From fillings to root canals to crowns & bridges we offer a full range of dental services using the latest technology and techniques to provide you with a healthy, great-looking smile.
If your teeth are having some trouble with decay, fractures, or wear, we can help rebuild and secure them. We offer fillings as well as crown and bridge work for larger restorations. If you are missing one or more teeth, we also are happy to make dentures and restore on dental implants.
Your comfort is one of our highest priorities.
While we can’t promise pain-free treatments, we do take your comfort very seriously: our goal is for you to experience as little discomfort as possible. Our advanced equipment allows our skilled team members to provide gentle, effective dental care. We understand that some patients need extra time and care, so we explain what will happen and we don’t rush procedures.
If you’re getting a filling, root canal or any other surgical procedure, we provide plenty of local anaesthetic so that you won’t experience any pain during the procedure itself. Afterwards, our patients often require only over-the-counter medication like Advil or Tylenol for a couple of days, but we do also prescribe a short course of Tylenol-3s if required after more complex procedures.
Cavities & Fillings
Your teeth get a lot of use. They can get small chips or fractures, and they’re also prone to cavities, which come from bacteria eating away at them (which is why regular brushing and flossing are so important!)
When we put in a filling, we remove the damaged area while retaining the remaining solid tooth structure, then we replace the bit that’s missing.
We only use filling materials approved by Health Canada. Most often we use a white composite filling material made of plastic and ceramic or quartz, which blends in well with visible teeth. It requires a dry tooth, so in teeth which are hard to keep dry, we use often use a glass ionomer material that is still white coloured and bonds to the tooth in a similar way as composite does.
Root Canals
A root canal, also called endodontic therapy, is generally required when there has been an infection inside the crown and roots of a tooth. This procedure removes the living tissue from inside the tooth. The area is then disinfected to kill any remaining bacteria and filled in with rubber.
With a serious infection, we may drain as much fluid as possible on your initial visit, then antibiotics before the procedure. These steps will help reduce the swelling and increase the effectiveness of the anaesthetic before we begin the root canal itself.
A root canaled tooth usually should have a crown or bridge. Once you’ve healed from your root canal, you can proceed to the crown or bridge procedure.
Crowns & Bridges
If a tooth is fractured or has a lot of decay, it may not be able to support a filling, so a crown is required. This process involves capping and wrapping the tooth so that no one specific spot is likely to break off in future.
A bridge is a couple of crowns connected by a prosthetic tooth. Crowns and bridges can be made of several materials: gold alloys, porcelain, or a combination of materials.
These usually require two appointments. At the first appointment (which takes about 90 minutes) we shape the tooth, make molds so the dental lab can create your permanent crown or bridge, and install a temporary crown/bridge for you to use until the second appointment.
The second appointment, where we install the permanent crown or bridge, usually takes only half an hour or so.
Note: some teeth need to be root canaled prior to having crown or bridge work. Sometimes this is due to the depth of decay or fractures, sometimes we need additional retention from inside the tooth.
Tooth Extractions
Sometimes teeth must be removed. This may be wisdom teeth, or one or more teeth that are fractured, so badly decayed that they can’t be repaired, or that need to be taken out for orthodontic reasons. We can remove teeth comfortably and effectively in our offices, including most wisdom teeth.
Once a damaged tooth has been taken out, we can create a prosthetic that will fill in the hole: a bridge, denture, or implant.
Healing time after an extraction varies. Gum closure is often quite quick but for the bone itself to heal and round off it takes approximately four months.
