Your teeth are an essential part of not only your oral health but also your well-being. If you ignore the signs that your teeth aren’t in good shape, you’re putting yourself at risk for serious dental and health issues. Thankfully, you can avoid many dental problems with the help of restorative dentistry.
What Is Restorative Dentistry?
People usually visit a dentist in order to get treatment for problems like toothaches or to have a tooth extracted. But there are dental procedures mainly focused on restoring or rehabilitating teeth and improving the patient’s smile. If you’re in Blackfoot, Idaho, you can visit a clinic such as Grove City Dental for treatments classified under restorative dentistry.
That said, dental restoration isn’t just for improving an individual’s physical appearance. It plays a role in your overall health as well. In the most basic sense, it entails correcting damaged teeth, restoring them to their former glory, and preventing the need for future dental procedures. As its name implies, dental restoration aims to fix and repair teeth so they can look and feel normal again.
Here are the most common types of restorative dentistry procedures:
1. Restorative Fillings
A restorative filling treats problems caused by tooth cavities and decay. Also known as a dental filling, it repairs chips, gaps, cracks, and other types of teeth damage. Dentists typically use composite resin as fillings because this material mimics the color of natural teeth.
2. Root Canal
A root canal procedure entails cleaning out the infected pulp in the tooth, which is then flushed, filled, and cured. It usually takes several visits to the dentist to complete this treatment.
3. Dental Crown
A crown is a dental cap placed over an existing natural tooth to restore its strength and functionality. It’s used to repair cracked or damaged teeth and allow them to function normally. After a root canal, a crown may also be a recommended solution to help preserve the original tooth.
4. Dental Implants
When teeth are badly damaged, dentists may have no choice but to extract them. The dentist would then offer to install dental implants to fill the gaps brought about by the tooth extraction. This solution involves replacing missing or extracted teeth with an artificial root typically made from titanium.
Restorative Dentistry’s Impact On Your Oral Health
If you have dental problems, you may not be able to eat, drink, or talk properly. Bad teeth can affect your health and daily routine. They can also damage other teeth or cause infection, leading to tooth loss and even severe health issues. Thankfully, with dental restoration, you can avoid such problems. Read on to learn how restorative dentistry can affect your oral health.
1. Prevents Tooth Loss
Tooth loss, especially for adults, is no laughing matter. Poor oral health is not the only result of this dental problem. Experts also believe that tooth loss could increase the risk of cognitive decline and dementia.
Without a doubt, good dental hygiene is your first line of defense to keep your teeth healthy. Thus, it’s essential to regularly brush and floss your teeth to prevent cavities from developing. However, if yours are already showing signs of decay, you need dental restorative solutions like a root canal or filling so you can avoid having your bad teeth extracted.
Restorative dentistry can fix broken, chipped, or damaged teeth so they can function like regular teeth and help you eat and chew your food properly.
2. Provides Protection To Natural Teeth
While there may be many reasons for fractured or cracked pearly whites, they’re generally the result of damage or trauma to the teeth and surrounding tissues. Regardless of the reason, it’s crucial to protect the tooth from further deterioration and injury by having it fixed as soon as possible. Restorative dental techniques such as fillings and dental crowns can preserve a fractured, damaged, or cracked tooth and shield it from harm.
3. Helps Prevent Bad Breath
Bad breath or halitosis is one sign that you have poor oral health. Although poor dental hygiene can cause foul-smelling breath, many other conditions can trigger this problem. Some of the more common reasons include dry mouth, gingivitis, ulcer, smoking and drinking, and even infection in the ears, nose, throat, or sinuses.
However, cavities may also indirectly cause bad breath. The tiny holes caused by plaque and cavities in your teeth may lead to a proliferation of bacteria. The most common dental conditions caused by bacterial infection are periodontitis and gingivitis.
If you’re suffering from bad breath, you must find out what’s causing it. If diabetes, ulcer, sinus infection, or dry mouth is responsible for your halitosis, then treating those underlying problems could immensely improve the smell of your breath. However, if your halitosis is due to a rotting tooth, then dental restorative procedures could take care of your bad breath and improve your oral health.
4. Promotes Oral Functionality
If you have fractured or missing teeth, you may experience eating and speaking difficulties. Through restorative dentistry, your dentist can restore the essential functions of being able to chew your food properly and speak clearly.
5. Reduces Oral Bone Loss
For many people, dental restorative solutions that address gaps or missing teeth can improve their physical appearance. Indeed, having bridges, dental implants, and dentures could give you a beautiful smile as they enhance your facial features.
However, not many are aware that dental implants or dentures supported by implants are also vital in preventing or even reversing jawbone loss. Since those implants are integrated into the jawbone, they stabilize the bone and surrounding teeth. Moreover, this restorative dental solution provides constant stimulation and stress to the bone, which is needed to prevent atrophy and restore the affected bone’s structure.
6. Ensures A Healthy Mouth
Healthy teeth are usually an indication of excellent oral health. Because restorative dentistry helps repair, rebuild, and even replace teeth, it has a direct impact on the overall condition of your mouth. Not having dental restoration treatments on time often leads to oral issues such as cavities, gingivitis, and bad breath.
You may think that having spaces caused by missing teeth is just an aesthetic problem. But over time, not having bridges or implants to fill in the gaps could cause the remaining teeth to move and shift out of position. Those changes could alter the shape of your jaw or face and lead to other dental problems like difficulty in chewing, decay of surrounding teeth, tooth sensitivity, and bruxism or teeth grinding.
Restorative Dentistry’s Impact On Your Overall Health
Restorative dentistry isn’t just about bringing your damaged teeth back to tip-top condition. As mentioned above, this type of dental treatment can play an essential role in your overall health. Here are some of the ways restorative dental solutions can give you a boost in life:
2. Reduces Vulnerability To Certain Dreaded Diseases
Most people may not be aware that there’s a link between poor oral hygiene and the risk of developing dreaded illnesses such as diabetes, cardiac problems, sepsis, cognitive problems, and even cancer. Poor dental care could lead to the buildup of bacteria in the gums, teeth, and mouth, leading to infection. Unfortunately, microorganisms from untreated dental disease could travel to other parts of your body such as your heart, lungs, and brain.
So, if you have a toothache, inflammation of the gums, or tooth decay, it’s crucial to visit your dentist immediately to address the problem. Your dentist could give you medications to treat the infection or offer restorative dental solutions such as root canal, dental fillings, and tooth extraction to prevent your condition from worsening.
Of course, visiting your dentist regularly, getting your teeth cleaned annually, and following basic dental hygiene are necessary to prevent tooth decay and infection. But if you’ve already developed cavities and other dental problems, restorative dentistry could help address ailments that’d make you vulnerable to the abovementioned conditions.
2. Boosts Confidence And Improves Mental Health
Cosmetic dentistry can make your teeth whiter through bleaching, improve the appearance of chipped or deeply stained tooth via enamel bonding, or correct misalignment using clear braces. These procedures could make your smile brighter and increase your confidence.
Like cosmetic treatments, restorative dental care can help you feel good about yourself and even help boost your mental health. Bridges, dental fillings, dentures, and dental crowns can make a much more significant impact on your confidence because they address dental conditions like tooth cracks, gaps, and deterioration. With better self-confidence, you have more reason to smile and be satisfied with how you look and feel.
3. Helps Prevent Aging
Missing teeth are among the dental health problems that could accelerate the aging process. Having tooth gaps won’t only affect your appearance but also lead to weakness of specific facial muscles and jawbone atrophy. With the help of restorative dental solutions, you could maintain and restore the health of your teeth or replace a missing tooth. As a result, you can bring back your jawbone’s structure and look healthier and younger.
Summary
Regularly visiting your dentist is essential since your oral health ultimately affects the state of the rest of your body. If you have teeth problems, you can get restorative dentistry treatments not just to improve your smile but to prevent other health conditions, too.