Why should I keep up my oral health?
The best thing for the long-term health of your body is to keep your teeth your whole life. By visiting your dentist every six months, any dental problems, like cavities, can be caught early and taken care of before they become expensive or worse, you start losing teeth. Keep the health of your teeth and gums in good order, and you can count on keeping your teeth to smile, to speak, to eat and to keep your face looking young your whole life.
What is a Cavity?
A cavity is a hole in a tooth as a result of tooth decay. Everyone has bacteria in their mouth, which eat the same food as you. When the bacteria eat the food they produce acid. Sugar produces a strong acid. The acid dissolves your tooth leaving a hole called a cavity or tooth decay. Fluoride makes teeth resistant to acid destruction.
Why do I need a crown?
A dental crown is a tooth-shaped cap that is placed as a covering over the tooth to restore its shape, size, strength, and/or to improve its appearance.
A dental crown may be needed in the following situations:
- To protect a weak tooth from breaking or to hold parts of a cracked tooth together.
- To restore a broken tooth or a severely worn tooth.
- To cover and support a tooth with a large filling, to keep it from breaking.
What is Prosthodontics?
A prosthodontist is a dental specialist in crowns, bridges, partial dentures, complete dentures, and implant supported replacement teeth. They are experts at cosmetic dentistry.
Prosthodontics is also known as dental prosthetics or prosthetic dentistry and is one of the nine dental specialties recognized by the American Dental Association. A prosthodontist is a dentist that specializes in the esthetic restoration and replacement of teeth, receives three years of additional training after dental school, and restores optimum appearance and function to your smile. A prosthodontist is dedicated to the highest standards of care in the restoration and replacement of teeth.
Dentures? Do I need them?
- Complete Dentures – are used when all teeth are gone.
- Partial Dentures – are used when some teeth are still present
DENTUREWEARERS.COM says that nearly 20 million Americans wear dentures. Dentures aren’t always easy to wear. Approximately 50% of denture wearers have problems with their custom-made teeth. Deciding to get dentures is a permanent decision, there’s no going back. Dentures are not teeth, they are a prosthesis. Like a wooden leg, you can walk with the prosthesis, but running is limited. You can chew food with dentures but are inefficient compared to real teeth and you have to chew four times as much to chew your food.
- Consult with the dentist about the condition of your gums and teeth to determine if you need dentures. Preserving your teeth is clearly better than letting the condition of your teeth deteriorate to the point when they can’t be saved.
- You may want to consider a second opinion when faced with removing teeth. Many times a specialist can save your teeth.
- Go over your options, at Arts & Crafts Dental our ultimate goal is to keep as many of your natural teeth as possible.
- Quality dentures are expensive and should be relined or replaced at least every 5 years. It is far cheaper to keep your teeth.
What does my insurance cover?
Either provided by your employer or a policy that you buy directly from a dental insurance company, dental insurance is meant to help cover some of the costs associated with your dental care and treatments.
Preventative dental care, including regular checkups, cleanings, and routine services, is relatively inexpensive (generally covered by most insurance companies). Restorative dental procedures such as fillings, dental implants and crowns can be quite expensive. Your dental insurance is going to cover a percentage of certain dental procedures, typically involving a co-pay (out of pocket expense paid by the insured). Please contact your insurance company for a complete explanation of benefits accompanied by your coverage. If you still have trouble understanding your policy, please contact us. We can often provide a simpler explanation.
What if I do not have insurance?
Call us now. We have several options available for you from in-house plans to third-party financing to assist with your oral health needs. It is our mission to do as much within our practice as possible to assure that the community has access to dental care. Call us so we can tell you about our wonderful options for patients without coverage, we are here for you.
Payment Options
Here at Arts & Crafts Dental, we have several payment options for maintaining your oral health and that wonderful smile. We have all the options listed below but if you should have any further questions do not hesitate to contact us immediately.