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Services Offered
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Fillings
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Why you need them: Plaque - a sticky, almost colorless layer of bacteria that forms on your teeth - mixes with the sugars in food to produce decay-causing acids. When decay creates a cavity, the dentist usually fills it with a durable material, most often a composite (a tooth-colored material), a metal alloy called amalgam, or gold.
Visits: One
Durability: A filling can last from five years to a lifetime, depending on its location, the material used, and the care you give your teeth. Gold has the longest lifespan, followed by amalgams, and then composites.
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Porcelain Veneers
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Why you need them: Porcelain veneers are hard, tooth-shaped shells adhered onto the surfaces of prepared teeth in much the same way that false fingernails are applied. Veneers correct or camouflage the same problems that bonding does - discoloration, damage, or misalignment - but the veneers last longer.
Visits: One visit is needed for preparation: the teeth are buffed to remove a thin layer of enamel, and then an impression is taken. During the second visit, the dentist applies and polishes the veneer.
Durability: The life span is roughly four years or more.
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Crowns
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Why do you need them: Crowns (sometimes referred to as caps) are used to cover teeth that have been weakened by decay around fillings or that are severely damaged, decayed, chipped, discolored, or misaligned. Crowns may also be required after a root canal or when a tooth cracks or breaks. The most common materials used for crowns are metal (gold), porcelain, or porcelain fused to metal.
Visits: Two
Durability: Crowns can last from five to more than 15 years, depending on the material used and the care you give your teeth.
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Bridges
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What are they: Bridges are tooth replacements that are attached to adjoining natural teeth. Fixed bridges and bonded bridges are the two most common kinds.
Who is a candidate: Bridges work best for people who have only a few missing teeth. Both fixed and bonded bridges require that the adjoining teeth be healthy and have adequate gum and root support.
Visits: Usually two or three.
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Bleaching
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Bleaching lightens surface stains caused by coffee, tea, food, tobacco, and age.
Visits: Six to eight teeth can be bleached during one visit, but teeth may need to be bleached several times to return them to their natural color. Ask your dentist about home bleaching. If he or she prescribes that method, you'll wear a tray fitted to your mouth and filled with solutions a few hours each day.
Durability: Bleached teeth may need touching up every year.
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Root Canals
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Why you need them: If a tooth's pulp, which contains nerves and blood vessels, becomes infected or damaged because of decay or injury, root-canal treatment is often the only way to save your tooth and repair the damage.
Visits: One to three, depending on the pulp's condition. If the tooth is abscessed (the pulp has died and infection has entered the bone), the infection may have to be drained before the root can be filled.
Durability: The material used to fill the root canal will probably last a lifetime, but eventually the filling or crown may need to be replaced.
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