Preventive Dental Care
A preventive program is a cooperative effort by the patient, dentist, and dental staff to preserve the natural dentition and supporting structures by preventing the onset, progress, and recurrence of dental diseases and conditions.
Preventing dental disease starts at home with good oral hygiene and a balanced diet. It is continued in the dental office by the efforts of your dentist and dental hygienist to promote, restore, and maintain your oral health.
Prevention also includes regular dental exams, cleanings, and x-rays. Sealants and fluoride are also great preventive treatments that help protect the teeth.
Prevention helps avoid serious and costly dental problems and is the key to having a healthy, confident, beautiful smile.
Oral Exam
Reasons for Oral Exams
In addition to performing diligent oral care at home, you should see your dentist every six months for an oral exam to ensure continued health of your teeth and gums. If you skip just one routine checkup with your dentist, any new oral health issues can rapidly advance and require expensive and invasive treatments. Regular checkups ensure that problems can be caught early and treated conservatively, and some oral health issues can even be reversed if spotted in the earliest stages. If allowed to advance, however, these problems with your teeth or gums can actually spread beyond your mouth and affect your general health.
Teeth Cleaning
Your oral health depends on two factors: your willingness to brush and floss regularly and your commitment to seeing your dentist every six months for an oral exam and professional teeth cleaning. You may wonder why you need to visit the dental professional so often if you are taking great care of your teeth and gums on your own, but even the most diligent patients can miss hard-to-reach areas of the mouth and leave themselves vulnerable to tooth decay and periodontal disease. Your six-month oral exam will ensure that Dr. Hemrajani spots any problems early in their development, but professional teeth cleaning may prevent those oral health issues, the most devastating of which is periodontal disease, all together
X-Ray
Dental X-rays are essential, preventative, diagnostic tools that provide valuable information not visible during a regular dental exam. Dentists and dental hygienists use this information to safely and accurately detect hidden dental abnormalities and complete an accurate treatment plan. Without X-rays, problem areas can go undetected.
dental X-rays use controlled pulses of radiation to create images of the internal structures of the jaw and mouth. Dental X-rays are useful for viewing jawbones and various tooth structures. They can find and image cavities, bone or gum loss, periodontal disease, benign or malignant tumors, and other normal or abnormal structures within the lower portion of the head.
Sealants
A sealant is a thin, plastic coating applied to the chewing surface of molars, premolars and any deep grooves (called pits and fissures) of teeth. More than 75% of dental decay begins in these deep grooves. Teeth with these conditions are hard to clean and are very susceptible to decay. A sealant protects the tooth by sealing deep grooves, creating a smooth, easy to clean surface.
Sealants can protect teeth from decay for many years, but need to be checked for wear and chipping at regular dental visits.