We attended the Virginia Dental Association Meeting September 15-18th in Norfolk, Virginia and learned about the latest advances in dentistry. I also was able to talk about the future of dentistry with the President of the American Dental Association, Dr. Gary Roberts, and Virginia Dental Association President, and friend, Dr. Vince Dougherty. As Virginia Dental Association Delegates we voted on issues that effect dentists and dental care in the state of Virginia.
This is what happens when you don’t brush your teeth and do not see a dentist for 10 years. Most of this 64 year old patient’s teeth looked like these two that I uploaded here. Some are just too decayed and will need to be extracted, these two teeth I was able to restore with bonded ceramic composite restorations. Here’s are his before and after photos.
This 68 year old patient broke his 3 front teeth. Unfortunately the teeth were broken below the gumline and non-restorable, and we had to extract them. We placed dental implants at the time of extraction and I made him a temporary partial denture to use for 4 months while he is healing. After healing and the dental implants have osseointegrated, I will place fixed crowns on top of the implants, and cement them in place.
This 65 year old patient broke his front tooth off biting into corn on the cob at his office picnic party. I was able to glue the tooth back in temporarily while I made him a temporary partial denture. We then extracted the remaining root and placed an implant. In a few months after the implant has fully osseointegrated I will make the permanent fixed cemented implant tooth crown.
This patient was playing hockey and his left front tooth was fractured by a hockey stick. I restored the tooth in 20 minutes with a ceramic composite bonded restoration. Looks great and he’s happy to get his great smile back.
This next patient fractured the her front tooth biting into a hard piece of bread. I quickly repaired this tooth too.
This patient chipped his lower tooth when he bit down hard and the tooth fractured against the upper incisor. This was a quick and easy repair.
This patient was missing 2 lower right back teeth, and the tooth in between was broken, I restored him with 2 implants and a porcelain crown on the tooth between.
This 30 year old patient drinks lemon water all day long. She also grinds her teeth. The grinding causes her teeth to crack and the acid from the lemon juice erodes the tooth causing demineralization of enamel allowing tooth decay.
Next, his 23 year old patient had a crack in his back upper molar. The tooth had a 10 year old amalgam restoration in it. The crack allowed decay to spread deep under the old amalgam filling. The tooth was not sensitive and the patient was unaware that he had a cavity. I removed the old filling and cleaned up the decay, placed a fluoride base to protect the pulp and restored the tooth with a beautiful ceramic composite.
