The Secret to Keeping Your Teeth
The secret to keeping your teeth can be found in what we like to call "The Pyramid of No Dental Problems" or "The Pyramid of Common Sense and Evidence Based Dentistry" - which ever you prefer.
The Pyramid consists of six key components that are necessary for you to keep your teeth and avoid problems in the future.
#1
A Solid Foundation: Healthy Gums
The old adage "Only brush the teeth you want to keep" is true especially when it comes to the gums. The gums protect the bone and ligaments that holds the tooth in place. When a tooth doesn't get cleaned well enough, the gums get irritated. When the gums get irritated, they signal the bone and ligaments to move away from the thing that is causing the irritation (aka the tooth). Once enough bone has moved away, there is nothing left to hold the tooth in place, and the tooth falls right out. So the first and most important thing to do if you want to keep your teeth, is to keep your gums happy and healthy.
#2
Free from Chemical Breakdown: No Cavities, No Erosion
Teeth are really hard. Teeth are really strong. But they do have one weakness: acid. Acid can and will dissolve teeth. Acids in the mouth vary in their concentration as well as their source, but without the chance to remineralize, the tooth will dissolve when exposed to acid. That is why this makes #2 on our list of things to do in order to keep your teeth.
#3
Free from Mechanical Breakdown Part I:
A Balanced Bite
The next most common problem teeth have, has to do with how nicely the teeth fit together when the jaw closes. If the top teeth don't line up well with the bottom teeth, the teeth wear down. In extreme cases, entire teeth can be worn down to the gum line. Teeth can also crack and break. Not only is it possible to lose teeth because of an uneven bite, there are many more people who suffer from other problems caused by an uneven bite. These include jaw pain, headaches, and fatigue. Each of these can be annoying at the least, and debilitating in the worst cases. Correcting the bite - or balancing the bite - is the solution for many of these problems and patients find great relief in having their bite balanced and their teeth fitting together nicely.
#4
Free from Mechanical Breakdown Part II:
Avoiding Dental Overtreatment
This one may surprise you to see on the web page of a dentist, but dentists are not excluded from the list of things that take away teeth and/or tooth structure. In fact it could be argued that in developed societies, nothing does it faster or as much. While many in the profession try hard to preserve tooth structure, there are several pressures put on dentists to remove more tooth structure (and sometimes even more teeth) than is necessary. The more tooth structure that is removed, the worse off the tooth becomes. The chances of needing more extensive (and expensive) dental treatment increases more and more rapidly until the tooth is lost or deemed non-restorable. This cycle is what we call the "Tooth Cycle of Death" and it is something that we try very hard to avoid.
#5
Optimal Restorations: Biomimetic Dentistry
Traditional dentistry taught us how to either fill in or cover over a problem with the tooth - but we never fixed the tooth. Now with modern materials and advanced techniques (called Biomimetic Dentistry) , all of that has changed. We are able to not only restore a tooth back to its original properties, we can include additional protections for the tooth - making it even less likely to have problems in the future. Dr O'Berry learned these techniques in 2008 and one of the first things he noticed was that the number of patients who needed root canals or had problems with the teeth he worked on, dropped to almost zero. The hope and promise of Biomimetic Dentistry is to stop the "Tooth Cycle of Death" so that once a tooth is restored, the remaining tooth structure is preserved for as long as possible.
#6
Cosmetic
If after everything else is taken care of and you still don't like the way your teeth look, then there are some really fun things that we can do to make it so that the appearance of your teeth aren't a problem for you. In fact we can even make it so that the appearance of your teeth makes your life better. Studies show that people with nicer looking teeth are hired faster and earn more money. We could go on and on about the advantages of nice looking teeth - but just know it can and does make a difference. So if the appearance of your teeth is a concern for you, we would love to help you get the smile you want and the confidence you deserve.
Start living your life without tooth problems!
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