Tooth Coloured Fillings
Invisibly restored adding beauty and strength to teeth (click)

Dental Implants
The most predictable treatment in dentistry (click)

Whitening
The easiest way to get your smile noticed (click)

Tooth Coloured Fillings
Usually we think of tooth coloured fillings just for appearance, they ‘look’ better than black mercury fillings, but there are other reasons for doing white instead of black fillings.

When a tooth has a defect in it whether it is because there is decay in it, or because some of it has just broken off we need to build it back to its original shape and size. Unfortunately, amalgam (black) fillings only fill the space that is cut into the tooth by the dentist, it adds no strength to the already damaged tooth and usually more tooth than needs to be, is cut away to make the cavity retentive. If the cavity is really large the remaining tooth structure is very thin and often breaks leading to a larger filling than ever, or perhaps a crown or even an extraction. White fillings however if placed correctly can make the tooth much stronger by bonding the tooth and filling together (a bit like sticking flimsy wall paper to a wall, the wall paper becomes very strong and takes on the strength of the wall). Also because the white filling bonds to the tooth the cavity does not have to be as retentive so less drilling!! And more of your own tooth is left.

The final reason which you will have heard about is that tooth coloured fillings do not contain any mercury, unlike amalgams.

White fillings do take a long time to do correctly, and if rushed will not bond properly. This will lead to it being a poor fit. At HDIC we carefully build up the fillings in layers, using different colours and densities of filling to ensure we get as realistic looking tooth as possible, we even paint different colours into the filling to make it match the remaining tooth, the filling is often invisible. Some dentists use single colours, the result is sometimes a white filling that looks like a piece of chewing gum stuck in the tooth.

Obviously white fillings have their limitations and sometimes it is better to take an impression and get the laboratory to make the white filling and then to bond it into place. These types of fillings are called inlays and can often be used where the cavity is very big without the need to crown the tooth.

Tooth coloured fillings are not only used to fill cavities but they can be used to build teeth up. Perhaps there is a gap (diastema) between your teeth that you would like filling up, or maybe you have worn some tooth away that needs building up. Perhaps a tooth shape needs altering, perhaps it is further back than the rest of your teeth, with a very carefully placed layered filling a very realistic new front is placed on the tooth, this is called a veneer.  White fillings are very versatile and realistic from a small filling to a full mouth build up where back teeth have worn down and need to be made longer which will then allow the front teeth to be re-shaped as well.

Please look at our gallery on the right for several examples of our own work. All photos are our own and not photos taken of what can be done by someone else.

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Dental Implants
This is one of the most predictable treatment forms in dentistry today. Many scientific trials done show that usually 95% or more of the implants placed 10 years ago are still firmly in place and functioning. As time goes by implant designs are being altered and their success rates are improving even more.

Implants are usually made from titanium; this is almost always very well accepted by the body. It is the material most artificial joints are made from. They are basically artificial roots that are inserted into the jaw. They act like the roots of your own teeth. Once fitted, the bone heals around them, solidly fixing them into place. There are different ways of adding the teeth to the implants depending on how many teeth are missing and what is to be achieved.

Single teeth can be very successfully replaced using a single implant. One of the beauties of this form of treatment is that it does not necessitate damaging healthy teeth, unlike replacing a tooth with a bridge which involves cutting down the neighbouring teeth to hold the replacement tooth in place. Because the implant-supported tooth comes out of the gum like a real tooth we can make very realistic teeth often un-discernible both to yourself and your friends.

Although single tooth replacement has been mentioned any number of teeth including all of them may well be replaced using implants.

Gaps may be filled using solely implants, or sometimes connected to your own teeth as well if the roots are in good condition. Although this might not be always ideal it does sometimes reduce the cost as you don’t have as many implants to pay for.

The other option is to use implants as support or stabilisation of dentures; these are called over dentures.  This might involve just two implants that might have a connection to your implant similar to a press-stud or perhaps a magnet (these are particularly suitable for those patients that find it difficult to use their hands properly to take their false teeth out). The most retentive form of over denture is where several implants are joined together using a connecting bar, and the denture is clipped to it, In some studies forces weighing over a stone are needed to dislodge the denture – That is many times what fixative can do for conventional dentures.

The final option for retaining dentures is to use ‘mini’ implants, these are much thinner than conventional implants and can be tapped straight into the jaw and your denture fixed to these with small hidden clips although these do not support the denture as such they do hold it firmly. This treatment is suitable for perhaps those patients with very little bone to place conventional implants, or perhaps for those patients on a limited budget.

Mini implants have been used to support single crowns and small bridges but very little study has been carried out and although they might be a cheaper alternative to support a crown their use at the present is looked upon more as a temporary measure, and indeed they can be used as temporary implants whilst standard implants might be integrating. They are also sometimes used temporarily to help hold  an orthodontic brace.

Why should I pay so much money for implants, could I not have a bridge or a denture?

‘It can be seen with conventional and bonded bridges that the results are very variable and some results going as far as catastrophic. It is easy to show in the literature the failure of these treatments, it is however much harder to find poor implant results in those studies carried out in recent times.’

The above is an extract taken from a paper written by Mr Warne and can be read in full, along with all references by clicking HERE.

This is a very complicated question and the answers are well documented in the dental research literature. As mentioned before implants are 95% or more reliable over 10years, whereas conventionally crowned teeth are about 88% successful over 10 years and bridges only 75% successful over 10 years, that is to say 1 in 4 bridges will fail whereas only 1 in 19 or greater implants will fail.

Partial dentures are the most destructive form of tooth replacement; particularly just the plastic types and not the precision fitted metal ones. By placing a denture next to one of your own teeth is very likely to cause the loss of more teeth in the future, again studies show that teeth next to implants almost never fail. This is a lot to do with the fact that patients spend more time and care looking after their investment (implant).  Obviously to do a bridge involves having strong teeth either side of a gap so that they can be used to support the bridge. Where the teeth either side are not strong enough, or where the gap has teeth only at one end then a bridge can not be placed and some form of implant replacement would be needed if a denture was to be avoided.

Many people are miserable wearing dentures, usually because they are loose, or that they have to avoid foods they once enjoyed, perhaps they can’t ‘taste’ their food properly any more because the roof of the mouth is covered in plastic. All these things can be corrected by using implants to support a bridge or perhaps a denture that just covers the gum where the teeth originally grew out of.

Bone augmentation. This is a term used when extra bone is needed and can take many forms, It might be a graft from your own bone elsewhere in your body, or it might be other bone or even coral or algae, or, as is more commonly seen now totally artificial bone. The way it works is to act as a scaffold for your own bone to grow into and replace, resulting in new bone formation. Often when a tooth has to be taken out it is wise to fill the space where the root came out of so as to prevent the bone from shrinking. This is a simple procedure when done at the same time as the extraction. Once the bone has shrunk it is much harder to do anything about. Whilst the bone is maintained it is easier to place implants in the correct position. It is easier to make bridges look good, and it gives more ‘gum’ for dentures to hold onto. The biggest cause of problems with dentures is looseness caused by there being very little bone left.

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Please look at our gallery on the right for several examples of our own work. All photos are our own and not photos taken of what can be done by someone else.

Return to the top of this page (click)
 

Please hover over image for caption and click for large image

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