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Dental Check-Ups to Help Patients in Liverpool Maintain Their Beautiful Healthy Smiles

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

Here at Liverpool Dental Implant and Aesthetic Dental Spa we not only provide amazing cosmetic treatments for our Liverpool patients, we also ensure that their teeth, mouth and gums are in the very best of health.

Visiting the dentist every 6 months will allow your dentist to keep an eye on the health of your mouth and notice any changes quickly, after which they will be able to treat them swiftly, before any lasting damage is made.

Why are dental check-ups so important?

Problems such as tooth decay and gum disease begin unnoticed. In the case of tooth decay no pain will be felt until the infection has eaten through your dental enamel and dentin and infested the inner dental chamber. This will often mean that the tooth must be treated using root canal treatment, or it will have to be removed. Gum disease may start as some mild bleeding when you brush your teeth, but can soon spread to the rest of your mouth, causing pain and tooth loss.

You dentist can spot even the smallest signs of decay and disease and will use preventative treatments such as fillings, periodontal cleaning and fluoride sealants.

Dental check-ups and oral cancer screening

Another disease your dentist can check for is oral cancer. The number of oral cancer cases rose to 6,000 in 2011 and it is thought these numbers could get even bigger. Risk factors for oral cancer include drinking, smoking and the HPV virus. Symptoms include white and red patches found within the mouth, sores that take a long time to heal and pain in the neck or back of the throat.

If caught in the early stages treatments are 90% successful, however, if the problem is allowed to progress this drops to 50%.

It is therefore imperative that you visit your dentist every 6 months, so they will be able to spot and prevent these diseases and conditions from developing.

Tags: Dental check-up, liverpool, Oral cancer screening, Oral cancer screening Liverpool
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Treating the Effects of Liverpool Patients’ Chipped and Worn Teeth with Veneers, Cosmetic Bonding and Crowns

Friday, May 25th, 2012

Daily wear and tear, teeth grinding and a diet high in sugar can all reek havoc on the strength of your teeth and many people will suffer some form of chipping or cracking in their lifetime.

However, at Liverpool Dental Implant and Aesthetic we have numerous treatment options to restore the smile of our patients in Liverpool and beyond.

What treatment can I used to repair my broken teeth?

There are numerous treatments we can use for the correction of dental damage, which include:

Cosmetic bonding-Cosmetic bonding is the cheapest option for restoring damaged teeth and involves using tooth coloured resin material to fill in the missing portion of the tooth. This material is moulded and polished into shape, however, it is only suitable for small tooth chips and cracks and isn’t as durable as other methods.
Veneers-veneers are made of thin shells of porcelain, which are bonded to the front of your teeth to restore any missing tooth enamel. Veneers are more expensive that cosmetic bonding, but they look more like your natural teeth and last a lot longer.
Crowns-crowns are used when the tooth is very damaged and requires strengthening as well as aesthetic treatment. Crowns are often fitted after root canal treatments, to bolster the injured tooth.

How do I prevent my tooth from becoming chipped?

There are a number of ways to stop potential chipping and fracturing, which include:

Brushing your teeth every night, to prevent the build-up of plaque and bacteria, which eat away at the dental enamel.
Lowering the quantity of sugar consumed throughout the day. This may involve eating a sweet treat along with a meal, which will cut down on the number of exposures to acidic food your teeth have to undergo.
When drinking sugary drinks such as pop, or acidic drinks like orange juice, use a straw, which will direct the liquid to the back of your mouth.
When eating acidic or sugary food eat a small cube of cheese, which will neutralise the affect of the acid in your mouth.
Try not to bite into anything hard, or try to remove things with your teeth, like bottle tops or clothing tags.

Tags: Cosmetic bonding, Cosmetic bonding Liverpool, liverpool, Porcelain veneers
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Liverpool Patients with a Gap in Their Smile can Find the Treatment they need with a Dental Bridge

Wednesday, April 25th, 2012

Losing a tooth is never a pleasant experience and the effects of the tooth loss can, however, go way beyond the cosmetic: Your speech, your bite and even the shape of your face can be significantly altered by the loss of a tooth! Not to mention the increased risk of gum disease.

The three types of Dental Bridge

This is where dental bridges come in: Bridges are essentially false teeth that are anchored onto the neighbouring teeth in order to hold them in place. Dental bridges come in three types: The traditional fixed bridge (the most common type), the resin-bonded or ‘Maryland’-bonded bridge and the cantilever bridge.

Which bridge is most appropriate tends to be determined by the health of the surrounding teeth and the size of your gap. Cantilever bridges, for example, are best used when there is a healthy tooth on only one side of the gap. This bridge is anchored to only one tooth, on one side, and so is best used on ‘low stress’ areas, such as the front teeth.

Fixed bridges, the popular ones, can be used anywhere but require crowns to be attached to the teeth on each side of the gap. The resin bonded bridges, however, do not require crowns on the surrounding teeth, which can be handy when these teeth are perfectly healthy. These types of bridge, like the cantilevers, are best suited to areas, such as the front teeth, as there is less stress upon the teeth.

Bridges generally last up to 15 years, but this requires a good oral hygiene routine, which you must use daily, to ensure the longevity of your dental bridge.

Come and ask

If you have any queries, make sure to book a consultation with a Liverpool dentist! We will be more than happy to talk you through the variety of bridges available and which would be best for you.

Tags: Dental bridge, Dental bridge Liverpool, liverpool, Traditional dental bridge
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Patients in Liverpool can Replace Any Missing Teeth with Long Lasting Dental Implants

Friday, April 13th, 2012

Information on dental implants

Be it the ravages of time or an unexpected fist, many perils lie in wait to take your teeth. Should the unfortunate occur, a stand in is required for both ornamental and practical reasons. Dentures have previously been the common solution, but increasingly dental implants are becoming a popular alternative as a result of their longer term effectiveness and their ability to preserve and aid surrounding healthy dental tissue.

Benefits of implants

Dental implants offer an improvement over false teeth and dental bridges in a variety of ways. Perhaps the most obvious advantage, in contrast to dentures, being functionality: A dental implant, when done correctly, should function just as well as your actual teeth, so no worrying about hard foods or inflammation of the gums. A common occurrence post-tooth loss is atrophy (the bone surrounding where tooth used to be gradually decaying) which can lead to a change in jaw shaping. A dental implant can help preserve and, in some cases, stimulate the growth of surrounding bone structure for patients in Liverpool.

The main advantage of an implant over a traditional dental bridge (another type of fake tooth) is that in the implant’s case there is no need to affect healthy surrounding teeth. Traditional bridges usually require neighbouring teeth to be etched and prepared in order to fix the replacement teeth in place using crowns. Implants, however, require no special cleaning procedures, unlike dentures and bridges, and should be indistinguishable from your surrounding teeth.

A few requirements

Implants require a reasonable quantity and quality of bone tissue to be available from the patient, which should not be a problem for most healthy individuals. It should be noted, however, that excessive drinking and smoking can hinder the success of implant treatment.

Tags: Dental implants, Dental implants Liverpool, dentures, liverpool
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How to Clean Your Teeth Properly after an Easter Egg Binge this Easter Sunday in Liverpool

Friday, April 6th, 2012

The Easter egg: A seemingly innocuous cavity monster. Behind that cute facade, the Easter bunny is little more than a plaque merchant. This may sound pretty polemical, but looking after your teeth during, and post a chocolate binge is an absolute must!

A question of time

Realistically, Easter eggs won’t pose too much of a threat provided some simple rules are followed, even before you start: Try and keep when you eat them to after meal times, as snacking on them throughout the day can actually cause more damage. Also, try and keep some sugar free chewing gum to hand for between meals (in case you do succumb). This will encourage the flow of saliva, reducing the effect of sugar on teeth.

Regular brushing

Brush your teeth twice a day for two minutes with fluoride toothpaste, just as you would any other day. However, make sure you leave at least an hour after eating chocolate before you brush, as the acid in food will soften your tooth enamel and brushing can potentially wear the enamel away. Waiting an hour gives your saliva a chance to neutralise the acid. Brushing before bed is especially important as saliva production slows down at night. Spitting after brushing, as opposed to rinsing, is recommended, as rinsing can reduce the effectiveness of the fluoride. Also, be thorough when brushing: Leave no nook or cranny unbrushed!

To conclude

Do remember that Easter comes round just once a year so, provided you keep your teeth clean and eat healthily the rest of the year, one decadent weekend shouldn’t do too much harm. Just try and stick to the rules above, not just for Easter but for every day! If you have any concerns, make sure to book an appointment with your Liverpool dentist.

Tags: Dental check-up, Dental check-up Liverpool, Dental hygienist, liverpool
Posted in Dentistry, gum disease, oral hygiene, tooth decay | Comments Off on How to Clean Your Teeth Properly after an Easter Egg Binge this Easter Sunday in Liverpool

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