Restorative dentistry is a field of dental care that focuses on restoring your damaged teeth with advanced dental treatments and cutting-edge materials. These treatments can give you a healthier, complete smile that can last a lifetime.
Whether you’ve suffered damage to your teeth or gums, your Marietta go-to dentist, Dr. Foxhall, offers several restorative procedures to help revitalize, maintain, or achieve the smile you’ve always wanted.
The Importance of Restorative Dentistry
Restorative dentistry helps repair or replace damaged and missing teeth, restoring oral health and function. You might benefit from restorative care if you’re dealing with:
- Cavities or tooth decay
- Damaged or broken teeth
- Missing teeth
- Severe gum disease (periodontitis)
Your teeth work together as a team to help you speak, eat, and smile with confidence. When one or more teeth are missing, it disrupts this harmony, putting extra strain on your remaining teeth and tissues. Left unaddressed, this can lead to oral health problems and even impact your overall well-being.
Restorative dentistry provides timely solutions to prevent these issues, protecting your health and enhancing your smile.
What Happens If Tooth Loss Goes Untreated?
Replacing missing teeth promptly is essential to avoid potential problems with your oral health and quality of life. Some consequences of untreated tooth loss include:
- Nearby teeth can shift into the empty space, disturbing your bite and potentially causing jaw pain, migraines, or TMJ disorders.
- Tooth roots stimulate your jawbone, keeping it healthy. Without them, the bone may shrink, leading to further tooth loss and changes in facial structure.
- Gaps in your dental arch can trap food and bacteria, raising the risk of gum infections and other oral health problems.
- Missing teeth can make it harder to pronounce words clearly and enjoy your favorite foods.
- Tooth loss can affect the natural curve of your lips and cheeks, leading to a sunken, aged appearance.
- To compensate for missing teeth, your remaining teeth may endure more stress, leading to further damage or decay.
Addressing tooth loss with restorative dentistry protects your smile, your confidence, and your health.
Our Restorative Dental Services
All of your teeth play an important role in speaking, chewing, and maintaining proper alignment of other teeth. For that reason, tooth loss can affect your smile in various and different ways.
We offer several restorative services to help you recover your oral health, no matter your circumstances.
Dental Fillings
Tooth decay is a common issue that can weaken your smile. After carefully removing the cavity, we use natural-looking composite resin fillings to restore your tooth.
Composite resin is shaded to match your tooth’s color, blending seamlessly with your smile. This material also allows us to preserve more of your natural tooth, ensuring a long-lasting and healthy restoration. Additionally, the fluoride in composite fillings helps protect against future decay.
Dental Implants
Dental implants are a durable, natural-feeling solution for replacing missing teeth. Each implant consists of a titanium post that bonds with your jawbone, creating a strong foundation for a realistic, custom-designed replacement tooth.
With implants, you can enjoy eating, smiling, and speaking with confidence, knowing that your teeth look and function naturally while preserving your facial structure.
Dental Bridges
Dental bridges are restorative appliances that can replace one or several missing teeth by relying on your surrounding natural teeth. It consists of a prosthetic tooth, with a crown attached to the side. The crowns fit over your natural teeth, and the artificial teeth span the gap between them.
Bridges are either permanently attached (fixed bridges) or can be removable, and they will restore your smile for several years to come.
Dental Crowns
Dental crowns are a cap that fits over your tooth. Where a person’s teeth has suffered extensive damage, often after a large cavity or a dental fracture, crowns can be attached on top to make it appear “as new.”
Dentistry at Kennestone’s goal is to provide dental restorations that are virtually undetectable, which is why we custom-design every crown to make dental crowns look and feel like your natural teeth. With proper care and good oral hygiene, your dental crown can last for 20 to 30 years.
Dentures
Dentures are removable appliances that replace missing teeth, restoring your ability to speak, eat, and smile comfortably. We offer complete dentures for patients who have lost all their teeth and partial dentures to restore smaller gaps.
To maintain a proper fit, dentures may need to be relined or replaced over time. Regular checkups help ensure your oral tissues remain healthy and your dentures function as they should.
Tooth Extractions
Sometimes, dental extractions are necessary before considering dental restoration options. Some teeth are extracted because they are severely decayed, or they may have broken in a way that cannot be repaired.
After an extraction, finding an adequate dental restoration is key.
Enjoy the Benefits of Restorative Dentistry
Undergoing a dental procedure can feel scary, especially if it’s one you’ve never had before. However, our priority at Dentistry at Kennestone is maintaining your comfort at every stage of the process. We will explain in detail what’s to come and conduct extensive studies to ensure your mouth is healthy enough to undergo any treatment successfully.
The sooner you replace a missing tooth, the less likely you will develop other problems later, so reach out!
