Bridle Trails Family Dentistry - (425) 881-9333

Spring District Family Dentistry - (425) 454-4298

Services

Endodontic Treatment

Cracked Teeth

Enamel, which covers your teeth and is the hardest substance in your body, has its limits. If you chew on hard candy, ice, bite down hard, receive a blow to your face, or grind your teeth in your sleep, your teeth can chip or crack. Poor hygiene and cavities can also weaken your teeth and make them more susceptible to being chipped or cracked. You may not even feel any tooth pain when you chip a tooth unless it’s large enough to expose the inner layer of your tooth. A cracked tooth might only affect the enamel, and it would not feel pain unless you bite down hard or when the temperature in your mouth changes.

Many times you won’t be able to see a crack with the naked eye. This is why it’s so important to schedule regular appointments with our doctors, because we will be able to find problems before they become painful.

Types Of Broken Teeth That Need Fixing?

  1. 1. Craze lines are tiny cracks in the outer layer of your enamel only. They’re very common in adults. They are extremely shallow and they don’t cause pain. While not cosmetically pleasing, they’re not dangerous. Craze lines do not require treatment.
  2. 2. A fractured cusp is a fracture at the point of a tooth on the chewing surface. A cusp can become weakened and either break off on its own or it may need to be removed by us. Removing it usually relieves the pain. Fractured cusps rarely damage the pulp of your tooth, so root canal treatment is usually not necessary. To repair the tooth back to normal, our doctors may recommend a crown.
  3. 3. With cracked teeth, some cracks extend all the way from the chewing surface down into the root of your tooth. Depending on the position of the crack, damage to the pulp can happen. In many cases, our doctors would recommend root canal treatment to fix a cracked tooth.
  4. 4. A split tooth happens when a tooth is cracked and, over time, the crack progresses until the tooth eventually splits into two separate parts. Depending on the gravity of the split, we may not be able to save the tooth intact. Depending on the position and extent of the crack, they will determine whether part of the tooth can be saved with a crown or another restorative procedure.
  5. 5. Vertical root fractures are cracks that begin in the root of a tooth. Because the fracture line may not be visible, our doctors have to pay special attention to your symptoms in order to identify if you have one. Vertical root fractures are some of the most difficult fractures to identify. They are often fixed through endodontic treatment. It is sometimes possible to save part of the tooth, but in many cases, the tooth needs to be removed.

How To Prevent Cracked or Chipped Teeth
It is difficult to completely prevent chipped or cracked teeth because almost everyone ends up with it eventually. Here are a few ideas that our doctors suggest to prevent unnecessary damage:

  • Don’t chew on ice, popcorn kernels, pens, hard candy, or other hard objects.
  • Don’t clench or grind your teeth.
  • If you clench or grind your teeth while sleeping, speak with us about getting a retainer or mouthguard.
  • Wear a mouthguard when playing contact sports.

If you would like a closer examination of your teeth, give us a call to schedule a consultation.

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Internal Bleaching

What Is Internal Bleaching?
An infection of the dental pulp can give the tooth a darkened, discolored appearance on the outside. Regular whitening procedures cannot treat this kind of discoloration, which is why we offer internal bleaching, a method of whitening a tooth from the inside out. After a root canal is performed to remove the infected pulp, a safe sodium perborate paste is placed inside the tooth to break down stains from previous decay and give the tooth a whiter color.

How Is Internal Bleaching Different Than Other Teeth Whitening Treatments?
As the name suggests, internal bleaching is for the inside of the tooth. Normal whitening options, such as toothpaste, rinses, and whitening gels only affect the outside of the tooth. Internal bleaching can improve your oral health and restore that bright, happy smile!

Come To Us With Your Internal Bleaching Questions
If you have a problem tooth that doesn’t match the rest of your smile, internal bleaching could be the solution for you.

Post & Core Placement

What Is A Post And Core?
If a large enough portion of a tooth is missing, whether because of a cavity, the loss of a filling, or the access cavity from root canal work, a restorative dentist can’t simply place a crown on the tooth, because it won’t be stable enough. This is where a core comes in, replacing the missing tooth structure and providing support for the new crown. Sometimes the core is enough, but if not, a post may be added to anchor the core to the tooth.

Material Matters With Core And Post Treatment
The materials the core and particularly the post are made to have a major impact on whether or not the tooth will remain stable. Clinical evidence shows that metal posts don’t do much to stabilize the tooth and may lead to fractures, whereas complications from fiber-reinforced posts are rare because the material distributes the stress to the surrounding tissues in a similar way to natural dentin.

Where To Get Posts And Cores In Kirkland, Washington
For reliable post and core treatment that will keep your tooth in good shape, there’s no place better than ours!

Pulp Regeneration

The Ultimate Goal Of Regenerative Endodontics

What Is Pulp Regeneration?
In the past, once the pulp of a tooth became diseased, there were few options other than root canal treatment, which leaves the tooth in place but with no living tissue inside. Pulp regeneration seeks to help the dental pulp heal and regenerate from an infection, restoring the tooth to a healthy condition.

How Does Pulp Regeneration Treatment Work?
In pulp regeneration treatment, our doctors use tooth regeneration scaffolding (which may be made of collagen, fibrin, or man-made polymers, as well as stem cells derived from the patient’s pulp or bone marrow) to encourage the damaged tooth to repair itself. The controlled delivery of antibiotics eliminates the infection and growth factors stimulate pulp regeneration. In a successful procedure, a root canal will no longer be necessary.

Root Canal Therapy

What Is Root Canal Therapy And Who Should Get It?
Root canal therapy (a root canal) is a common procedure. A root canal can restore an infected tooth to its natural function and appearance. Contrary to popular belief, it’s typically no more painful than filling a cavity.

Our doctors would suggest a root canal treatment if your cavity is deep enough to become infected and spread to the nerves in the root of your tooth. Left untreated, a cavity this deep can become an abscess and may even lead to bone loss in your jaw as well as other health problems. Our doctors may also recommend a root canal for cracked or damaged teeth (where your tooth’s nerves are exposed).

How We Can Help: A Root Canal Can Keep You Healthy
When our doctors perform a root canal, they will clear your tooth’s canals of bacteria and infected tissue and then dry and seal them. Often, a crown is placed over your tooth for further protection. This can prevent infections from spreading to other areas and can help keep you and your smile healthy.

Root canal therapy is one of the most common dental procedures. Nearly 16 million root canals are performed in the United States alone each year. Don’t let root canal hearsay frighten you. Today, with safe and effective anesthesia, precise tools, and incredible imaging technology, a root canal doesn’t have to be painful — in fact, it relieves pain.

Save Your Tooth With Root Canal Therapy
We’re extremely experienced in root canal therapy. Please, if you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to ask us. Don’t let fear or anxiety keep you from receiving treatment. Your best oral and overall health may depend on it.

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