Oral surgery offers a number of solutions for dealing with oral health concerns that are too complex for general dental treatment. Issues that can impact structures beyond your teeth and gums, such as your upper or lower jawbone, may require surgery to address in a successful manner. In some cases, that solution includes surgically grafting the jawbone to strengthen it, which may be a prerequisite to receiving dental implants if you’ve lost one or more teeth. Today, we examine a few important facts about jawbone grafting, and how you can benefit from it if your oral surgeon recommends it. (more…)
A Closer Look at Your Wisdom Teeth
Unlike many common oral health problems, those that result from the improper eruption of your wisdom teeth (or third molars) can be difficult to predict. Wisdom teeth can more easily become impacted than other types of teeth because they’re the last ones to develop along your dental ridges. Yet, they don’t always become impacted, and you may not know if yours will until they do. Today, we take a closer look at wisdom teeth, including why they develop, the problems they may cause, and what may be your best chance at avoiding them. (more…)
3 Things You Might Need Before Getting Implants
Dental implants are increasingly more common for patients who want to rebuild their smiles after tooth loss. The comprehensive results they provide in replacing your lost tooth structure, especially the roots, is one of the reasons why. Another is the fact that many patients who’ve experienced tooth loss already qualify for dental implants. Those who don’t can often prepare for implant placement by addressing one or a few key factors. Today, we examine what you might need before getting dental implants, and how we can help you qualify by addressing your unique concerns. (more…)
Boost Your Chances of Preventing Tooth Loss
If you’ve ever worried about experiencing tooth loss, the good news is that preventing it is usually highly possible. There’s no secret to it; many of the most common causes behind adult tooth loss are things that can typically be prevented, or managed before tooth loss occurs. The problem for many people is that they don’t recognize their specific risks for experiencing tooth loss, or know how to lower those risks with the right level of care and maintenance. Fortunately, you can boost your chances of preventing tooth loss by learning to recognize your risks, and addressing them as soon as possible. (more…)
Why Implants Are Better at Restoring Smiles
If you gauge a tooth replacement option by its appearance, most modern restorations are highly capable of fully restoring your smile. However, your teeth play much more important roles in your smile than just filling out its appearance, and losing a tooth comes with many more concerns than those that affect how your smile looks. Therefore, the quality of your tooth replacement should be judged by how well it restores your lost teeth’s ability to function, as well as their roles in your overall oral health. Because they’re the only solution that replaces the roots of lost teeth, dental implants are often the best way to achieve this. (more…)
How Extracting Wisdom Teeth Improves Your Oral Health
There are many reasons why people worry about their wisdom teeth, even if they haven’t started to hurt yet. Most people recognized wisdom teeth as some of the most frequently problematic types of teeth, due mainly to the fact that they can so often become impacted. Unlike many other oral health concerns that may have several different options for addressing them, impacted wisdom teeth typically only have one solution – to surgically extract them as soon as possible. Today, we take a look at how extracting wisdom teeth improves your oral health, and can even help you avoid many problems if you extract them early enough. (more…)
How Surgery Helps In These Oral Health Situations
Not every oral health complication can be addressed with general or restorative dentistry treatments. Though not everyone will need oral surgery in their lifetime, the need for it can have serious implications for your oral health, especially if you hesitate too long to seek treatment. Today, we take a look at a few conditions that might require oral surgery, and how the right procedure can help you overcome the problem to restore your healthy, fully functional smile. (more…)
Why Tooth Extraction Might Be a Good Thing
For most of your dental health care, you’ve heard that the best thing you can do for your smile is to preserve your healthy, natural tooth structure as best you can. Therefore, if you’re told that one or more teeth need to be extracted, you might wonder if it’s really a good thing for your smile. The need for tooth extraction isn’t as common as it used to be before the advancement of modern dentistry. However, it can still arise under certain circumstances, and if it does, then seeking treatment as soon as possible could be essential to preserving the rest of your healthy smile. (more…)
The Best Times to Consider Dental Implants
No matter what type of oral health issue you face, there’s an optimal oral health treatment plan designed to maximize your ability to recover from it. When it comes to tooth loss, that treatment plan is often to replace the lost tooth or teeth with an appropriate number of dental implants. However, the specific ways in which your smile benefits from dental implants depends on the specific considerations surrounding your tooth loss. Today, we examine a few common reasons why people choose dental implants, and how the innovative restorations can benefit them given those conditions. (more…)
Ways Your Jawbone Can Grow Weaker Over Time
For many common oral health problems, the visible impacts they have on your smile are limited in their earliest stages. It’s the more severe phases of oral health concerns that can begin to have noticeable impacts on the appearance of your smile, facial structures, and more. Depending on the nature of your oral health concern, that may include the integrity and appearance of your jawbone structure, which serves as the foundation of your smile as much as the supportive base for many of your facial features. Sometimes, a chronic concern like extensive periodontal disease or the sustained loss of stimulation due to one or more missing teeth roots can have a significantly negative impact on this foundation. Today, we explore how by examining the ways in which periodontal disease and tooth loss can cause your jawbone to grow weaker over time. (more…)
Dr. Rogers was published in CDA’s November Issue. Click above to see his article (pg.601).