Root Canal — The Road to Pain Relief
Each year in the United States, about 15 million root canal procedures are performed, helping millions to find much-needed relief from pain and, perhaps more importantly, help them hold onto their teeth.
The Importance of Preventive Dentistry
It’s hard to overstate the importance of healthy teeth as they play no small role in everything from how you eat and talk to your ability to smile with confidence. So, you want to do everything in your power to protect and preserve your teeth, which is our primary goal with preventive dentistry.
Under the guidance of Drs Colin Au and Jeffrey Yoshihara, the dental team here at Peninsula Dental Excellence provides comprehensive preventive care for your teeth.
To illustrate the importance of preventive dental care, we’ve outlined just a few of the many benefits here.
Preventing tooth loss
Once your baby teeth make way for your secondary teeth, these new teeth are designed to provide you with years of great service. Unfortunately, there are two problems that can jeopardize your teeth along the way: tooth decay and gum disease.
The numbers surrounding these dental issues are alarming if you consider that the CDC reports that more than one in four adults have untreated tooth decay and nearly half of adults over the age of 30 have some degree of gum disease.
These problems are so widespread that a whopping 178 million Americans are missing at least one tooth and 40 million are missing all of their teeth.
One of the primary goals of our preventive dentistry is to stop tooth decay and gum disease from taking hold or, at the very least, halt existing issues in their tracks.
And this effort isn’t all that difficult if you keep up with your twice-annual dental cleanings and exams. During these visits, we not only thoroughly clean your teeth and gums, we also check for signs of early decay or periodontitis, which allows us to take the necessary steps to preserve your dental health. In other words, a filling now can save you from a long road of tooth loss and replacement.
Dental health for kids
While the numbers we present above pertain to adults, kids in the US also struggle with tooth decay, even in their baby teeth. In fact, 20% of kids between the ages of 5 and 11 have untreated tooth decay, as well as 1 in 7 kids between the ages of 12 and 19.
To protect your children’s teeth, we recommend that you come see us regularly after their first teeth come in so that we can take preventive steps, such as fluoride treatments and dental sealants. These steps are in addition to their regular professional cleanings.
These preventive visits also afford us an opportunity to track their early dental health and ensure that your child’s permanent teeth come in properly.
Recognizing other dental problems
Outside of tooth decay and gum disease, through regular preventive care we’re able to monitor your dental health for other problems, such as teeth grinding or temporomandibular joint disorders.
For example, if you grind your teeth, they’re more prone to decay and disease. We can recognize the early signs of bruxism (the medical term for teeth grinding) during your routine visits with us and outfit you with a sleep guard to protect your teeth.
As with most everything in life, a few steps toward prevention can save you an awful lot of trouble down the road, which very much applies to your dental health. To schedule your preventive visit at our Mountain View, California, office, simply click here.
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