Natural-looking Restorative Dentistry in Portland, OR
“Restorative dentistry” is the term dental is used for fixing missing or broken teeth. Fillings, crowns (“caps”), bridges, and implants are common restorative treatments. Our goal is to bring back your natural smile, restore your oral health, and prevent future issues.
Why Restorative Dental Procedures Are Important
- Filling empty spaces in the mouth helps keep the teeth properly aligned, and less chance for shifting, causing issues with biting
- Replacing teeth makes it easier to maintain good oral care habits, and helps prevent plaque build-up and the problems that come along with plaque
- Missing, damaged, or broken teeth can affect your health, appearance, and confidence
Your teeth may become damaged due to injury, or may simply need to be repaired as you age. Dr. Quinn provides restorative dentistry to help you regain a healthy, fully functional, and beautiful smile if your teeth have been lost or have become damaged. Each treatment is custom-designed to meet your unique needs so that you can enjoy a healthy smile for years to come.
Missing teeth can cause various problems, from difficulty eating and speaking to poor nutrition and even self-confidence. There are several options available for replacing lost teeth and improving your smile. One of the options is dental bridges.
Dental bridges are a prosthesis (replacement parts) that relies on support from the neighboring healthy teeth surrounding the gap left by a missing tooth or teeth. The healthy adjacent teeth, called abutments, provide support on either side.
Reasons for getting a bridge:
- Fill the space for missing teeth
- Maintain facial shape
- Prevent remaining teeth from drifting out of position
- Restore chewing and speaking ability
- Restore your smile
- Upgrade from a removable partial denture to a permanent dental appliance
- Dental Bridges
Contact our office today to schedule an appointment to go over any questions you have about getting a bridge.
Dental implants are artificial tooth roots that provide a permanent base for fixed, replacement teeth. Compared to dentures, bridges, and crowns, implants are a popular and effective long-term solution for people who suffer from:
- Missing teeth
- Failing teeth
- Chronic dental problems
Implants fit and function like normal teeth, and are quickly becoming the new standard in tooth replacement. Dental implants involve a small titanium screw that is surgically placed into the jaw bone, acting as a replacement root for teeth. Implants can replace single or multiple missing teeth and will eventually fuse to the bone tissue in your gums creating additional support. The use of implants creates a natural-looking smile and enhances your appearance.
Patients with missing teeth can replace them with a permanent alternative to traditional dentures that look and feels like natural teeth. Offered by our Gilbert dental office, dental implants are custom fit to your mouth and help with proper chewing and speaking. As they become permanent fixtures of your mouth, they require no additional maintenance outside of your normal dental routine.
Full Mouth Dental Implants
If you’re missing all of your teeth, an implant-supported full bridge or full dentures can replace them. These implants will replace both your lost natural teeth and some of the roots.
In addition to looking and functioning like natural teeth, implant-supported full bridges (or dentures) are designed to be long-lasting. Implant-supported full bridges are more comfortable and stable than conventional dentures, allowing you to retain more natural biting and chewing abilities.
Since implant-supported full bridges and dentures will replace some of your tooth roots, your bone will be better preserved.
What are the Benefits of Dental Implants?
Implants can improve the overall look of your smile, granting you a more polished and natural appearance. Your implants will feel just like natural teeth and involve none of the fears associated with traditional removable restorations that can slip or fall out. Implants are maintained just like your natural teeth and involve minimal downtime and pain. Dental implants also tend to last longer than alternative tooth replacement methods and are known to restore facial structure. Implants can also provide support for existing bridges or dentures.
Dental Implant Procedure
Depending on the number and type of implants, and replacement teeth you receive, the entire process can take anywhere from three to nine months to complete. By scheduling a consultation at our Gilbert dental office, we can assess your oral health for an implant procedure and make sure that your dental treatment is specific to your needs. Typically the process includes:
INITIAL CONSULTATION
The dentist will thoroughly examine your mouth, including taking X-rays, discuss the various implant options, and develop a treatment plan for your implant.
IMPLANT PLACEMENT
The next step involves the dentist placing the implant in your jawbone where your tooth is missing. Although each patient is unique, typically patients can return to work the next day and resume a fairly normal schedule. Post-implant discomfort is similar to that of any other dental surgery. You may experience some swelling, bruising, minor bleeding, and/or pain. Most patients are able to manage and treat these symptoms with over-the-counter medications such as Tylenol and Ibuprofen.
HEALING
As you heal, your implant and jawbone will grow together during a process called osseointegration, forming a strong foundation for your implant. Overall, the healing process can take several months. Typically patients are on a soft food diet for the first few weeks to ensure the implant heals correctly.
ABUTMENT PLACEMENT
Once your implant is fully healed, and has fused with your jawbone, a small connector (referred to as an abutment) is placed on the implant just above the gumline. In some cases, the abutment can be placed at the same time as the implant.
ATTACHING THE CUSTOM MADE CROWN
After your gums heal, impressions of your mouth and remaining teeth will be made in order to create your custom-fitted crown. Although the replacement won’t decay, it’s important to keep up with your preventive and routine care, including checkups and cleanings.
Dental Implant Success Rates
Dental implants are among the most successful procedures in dentistry. As with any procedure, there is no guarantee that an implant procedure will be successful, but numerous studies demonstrate that implants are 95% to 98% successful for periods of 40 to 50 years. The success rates depend on various conditions such as:
- The general health of the patient
- The quality and quantity of available bone
- The number of teeth replaced
- The type of replacement teeth*
Our dental office will evaluate your needs during an initial consultation and review the available options with you.
Full Dentures
Dentures come with huge benefits for patients and can greatly improve your quality of life. With today’s technology, dentures are created to look natural in appearance and give the impression of a beautiful smile. Additionally, dentures provide support for your facial muscles as well as assist with your ability to chew and eat food, and they also assist with your ability to speak clearly.
Partial Dentures
A partial denture is a removable appliance that replaces missing teeth. It is supported by your existing teeth and fills in those unwanted gaps. It will help to regain the aesthetics and chewing and speaking functions that you require.
What are dentures?
A denture is a removable dental appliance replacement for missing teeth and surrounding tissue. They are made to closely resemble your natural teeth and may even enhance your smile.
Dentures can be made as complete or partial dentures. Complete dentures are used when all of the teeth are missing, while partial dentures are used when some natural teeth remain. A Partial denture not only fills in the spaces created by missing teeth but also prevents other teeth from shifting.
What is the treatment?
We have option types for dentures, the conventional which is made after the teeth have been removed and the gum tissue has healed usually taking 4 to 6 weeks, and immediate dentures which are made in advance and immediately placed after the teeth are removed.
Dentures are very durable appliances and will last many years, but they may have to be remade, repaired, or readjusted due to normal wear.
Reasons for dentures:
- Complete Denture – Loss of all teeth in an arch
- Partial Denture – Loss of several teeth in an arch
- Enhancing smile and facial tissues
- Improving chewing, speech, and digestion
What does getting dentures involve?
The process of getting dentures requires several appointments, usually over several weeks. Highly accurate impressions (molds) and measurements are taken and used to create your custom denture. Several “try-in” appointments may be necessary to ensure proper shape, color, and fit. At the final appointment, your dentist will precisely adjust and place the completed denture, ensuring a natural and comfortable fit.
It is normal to experience increased saliva flow, some soreness, and possible speech and chewing difficulty, however, this will subside as your muscles and tissues get used to the new dentures.
You will be given care instructions for your new dentures. Proper cleaning of your new dental appliance, good oral hygiene, and regular dental visits will aid in the life of your new dentures.
A Dental crown (or cap) is a tooth-shaped “cap” that is placed over a tooth — to cover the tooth to restore its shape size, and strength, and improve its appearance. A crown protects and strengthens tooth structure that cannot be restored with fillings or other types of restorations.
Why Dental Crowns are Needed
You might have been told you need a crown. Why not a filling instead? A crown does a better job of protecting a tooth from fracturing than a filling does. So, if there’s a lot of tooth structure missing or a large filling is being removed or there are inherent fracture lines or cracks in a tooth, a crown is a much better option.
A dental crown may be needed under the following circumstances:
- Protect a weak tooth from breaking
- Hold together parts of a cracked tooth
- Restore an already broken tooth or a tooth that has been severely worn down
- Cover and support a tooth with a large filling when a lot of tooth support isn’t left
- Hold a dental bridge in place
- Cover a dental implant
- Make a cosmetic modification
Same-Day with CAD/CAM
Very few dental offices can do a crown from start to finish in one visit, but with a CAD/CAM machine, we are able to provide same-day crowns at our office.
For any of you who have had crowns made in the past, you remember the dentist preparing the teeth, making a messy impression, making a temporary crown, and then you needed to return for the final seating of the crown.
With CAD/CAM instead of impressions, the prepared tooth is scanned with a camera. That information is transferred to a computer software program, where we design the crown. A porcelain block is carved down to that shape with a CAD/CAM milling machine which takes only about 12-18 minutes.
The CAD/CAM computer allows you to get your treatment done start-to-finish in one day. No more frustration regarding temporary crowns, no more extra visits to the dental office to reseat temporaries, and no more additional time taken away from your day to deal with these issues.
Overall, we think it’s healthier to do this procedure from start to finish in one day.
If you’re unhappy with your smile because of decay or dark fillings in your teeth, you may be a good candidate for composite resins, or tooth-colored fillings.
Tooth-colored fillings are made of a blend, or “composite,” of plastic resins and silica fillers. These substances mimic many of the qualities of natural tooth structure, Composite resins represent several advantages over traditional silver, or amalgam, fillings.
A composite (tooth-colored) filling is used to repair a tooth that is affected by decay, cracks, fractures, etc. The decayed or affected portion of the tooth will be removed and then filled with a composite material that matches your tooth color. There are many types of filling materials available, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Composite fillings are the most widely used today. Because composite fillings are tooth-colored, they can be closely matched to the color of existing teeth, they are conservative and are bonded directly to your own natural tooth structure.
Tooth-colored fillings are more aesthetically suited for use in front teeth or the more visible areas of the teeth. As with most dental restorations, composite fillings are not permanent and may someday have to be replaced. Yet they are very durable and will last many years, giving you a long-lasting, beautiful smile.
Because composite resins are not old metal fillings, we can blend and mix shades to find the perfect color to match your natural teeth. Another advantage is that the tooth/composite bond supports the remaining tooth structure, deterring breakage. Medium and small composites can last 7 to 10 years – just as long as metal amalgams. Best of all, composite resins allow us to keep more of your natural tooth structure intact than amalgams. We believe in taking a conservative approach to your dental care – the more natural tooth structure you keep, the better teeth you’ll likely have in the future.
The best way to determine whether tooth-colored fillings are right for you is to schedule a dental consultation. Call us today for an appointment.