Are Dental Implants Good Teeth Replacements? – Hughes Dental Group – Campbell, CA

Dental implants are slowly but surely becoming the new standard for teeth replacement. Instead of just replacing teeth above the gums, implant posts are surgically placed into the jaw bone, acting as new tooth roots. This comprehensive method offers extensive benefits to your oral health and the look of your smile. Consider how dental implants may be right for you:

Restoring Your Jaw Strength

Many may not realize how harmful it is to lose teeth. When teeth are extracted or knocked out, the root is separated from the jaw bone. Without the root, the jaw bone stops supporting the area with nutrients, and eventually the site of the missing tooth shrinks. With multiple missing teeth, this jaw bone shrinking – a process called bone resorption – weakens the durability of the jaw. This also affects your facial features, creating a sunken look around the mouth.

Once placed, dental implants reverse this process. Made from titanium, your jaw bone naturally fuses to this resilient material and forms a strong bond. This bond encourages bone tissue to return and rebuilds strength for a more stable bite. In some cases, bone grafts may be necessary to widen jaw bone structure for proper placement, but your oral health will be the better for it. Your jaw bone is the foundation for a healthy and beautiful smile, and restoring it with dental implant treatment supports a natural bite and comfortable function.

You Can Have a Beautiful Smile Again

Implant-supported restorations are attached to implant posts and are the final step in this treatment. They are designed to look like your own teeth and to fit inside your smile naturally. Depending on the number of teeth that need replacement, implant posts support individual crowns, bridges, or dentures. All restorations will never fall out like your typical dentures, and permit normal speaking and eating as you would with normal teeth.

Restore a Full Smile with Hughes Dental Group 

It is the mission of our dental team to restore your smile to full function and provide personal attention to address your dental needs. Contact us to schedule your dental implant consultation, and take the first step to obtaining a full smile.

The Benefits of All-Porcelain Crowns

When you experience significant dental decay or simply have a tooth that doesn't look as good as you'd like, a dental crown provides a cosmetic and functional treatment solution. A dental crown is placed over a damaged tooth and is custom-made for your smile. While many think of a crown as being made of metal, our Campbell, CA dentist's office provides all-porcelain crowns for improved cosmetic effect and durability.

Life-Like Cosmetic Restorations
 
Porcelain crowns are made of a luminous material that is designed to look as close to a real tooth as possible. Their advanced aesthetic quality means they are especially good choices for front teeth that require restoration.
 
Crowns can be used to protect and repair a decayed tooth, restore a severely worn-down tooth, covering for a dental implant to replacing a missing tooth, or cosmetically improve a misshapen or severely discolored tooth. When your all-porcelain restoration is complete, it will naturally complement the appearance of the rest of your smile. 
   
Porcelain Crowns vs. Metal-Based Crowns
 
Before porcelain crowns were widely available or made to be as durable as they are today, metal crowns with a tooth-colored covering were the standard treatment choice. While these porcelain-over-metal crowns are durable, they do not offer the cosmetic benefits that porcelain crowns do. The translucency and color-matching possible with all-porcelain crowns make them ideal for matching the qualities of other teeth in your smile.
 
While cosmetic appearance in dental restorations is certainly important, there are many other reasons to choose a porcelain crown. Metal crowns are not sensitive to hot and cold - they can expand and contract with changing temperatures, which can cause discomfort or negatively impact underlying dental enamel.
 
Metal crowns can also cause soft tissue irritation in those allergic to metals commonly used in dental restorations -- these include nickel, chromium and palladium. Porcelain is not associated with causing allergic reactions and is gentle on gum tissue.
 
Learn More about Porcelain Crowns
 
Porcelain crowns can make damaged teeth look as natural as your own. With advancements in materials and fabrication processes, porcelain crowns are as long-lasting and resistant to wear as metal-based restorations.
 
To learn more about options for restoring teeth with all-porcelain crowns, please contact Hughes Dental Group for your consultation.

Traditional Veneers vs. Prep-Less Veneers: Which Will Work Best for You?

Veneers are a popular and effective way to completely transform your smile by covering the fronts of teeth with thin porcelain shells. There are generally two types of veneers – traditional and no-prep veneers. Deciding which will work best for you depends on the current state of your teeth and what issues you’re hoping to fix.

Traditional Veneers vs. Prep-Less Veneer

To apply regular porcelain veneers, teeth must be lightly buffed. This allows the veneer to be placed in a way that looks most natural – preparing teeth by removing a small amount of surface enamel means that the veneers do not add extra thickness to teeth. Teeth that look bulky appear over-treated and can diminish the cosmetic effect of veneer therapy.

Prep-less veneers are ultra-thin – thinner than standard veneers. For this reason, teeth do not need to be buffed or prepared before the veneers can be placed. Because they are not as thick, no-prep veneers can be applied without making teeth look fake.

Which Veneer Therapy is Right for Me?

Veneers are capable of giving you a smile makeover and creating teeth that are bright and even-looking, but one treatment doesn’t work for all patients.  Consider the following dental conditions:

Severe Discoloration -  For enamel that cannot be brightened with teeth bleaching, veneers can give you the white smile you want. However, because prep-less veneers are so thin, they may not be opaque enough to thoroughly correct instances of severely discolored teeth. For these patients, traditional veneers provide best results.

Minor Misalignment – Veneers are sometimes called instant orthodontics because they can change shape of teeth to close gaps. When teeth are prepared and shaped prior to treatment, placing a veneer can even help change the alignment of mildly crowded teeth.

Cracks and Chips – Both no-prep and traditional veneers are capable of masking minor flaws like cracked and chipped teeth.

Un-Balanced Tooth Shape – Veneers can make too-small or oddly shaped teeth look more uniform and natural.  Prep-less veneers work best, in this instance, for patients whose teeth are not already large or bulky. In other cases, traditional veneers deliver best results.

At Hughes Dental Group, we take care to recommend the cosmetic treatment that will deliver the results you want and help address all of your dental concerns. For more information on which kind of veneer therapy is right for you, contact our Campbell, CA cosmetic dentists for your consultation.

Are Dental Implants Worth It?

While dental implants may come with a higher price tag than the initial cost of getting a bridge or partial denture, it’s important to compare this initial investment with the long term care required for other restorations. In addition, patients considering semi-permanent or removable restorations should also examine the overall health implications of tooth restoration alternatives.

Replacing Worn Appliances

Bridges and dentures are replacement teeth that are not completely permanent. While bridges are bonded in place, they are secured to surrounding teeth with dental cement and are prone to breakage and damage over their lifetime. Repairing a broken bridge usually involves replacing the entire unit, which incurs added cost. While bridges may last a while with proper care, they are not life-long restorations and will, at some point, require replacement.

Damaged full dentures can often be repaired by a dental lab, but broken partial dentures would need to be replaced in full in order to ensure comfort and aesthetic. Breaking or damaging part of an implant-supported prosthetic does not mean that both the replacement teeth and the implant need to be repaired, thereby limiting cost for restorative care.

Effect on Oral Health

While bridges and dentures can give patients the appearance of a full and healthy smile, they can sometimes put you at elevated risk for other oral health issues, such as furthered tooth decay, shrinking gum tissue, shifting teeth, or cracked and broken teeth.

Instead, dental implants foster improved oral health through protecting healthy bone volume and not resting on, or negatively affecting, surrounding teeth and tissue.

Longevity of Comfort and Aesthetic

Over time, and as they age, bridges may look less natural – especially if the restoration has a metal base coated in tooth-colored material. Dentures may become loose and fit poorly as gum tissue shrinks, requiring routine readjustment to ensure comfortable fit.

Because implant dentures, bridges, and single crowns are supported by replacement tooth roots, they will feel, look, and act like your own natural teeth. They do not rest on or cause irritation to soft tissue, and because many of our implant restorations are pure porcelain, they will look highly similar to your real teeth.

Dental implants should be considered an investment in your health, wellness, and the appearance of your smile. If you have questions about whether implants will work for you, please call our Campbell implant dentist for more information.

When Do I Need a Dental Crown?

If a dental crown has been recommended as a part of your treatment plan, it’s likely that you have a tooth that has been severely decayed. Dental crowns are used for replacing the entire top part of your tooth – what’s visible above the gum line – to stop the spread of decay, and help you regain a strong bite.  But crowns can be used for a variety of reasons, or can be substituted for other dental restorations in some circumstances.

Crowns Used in Cosmetic Restorations

Dental crowns can be used for more cosmetic purposes as well. Crowns are traditionally made with a metal base coated in a porcelain, tooth-colored finish, but can also be made of pure porcelain or ceramic to more closely mimic the appearance of a natural tooth. If you have teeth that are too-small, or if your natural teeth are gapped and crowded, a cosmetic dentist can place a crown on a tooth to alter its shape and alignment. This method requires buffing-down existing dental enamel, so it’s typically only indicated for a tooth that needs restoration in the event of extensive cosmetic damage, like a large chip or crack.

Alternatives to Dental Crowns

The process for getting a dental crown does involve some preparation. In order to correct instances of decay and damage, the affected tooth is buffed and polished to accept the restoration. When dental enamel is healthy enough, however, more conservative restorations are used to preserve natural tooth structure.

Onlays and inlays can treat moderate decay by filling-in only the damaged parts of teeth, as opposed to the entire top part of a tooth. Onlays and inlays offer enhanced cosmetic benefit as well, if they are created from tooth-colored materials like porcelain.

In the event that a flaw on one of your teeth is small (like a very fine crack or a minor chip), composite dental bonding can sometimes be a viable alternative to a dental crown. Composite resin is built-up directly on teeth to hide any damage or replace broken enamel.

Do I Need a Crown? An Onlay? Or Dental Bonding?

Only your dentist will be able to tell you which restorative treatment will provide the best results for your long-term oral health and wellness. At Hughes Dental Group, we’re proud to offer cosmetic restorations that include porcelain crowns, bonding, and onlays and inlays. Contact our office for more information or if you need help deciding if a dental crown is right for you.

Gum Disease: How does it start and who’s at-risk?

Gum disease is an infection of the soft tissue surrounding and supporting your teeth. As it worsens, it can cause inflammation and attack bone, resulting in bleeding gums, bad breath, tooth decay and even tooth loss.

How Does Gum Disease Form?

Throughout the day, a build-up of bacteria and other materials can take up residence on and between our teeth, which forms a sticky shell of plaque over time. If untreated, plaque can harden to become tartar, which cannot be removed by brushing and instead, must be removed by a dentist.

A build-up of plaque and tartar allows small colonies of bacteria to form in pockets along the base of our teeth, and under the gum. The bacteria erode healthy tissue, and eats away at its surroundings. Gum disease can progress from a manageable condition, to more aggressive infection which can require surgical treatment.

You might be particularly susceptible to gum disease if you fall into one of the following categories:

• Smokers: Smoking is known to irritate the gum tissue, creating the perfect conditions for bacteria to breed and infect gums.
• Hormonal changes: Women going through hormonal changes, including pregnancy, will find their gum tissue softens, which also makes it easier for bacteria to attack.
• Compromised immune system and disease: People who are diagnosed with diabetes, AIDS, cancer and other conditions, do not have the same ability to fight off bacterial infections as healthy people. Also, certain medications for these conditions can reduce the amount of saliva present in the mouth, allowing bacteria to sit longer, if not removed on a regular basis.

While gum disease is common, it can also be effectively treated, or avoided altogether. If you are concerned about the health of your gums, or would like to learn more about how our Campbell, CA dental office treats gum disease, contact our office for your next dental appointment.

What to Expect with Zoom! Teeth Whitening

Getting your smile to look whiter and healthier can be easily achieved with an in-office whitening treatment from Zoom! Unlike hit-and-miss drugstore whitening products, professional whitening from our dental office provides patients with the dramatically brighter results they’re hoping for. If you’re interested in same-day teeth whitening, but aren’t sure what to expect from treatment, consider the following:

During your Teeth Whitening Appointment

To brighten your teeth, our dentists will apply a layer of whitening agent to teeth and then activate the gel with a special light for around 15 minutes. You’ll be provided with eyewear during this phase of treatment. We’ll also use a protective barrier so that the whitening gel does not irritate soft tissue, such as gums or the inside of checks. This application and activation process will be repeated a few times to ensure that your teeth are whitened to the desired shade.

Minimizing any Post Treatment Discomfort

It’s possible for all whitening treatments, even drugstore whitening products, to cause some post-treatment sensitivity. Any discomfort you encounter is temporary and can be alleviated with over-the-counter medication. Patients with especially sensitive teeth may want to consider our at-home whitening with Opalesence, which contains ingredients that help limit sensitivity during and after teeth bleaching.

After Your Same-Day Whitening Treatment

To keep your smile looking fresh, and to avoid staining your teeth immediately after treatment, it’s important to avoid eating and drinking certain things for 48 hours after your teeth have been bleached. Be careful not consume highly pigmented foods and drinks like red wine, tomato sauce, coffee, and dark soft drinks. A good rule of thumb to consider is: if it would stain a white tablecloth, it could stain your teeth as well.

If you have questions about same-day teeth whitening with Zoom! or how you can achieve a brighter smile with any our of whitening therapies, contact Hughes Dental Group for more information.