Preventive Services
As a practice, at Prins Dental, we are true believers in the idea that preventive care and education are the keys to optimal dental health. We encourage you to read the information contained below to ensure that you and your family are on the pathway to optimal health and wellness.
Professional Dental Cleanings
One of the things that makes the biggest difference in your continued oral health is having two professional dental cleanings per year. This is also one of the most overlooked parts of your regular dental hygiene routines. People surmise that something that is only done two times a year couldn’t make that much of a difference in the long run. Actually, it makes a huge difference!
Consider the health of your car for example. You only change the oil in your car a few times a year, but if you let it go without an oil change for a few years you would certainly expect serious problems to arise. The benefits of having routine professional dental cleanings done are substantial.
During these cleanings, we remove built-up plaque and tartar that is impossible to remove using at-home oral hygiene methods. This plaque and tartar is made up of the bacteria that cause tooth decay and various forms of gum disease.
We also can remove any bacterial build-up beneath the gums during these cleanings. This requires special tools that allow us to reach below the gum line and scrape the roots of your teeth clean.
These cleanings allow us to reset your teeth’s bill of health. Giving you a fresh starting point from which to begin anew.
Dental Examinations
Dental exams give us a chance to find out exactly what is happening in your mouth. Over the course of six months a lot can happen within your mouth and after an exam, we can give you an idea of what you will need to do to treat any issues that we can find. Or we may find that we need to intervene to take care of an issue that has progressed past the point of being able to be treated at home.
During a dental examination, we will thoroughly inspect your teeth for issues above and below the gum line. We will take x-rays of your mouth to ensure that we don’t miss any issues in areas that we may have trouble seeing, such as between the teeth or below the gums. We will inspect your teeth for signs of decay and areas of possible over-wear caused by teeth grinding.
We also perform routine oral cancer screenings during the examination process.
X-rays
We use x-rays to check on the health of parts of your mouth that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to see. x-rays allow us to see below the gum line to the roots of the teeth, as well as any weakness in the enamel of teeth. x-rays also make it significantly easier for us to detect certain forms of oral cancer.
We use x-rays to check on any teeth that are still waiting to come in, such as wisdom teeth, or adult teeth.
Digital X-rays
We are proud to offer digital x-rays at our Medford, Oregon office. Digital x-rays produce a tiny fraction of the radiation that normal x-ray produces. Further, when we take digital x-rays they are available to view for both us and you immediately. After we take your x-ray we can project the image immediately onto a monitor for you to view. This allows us to show you any issues that we see right away.
Dental Sealants
Dental sealants are an extremely proactive solution to tooth decay. The molars are the work-horses of our mouth, constantly bearing the brunt of the chewing within our mouth. Molars have so many grooves, pits, and valleys, that food has a tendency to get stuck within. If left or forgotten, food particles can cause cavities in the valleys of our molars. Dental sealants prevent such a thing from happening by acting as a shield for our teeth.
Dental sealants are applied to your teeth in the form of a liquid that we paint over the tops of your molars. This sealant hardens into a protective coating that can last from three to five years.
Please call us today at (541) 773-5441 to schedule your appointment. |
