White Fillings using Composite or Ceramic alternatives, when dental decay and cavities detected early with laser probes, avoid or minimise the size of your fillings, avoid root canal treatments, broken rotten teeth and toothache. Poor cleaning leads to bad breath, gum diseases and infection, abcesses and extractions - ALL can be prevented or treated early so they don't become even worse. Some people feel guilty if they haven't been to a Dentist for some time, so they stay away even longer until they are in pain, teeth break or just rot away to decayed stumps. Yes, regular Dental visits help keep you healthy but even if you've saved up some problems, better to get advice and treatment late than way too late to help. Dentistry has improved greatly in technology and comfort, so please don't put off getting the advice and care you need to get Dentally Healthy and then STAY Dentally Healthy too!

Please read below for information on Dental decay, cavities and how one can prevent these for better Dental Health ! We even have laser technology that detects decay BEFORE a cavity can be seen in the mouth or on old-fashioned X-rays !!!

Please note: Disclaimer - All information on this site is purely for general interest only - you should always seek external "independent" advice before acting upon ANYTHING published on this site. Thankyou.Copyright © 2001-2007 Dr.A.Kilcoyne. All rights reserved.


The BEST FILLING of all is Healthy Tooth, so avoiding cavities and their causes is STILL a No.1Priority!
However, if you have Dental Decay and cavities, earlier treatment gives the best result - do NOT wait until in pain or get toothache, as this is a LATE sign of tooth trouble and it only hurts when decay is near the Nerve - then you may need a more complex root canal treatment and large filling too, then also a Crown possibly, or an extraction!

What exactly is Dental decay and Cavities?

A Dental tooth "cavity" is the term used for when teeth suffer irreversible loss by decay (hole) that usually needs some form of "filling" or restoration to seal the hole from further decay.

How do I know if I need a filling?

If you know you need a filling, then it is usually a large problem (That you feel with your tongue)rather than a smaller (early) one. Sometimes cavities that have "eaten" enough tooth away can show up on X-rays as dark holes. Because teeth are so "dense" they often mask early holes starting in teeth from the X-rays, just like metal fillings can hide decay and only appears on X-rays when it gets deeper under the filling - but by then it is often a medium or large sized hole, needing a much larger filling than if it had been detected earlier. Also, once a tooth has a "large" filling in it, all future replacement fillings can only get even larger (never smaller!), thus often needing future Crown work or root-treatment, which is not only more complex and expensive, but means more teeth are ultimately lost in the "decades" ahead. If one's goal is to keep teeth for life, then this MUST include early diagnosis and treatment of decay to either catch the problem early and only need "tiny" fillings and sealing, or even prevent a cavity occuring in the first place!
This is why you need the regular expertise of your Dentist, to find and ideally prevent any problems at an early stage, to save the maximum amount of healthy tooth and find problems as EARLY as possible! This is why we use special laser detecting probes to find those cavities that are starting BEFORE any normal dental probes or X-rays ever could. This is what we mean by early detection and prevention !!!
Clearly the cavities in the teeth pictured below have been there for some time, but could have been detected much, much earlier (sometimes years earlier!) with our special laser detecting probe. However, this new patient to us was only recently aware of problems when bits had broken off - now the child is complaining of toothache and the parent is wondering why this has "suddenly" happened? It turns out they had been to the Dentist before, but only occasionally rather than regularly.
Not exactly the ideal first visit to us for this Child now is it?
Now we need to fix these teeth, improve their Dental health generally via diet and oral hygiene, then monitor other teeth and perhaps seal them against decay to actually prevent it happening in the first place! Regular monitoring with our "laser" probe will help us monitor and prevent problems early too!



The above picture shows decay and large cavities in this young child's teeth.

When regular visits and monitoring are the norm from birth for children, they can grow up into adulthood with literally not one decayed or filled tooth, if they follow our advice. Also there would be no fear or apprehension of the "unknown" or worry that accompanies such Dental visits for children who never come until their is a late or painful problem. Isn't this a shame when modern advice, prevention and any simpler, earlier treatment would have prevented this even happening!
Still, at least some "Parents" are more receptive to regular Dental care and Prevention now and bring their children in before it's too late to avoid pain!

How do cavities start?

You're probably familiar with the damage rust can do to metals or acids can do too. The acids caused by plaque bacteria in your mouth can be a big problem too. Plaque is the sticky film of food and bacteria that forms constantly on your teeth. A small amount is actually protective, but too much becomes very destructive. It's hard to see bacterial plaque because it is transparent or tooth coloured.
As I'm sure that you appreciate, plaque bacteria grow very fast in the presence of sugar, which is why Dentists are always saying don't eat or drink sugary things too often. We eat the Sugar but so do the Bacteria that rot teeth! You can see how Bacterial Plaque shows up after you've stained it with vegetable dye.
If you don't remove the plaque thoroughly every day, these bacteria produce acids that will gradually eat through your enamel and give you irreversible cavities unless prevented in time. Finding cavities early is more difficult than you think. For hard-to-find cavities, a laser light detector is best, because it can detect when acids have weakened the surface of enamel and reached the Dentine underneath, long, long before this can be seen by the human eye or even X-rays! More commonly though, this new technology isn't common place yet so most Dentists still rely upon sharp dental probes and X-rays are used too. X-rays are quite good at looking for cavities between teeth, where the teeth curve and meet at a single point, but they are poor at seeing occlusal decay on the biting surface, where decay happens most commonly! This is because the "decay" must hollow the tooth out quite a lot to make enough of a difference in density to show up as a difference in shades. Remember that the direction of the X-ray beam is horizontally across the whole biting surface, through the thickest part of all the enamel on the biting surface. An early hole just cannot be seen, it is simply "masked" from X-rays by the thicker enamel either side of it. Metal fillings and crowns have a similar "masking" effect, with metal showing up as "bright white" on the X-ray. Dental cavities (or air) show up as dark areas which let through the X-rays easier than the denser enamel or fillings. Thus laser light detectors can access the biting surface directly and measure the ammount of reflected light, to detect even the slightest changes in density or hardness. This is useful to detect problems early and monitor their progress if early treatment is not the first option chosen.

When do I need treatment?

It's far better to catch and restore decayed areas while they're still small and in the enamel layer of the tooth. At this stage, it may even be possible to reverse the "demineralisation" caused by the acids without needing any filling at all. However,once decay gets in the softer dentin layer, it really spreads quickly. If bacterial decay makes it to the pulp chamber, we have a whole new set of problems and a different, more complex treatment to discuss - root canal therapy.

These pictures below show several fractured and decayed upper front teeth, cosmetically filled and restored in just one visit !

--From this, to this-->----

How does the Dentist monitor my teeth?

The dental profession has created a system of numbers and letters, into a kind of tooth-code, so that they can note and record whats happening in your mouth, from visit to visit. If cavities are discovered in your teeth, you'll hear your dentist name the numbers and/or letters for each cavity They can also record the "laser" readings and see if your early problems are getting worse and how quickly. This keeps an accurate record of the condition of your teeth, and helps your dentist to monitor early problems or restore them when necessary to their healthy condition. Regular, thorough check-ups are an important way of preventing and monitoring dental diseases, so that early prevention or treatment can be done. Waiting until something hurts is a sure way to create bigger problems and costs too. Professional early prevention and monitoring is the best way in our opinion, if teeth for life is your goal.
Does it matter if I leave a Cavity and the decay gets Bigger?

Well if you don't mind a bigger filling caused by the decay rotting more of the good tooth away inside, you may find that acceptable.
However, there are consequences such as losing more good, strong tooth substance (making the tooth weaker overall, even if it's filled!). Also, larger fillings need replacing more often and usually cost more money. Eventually this will possibly then need a crown, as it becomes more filling (hole) than tooth.
Worse still, if decay is left too long without Treatment, then it quietly rots deeper until it reaches the nerve in a tooth and infects it !!!
That's the trouble with toothache - it's often a LATE sign of trouble because decay doesn't usually hurt until it's near or infected the nerve centrally.
Once decay has reached the nerve it could cause pain, swelling, abcesses, bad tastes from infection etc. and it will then need a Root Canal Treatment or Extraction - both more complex and costly than perhaps a much smaller filling done in time to prevent this happening and keep the tooth for life!

In short, it is always better to visit your Dentist for regular checks than to wait for pain to strike - better to visit your dentist late than too late !!!
Example below shows before and after X-ray views of a 3 rooted molar tooth that needed root canal treatment because of decay.
It's not easy getting to the ends of the roots of all the canals present - it is Dentistry's equivalent to keyhole Surgery !!!


This X-ray shows decay between Molar teeth and dark abcess end of root
This X-ray shows 3 roots filled and large filling where decay was

Regular visits and Prevention

The reason Dentists recommend regular visits ISN'T to do Dental Treatment - it's to spot things going wrong early and PREVENT them becoming bigger or worse or even stop decay making a cavity altogether if it's discovered early enough. That is why we use the latest technology to detect problems as early as possible, so you can get the best, earliest treatment that helps you keep teeth troble free, for life.
Regular Professional cleanings also help prevent bad breath, tartar build-up and gum diseases too!
Indeed, at our Practice the usual examination visit is every 4 months (x3 yearly), so that we can check/monitor your teeth with laser probes for early decay, apply topical fluoride regularly, to prevent and reverse decay, do regular Oral Cancer checks and well as monitor your gums and teeth and how well you are brushing and flossing etc.

Only your Dentist or Specialist can give you specific advice.

We also do Dental courses for the whole Practice team (Dentists, Nurses, Receptionists, Practice Managers, Hygienists, Dental Technicians etc.).
Dentists and their teams can Click Here for Dental Courses Now to follow the links for Dental Courses.

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