GENERAL DENTISTRY
At The Happy Tooth we are committed to promoting good dental health for adults and children. This way everyone has a better chance of a healthy smile for life.
A regular dental check up is far more cost effective than allowing a problem to develop which may need costly dental rectification work. The regular check up ultimately saves you time, money and inconvenience. We recommend dental check ups every six months. The dental check up helps us to reinforce our education program so that both adults and children can better look after their own teeth for life.
Children’s teeth are extremely important to look after and protect for their general health and wellbeing. It is important to visit the Dentist from as young as two years of age to detect any problems. Visiting the Dentist at an early age helps children become used to having their teeth checked and preventing problems visits later! It is also important that we assess for early development problems and check the growth and development of the teeth.
Gum disease or Periodontal Disease is the most common cause of tooth loss. Gum disease affects 60% of adult Australians. Most people are not aware they have gum disease as it is painless, until it is too late and tooth loss results. Gum disease is caused by a build-up of plaque and tartar on the teeth. Some of the common signs are bleeding or swollen gums, bad breath, loose teeth, gaps appearing between the teeth and teeth drifting.
We restore teeth with white fillings so that the filling looks natural when you laugh and smile. We believe white fillings work just as well as the old traditional amalgam but, like any filling it is important to look after the tooth by proper brushing and flossing, otherwise the decay will return. White fillings can be either composite resin or a porcelain inlay/onlay.
Wisdom teeth often do not erupt (emerge from the bone and gum) properly as there is insufficient space in the jaw. In this situation the wisdom teeth push against the teeth already there. Wisdom teeth can then cause pain or discomfort, so the best thing to do is book an appointment with the dentist. If wisdom teeth go unchecked they can damage the adjacent teeth and sometimes even have a cyst around them.
Today, Root canal therapy can save an infected tooth that previously you would probably have lost. A root canal therapy is needed to treat the tissue inside the tooth when it has died or become infected, otherwise tooth loss occurs. If the infection is left untreated it can spread into the jawbone forming an abscess, which is a serious and potentially life threatening infection if left to spread.
It is important after having a tooth out to look after yourself to insure the area is able to heal properly and to reduce the risk of infection.
After a dental extraction it generally takes six weeks to heal properly. However, for medically compromised Patients and smokers it may take longer than six weeks for the socket to heal. Find out a few tips:
Dentures are removable sets of artificial teeth set into plastic or metal frameworks and rest directly on the gum. Both Complete dentures and Partial dentures are made with either an acrylic or metal framework and acrylic teeth and gums. It usually requires three to six visits to make a denture. After you have received the denture, more visits will be required to make adjustments.
Regardless of age, all people who participate in any sport or activity where there is a risk of contact to the face, needs to wear a mouthguard to prevent dental injury.
The number of people being treated for dental trauma and injuries would be greatly reduced if more people wore correctly fitted custom mouth-guards.