Creating healthy smiles in every patient is important to us.
The stronger your teeth are, the less restorative care you’ll need in the future. When your smile is free of disease, our bodies are designed to keep our teeth for life. However, sometimes things happen that put our smiles at risk for problems like cavities, abscesses, or gum disease. That’s why Dr. Tiner and our team provide general dentistry.
Preventive Dental Care & General Dentistry
Regularly scheduled teeth cleanings and exams allow us to pinpoint small concerns so that preventive steps can be taken – reducing or eliminating problems in the future. We also utilize state-of-the-art 3D cone beam scanning equipment for the most detailed exams available in North Texas.
How Often Should I See A Dentist?
People with healthy smiles do best with a preventive care appointment every six months. If you have gum disease, you may need to be seen as frequently as every three months until symptoms are reversed.
Specifically, patients of all ages are welcome, including children. Be sure to ask about our variety of laser dentistry options and our cosmetic dentistry services. Financing options are available for our general dentistry!
Dental Check Ups
Scheduling regular visits with one of our skilled hygienists is very important and skipping dental check ups is never a good idea. A twice yearly exam helps you maintain healthy teeth and gums. This is true even when you do not believe your teeth show signs of decay or other issues. In fact, along with daily home oral hygiene, these teeth cleanings actually prevent a wide range of problems beyond cavities. Also, through the use of x-rays, oral screenings and visual exams, we can find signs of disease and other oral health problems.
Some of the most important reasons for visiting Dentistry By Design for your regular dental check ups include:
- Professional cleaning to remove plaque and tartar
- Finding and treating cavities early
- Preventing, detecting and treating gum disease
- Finding problems through x-rays, screenings and visual exams
Dental Check Ups To Prevent, Find, & Treat Cavities & Gum Disease
Preventive care and treatment provide your earliest defense against cavities and gum disease. When you visit Dentistry By Design for routine dental check ups, you receive teeth cleanings and other important dental services. One of our skilled dental hygienists can see and reach the areas of your mouth that you cannot when you brush your teeth and floss at home, removing any plaque or tartar buildup. We may also use preventive treatments like fluoride and sealants to provide extra protection against tooth decay.
Along with prevention of cavities, visiting Dr. Tiner and his team for regular exams and cleanings also helps you prevent gum disease. This disease damages your oral tissues and ultimately causes your teeth to fall out if left untreated. Regular visits allow us to find the earliest signs of these problems and perform special periodontal cleanings to treat the condition when it occurs.
Keeping Your Bad Habits From Causing Big Oral Health Problems
Do you drink too many sugary beverages, brush your teeth with too much force, bite your nails, smoke or grind your teeth? If the answer is yes, then these bad habits can lead to bigger oral health problems. Visiting Dentistry By Design twice a year for your regular cleaning and check up lets us recognize early signs of problems caused by these types of habits. Dr. Tiner can then provide guidance on how to stop damaging your smile.
Dental Check Ups Prove Important for Everyone
No matter your age, you need regular check ups at the dentist’s office. For people throughout Richardson, TX and surrounding areas, these check ups take place at Dentistry By Design. Dr. Bradford Tiner and his caring staff help you achieve your best oral health through twice yearly dental exams and professional cleanings.
Call Dentistry By Design to schedule your first visit. Through regular dental check ups, your whole family enjoys great dental health.
Dental Sealants
Preventive sealants, also called dental sealants, protect the chewing surfaces of back teeth. These teeth, molars, and premolars, tend to suffer more tooth decay because of their position. These teeth also feature deep nooks and crannies difficult to clean during regular oral hygiene. Therefore, your dentist applies plastic sealant coating to your back teeth to help prevent plaque bacteria and acids from causing cavities.
With your dentist’s care and good home oral hygiene, preventive sealants give you an advantage against tooth decay. Of course, even with sealants you must brush your teeth twice daily and floss regularly. By doing so, you avoid plaque build-up and maintain a naturally attractive smile.
Do You Need Preventive Sealants?
The grooves in your back teeth, called fissures, trap plaque bacteria and acids. This makes your chewing teeth vulnerable to tooth decay. Your toothbrush cannot even reach as far into these deep fissures as needed for thorough teeth cleanings. In fact, some of the nooks are too tiny to fit even one toothbrush bristle.
This is why plaque builds up in these back teeth. The resulting plaque bacteria produce acids that attack your naturally protective tooth coating, enamel. This starts the chain of events leading to cavities and your need for dental restorations, such as fillings, root canal therapy or teeth crowns.
Young people gain the most benefit from preventive sealants. Your Dentistry By Design dentist, Dr. Brad Tiner, usually applies this plastic coating onto the fissure of the first permanent back teeth, once each tooth’s crown emerges from the gums. Using sealant protects these new molars and premolars until all have grown into place. Then, adolescents and even adults benefit from later reapplication of dental sealants for continued protection.
How Your Dentist Applies Dental Sealants
When your dentist applies sealants, the procedure causes no pain. There is no drilling required, so you do not need any numbing treatment or medications. The process of applying sealants involves three simple steps. These include tooth preparation, sealant application and evaluation of the results.
To prepare your tooth, the dental hygienist provides a professional cleaning. Polishing your tooth surface removes debris and plaque from the fissure and pits where the sealants will provide protection. Then the hygienist dries your tooth and etches its surface.
The dentist or dental hygienist next applies the sealant coating onto your tooth’s surface. For this, they use a brush and a special light that cures the plastic to harden and bond it to your tooth surface.
Once they complete the above steps, your dental hygienist and dentist check the sealant and your bite. By the time you leave the dentist’s office, you can chew as you normally do. You also brush and floss your teeth without any changes to your home oral hygiene routine.
Dental Sealants In Richardson, TX
Dentistry By Design’s caring dental team works hard to ensure your teeth stay healthy and strong. This treatment is a partnership between you, the dentist and dental hygienists at Dentistry By Design. If you need dental sealants to protect your back teeth, Dr. Bradford Tiner recommends this dental service.
Call Dentistry By Design today to learn more about preventive sealants and schedule your first visit. Through quality dental care at Dentistry By Design, you can keep your whole mouth healthy for a lifetime of attractive smiles.
