.

" All of this is considered to be cosmetic dentistry.

Cosmetic Dentistry is a great way to improve the look of your entire face, your mouth is the focal point when you smile for photos, or simply when chatting to people.

Your smile is the first impression you make on others, so make it stand out. Many people are unaware that simple inexpensive procedures can be done that will dramatically effect your smile. the way you look also effects the way you feel. So truly this can be said that investing in a new smile could be one of the wisest investment you could make.

Source: Dental Treatment And Cosmetic Dental Work

Dental Problems May Affect Overall Health

For many people, the relation between oral health and systemic body conditions is abstract at best. Few of us know that dental problems have consequences that extend far beyond the mouth.

Most of us think that dental problems would result at worst in a few fallen teeth or some painful hours in the dentists’ chair. Yet, bad oral health can result in long-term health issues such as heart disease and stroke that can be potentially fatal. This article reviews the possible effect of oral health on general body health.

Dental problems arise as a result of poor oral hygiene. The accumulation of harmful bacteria in the dental cavities can result in formation of plaque and tartar. Tartar provides a very conducive environment for the development of bacterial populations, which as a consequence rise dramatically.

An infection arises, leading to conditions such as root decay and gum disease. If the bacterial growth is not checked, the infection can reach the bloodstream. This is when the real complications occur.

Dental Problems and Heart Disease

Harmful bacteria entering the bloodstream attach to fatty plaques already present in the arteries of the body. This hastens the formation of arterial blockages (blood clots) that result in thrombosis. The bacteria can also reach the chambers of the heart where they get lodged and start an infection. The result is infective endocarditis. After some time, this infection produces growths that break off into the bloodstream and attach to other critical organs, resulting in a generalized infection.

Dental Problems and Diabetes

Diabetes and dental problems are mutually reinforcing diseases. Dental problems result in the production of cytokines, which increase the body’s resistance to insulin and make blood sugar difficult to control. Diabetes, on the other hand, reduces the capacity of the body to heal itself and therefore increases the likelihood of dental infections and abscesses.

Dental Problems and Low Birth Weight

Internal infections in pregnant women, originating from the mouth, have been known to cause low birth weights and premature birth. Cytokines produced during infections cause the production of the hormone prostaglandin. This hormone acts as a trigger for labor and thus results in premature birth. Pregnant women with oral infections have up to seven times greater risk of giving birth to a premature baby than those with normal oral health.

Other conditions that have been linked to oral hygiene include Alzheimer’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and osteoporosis. So be very cautious with your dental health.

Glasgow dentist | Glasgow cosmetic surgery | Glasgow cosmetic dentist

Dental Problems Affect Overall Health

Latest Tooth Jewellery comes in Dental Crowns

Computers have altered many professions; now it's dentistry's turn. Yes, frightened patients will still face the drill. But when it comes to designing and manufacturing a crown, implant,

bridge or dentures, computers are beginning to replace painstaking manual methods. The basic design of the typical crown - metal bonded with porcelain - dates from the 18th century. This is a sector ripe for reinvention.

Most patients probably have no idea how much individual labour goes into restoring even a single tooth: each piece is bespoke. Take a crown. Traditionally, once the tooth has been repared, the dentist pours gunk into two jaw-shaped trays into which the patient bites down to create impressions. These are sent off to a lab along with the dentist's instructions.

The die is cast

On arrival, dental stone is poured into the impressions and left to harden. A pin is placed at the tooth being worked on (the "die") and others in the underside of the stone model, and a base is then poured on to it. Once set, the model is cut with a split saw or fine diamond disc so that the die can be removed for working. The pins mean it can be put back in precisely the same place. The technician then uses the die to build up a wax pattern 0.4mm to 1mm thick, in the shape that will ultimately be cast in metal. "The first thing I had to do as an

apprentice," says Chris Everingham, the retiring founder of Creative Dental lab in London, "is wax tooth-carving, so I learned the anatomy."

The finished pattern, embellished with a prong, or "sprue", is placed into a metal casting ring, which is filled with material called "investment". Once that's hardened, heating the ring to 850C burns off the wax, leaving the pattern's empty shape behind. The ring is mounted in a spinning machine, and centrifugal force pushes molten metal into the empty space, recreating the wax pattern in metal. Knock away the investment, remove the sprue, and there's the basis, or "coping", for your crown.

From there, the crown is hand-painted with porcelain, first with an opaque layer to blot out the darkness of the metal, and then with successive layers of shades chosen to match the patient's own teeth. The finished crown is fired at 930C and sent back to the dentist for installation.

You hope. Anything destined for a patient's mouth must be precisely made to within 20 microns. Gaps attract saliva, which can wash out the cement holding the crown in place, turning the gap into a haven for bacteria and decay.

But even a lab that can afford lengthy finishing times - Everingham estimates his maximum output at 60 crowns a month - can't be perfect; impressions may have tiny bubbles or smears.

It is these imperfections that computer technology is beginning to address.

About 18 months ago, labs such as Creative and nearby Ken Poland, which supplies cosmetic dentistry to the Channel 4 TV show 10 Years Younger, began buying 3M's Lava system.

Poland's Steve Pope makes the traditional stone model, but then scans the model and creates the coping digitally using a virtual "wax knife" and automated software. When Pope, a former aircraft engineer, builds a bridge on screen, it looks as hard as working in wax; this profession is being reskilled, not deskilled.

The data file is sent to a milling centre, in this case, Poland's own. There, the Lava software takes the file and assigns it to a barcoded block of zirconia. Cured at 1,500C, it becomes a hard, strong material that can be tinted by soaking and to which porcelain will bond. Pope says it's better than metal: zirconia is bio-compatible and used in hip and knee replacements.

The block is placed in the milling machine, and the computer translates the data file into cuts to produce the actual coping. Then the coping is cured for more than 11 hours. From there, the porcelain is applied by hand. Pope is particularly impressed by the software's ability to calculate precisely how much extra to allow to compensate for shrinkage in the curing process - between 23% and 26%.

Magic wand

The next stage is eliminating the impressions. At the New York offices of Dr Steven Alper, an oral scanner reads the movements of a wand inside the patient's mouth. The wand captures 3D video of the patient's upper and lower jaw, as well as the outside bite pattern. "I can see if I need to fix something," says Alper. "For example, for a crown prep you have a margin around the tooth, and it's hard to see on the patient. You only have one or two views, and they're all white and small. On the screen you can look really close."

Turning the image to various angles on his touchscreen, Alper found a hole. He rescanned that section, filled out an onscreen prescription, and sent the file to the lab electronically.

Simultaneously, the data goes to a facility that uses it to generate the physical model in resin. The die is sectioned in manufacturing, eliminating the imprecision of saw cuts.

All of this eliminates time waiting for materials to harden, cure or cool. More importantly, everyone agrees the software does a better job of getting as tight a fit as possible. "It won't cure

everything," says David Coppen, chairman of the Harley Technician Study Club, which saw the scanner demonstrated in London last week, "but this is the future."

Resource: A new jewel in dentistry's crowns | Glasgow dental implants