Wine Country Perio & Implantology

When is the right time to use implants to replace missing teeth?

Question: My daughter is 15 years old and is just finishing wearing braces. She is missing two of her upper front teeth which never developed. The orthodontist made space to have them replaced, but now we’re told she has to wait 2 to 3 more years before she can have implants. She desperately wants her teeth replaced. Why can’t implants be done now?

Answer: This is an important question and the current wisdom is not to have implants placed until jaw and facial growth are complete. Although it varies from person to person, growth of the jaws in most cases is not complete until late teens.

Continue reading the answer to this question here …

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You did it. You implemented a new marketing strategy and have three new patient appointments this month. Problem is, only one of them shows up for their appointment. Perhaps your new patients do show up, but you have a cancellation for a two-hour bridgework visit. Studies have shown that 1 in 10 patients miss dental appointments, and up to 1 in 8 miss teeth cleaning appointments. If this costly and frustrating experience happens to you regularly, resulting in hours of dead time every month, it may be time to rethink your patient no-show policy and how you handle new patients.

Labor Day is a few days away. This holiday has come to symbolize the end of summer, so we celebrate the contribution of trade and labor organizations with one last barbecue and a chance to be outside before the weather changes. Like using Day Light Savings to remind us to check home fire alarm batteries, maybe we should use this holiday to remind us to schedule an Oral Pathology examination with Dr. Paul Steigerwald | Periodontics & Dental Implants.

The news may be shocking for some but bone regeneration for implant dentistry is a routine procedure in periodontal and oral surgery. With new technology, grafting materials are able to regenerate lost bone with predictable results. This ability is critical for patients who need to replace missing teeth but lack enough bone for anchoring implants. Learn more about the process of guided bone regeneration plus some questions to ask our office should you find yourself lacking sufficient bone volume for an implant in this article, “Can Dentists Rebuild Bone?”

Computed tomography (CT), and the three-dimensional images it provides, was developed in 1973. The technology, while primitive, was amazing to the practitioners involved. Those practitioners where at a loss of how to apply CT, and had no idea of the profound effect it would have on the surgical and medical community. It took several years of development and a new segment of the specialty of radiology, but CT has become an integral part of surgical treatment of the patients of today.

Oral and maxillofacial surgeons utilized CT routinely in the management of trauma and pathology, and are accustomed to the technology. In a dental practice, practitioners depend almost entirely on two-dimensional imaging utilizing plain films. The advantages of CT technology has been unrealized in the dental practice.

Every expectant mother knows that with the excitement of being pregnant comes a multitude of questions. However, when it comes to pregnancy and its relationship to oral health, many mothers are unaware of the questions they should be asking. They may not be aware of the link that exists between their oral health and their systemic (general) health and the impact that it can have on a developing child. For example, there is important new information that suggests that parents and their oral health may have a significant influence on the development of tooth decay in their children. And with the hormonal changes, namely elevated levels of progesterone, expectant moms are at a higher risk of periodontal (gum) disease during the second to eighth months of pregnancy. Learn more in this comprehensive article, “Pregnancy & Oral Health.”

If you have been informed that you have periodontal disease, it is helpful to understand some of the aspects of treatment. One of the first and possibly the most important is behavior change. Simply put, you must make changes in your oral hygiene routine to prevent or limit future disease. The next aspect of treatment typically is removing the calculus or tartar and other bacterial toxins that have become ingrained into the root surfaces of your teeth. Periodontal cleaning, root planing by ultrasonic and hand scaling instruments, will be carried out usually with local anesthesia (mild numbing of the affected areas). These painless procedures promote infection control and healing while requiring little more than aspirin or ibuprofen for a day or two following treatment. Learn about other treatment options in “Understanding Gum (Periodontal) Disease.”

The lack of teeth or an ill-fitted denture can be far more detrimental to your overall health than most people can imagine. It can have a horrific impact on your self-confidence, your ability to speak clearly, and leave you with serious nutritional disadvantages. These troubling issues are the reasons behind the research, continued development, and latest techniques in Implantology. Below is a link to a comprehensive article discussing the treatment options, the science behind them, and how this new standard of care, the two-implant overdenture, could change your life—permanently while reducing your chances for lower jawbone loss by 75%! To see if this procedure is right for you, continue reading “Implant Overdentures for the Lower Jaw.”