Hello! This is Dr. Jeremy Thomas at Integrity Dental in Pueblo, CO. Today we want to talk about dental technology and specifically dental technology as it pertains to our patient care and the benefits that it gives our patients in our office.
Does Integrity Dental Offer Same Day Crowns?
One of the biggest things that we have introduced and set up as a cornerstone here at our office is same day crowns and prosthetics. A patient can come in and have the crown or bridge prep done and leave the same day with the permanent crown or bridge. There are other offices that offer that, but not a lot, I would say maybe 25% of offices do that. The reason that is such an advantage is that it is 1 visit rather than 2 or potentially more. Traditionally, when a crown or bridge is done the patient will leave with a temporary crown and come back a second time to get the permanent after it is made. Sometimes there are hiccups along the way where the temporary crown may fall off, or when they come back for their permanent crown the lab has not made a crown well enough and we must redo the whole process. But here we can send patients home with their permanent crown or bridge the same day. Since we are cementing the permanent crown on the same day, often patients are still numb from the crown prep, so it makes the cementing even more painless than other options.
So, we hope that as this video progresses we hope that you can see how technology can make things better for us as the doctor but even more importantly how it can make things better for the patients.
Has Technology Improved Root Canals?
There is a long history of Root Canals as a procedure that dentists and dental offices offer, and they have a terrible reputation because they tend to be somewhat painful both during the procedure and after. But that is really not the case anymore! First, technology has made it much more common to not do root canals nearly as often and we will often go the route of implants as a treatment because we have that as an alternative if we have to take the tooth out. But when we do root canals that are truly needed, they are so much quicker, more likely to succeed, and far less painful. This is because of a few reasons.
One, we understand anesthesia and how to ensure the patient is completely numb before the procedure better today than in the past. Not being properly numb is where a lot of the horror stories in the past have come from. I personally will not work on a patient unless I can properly ensure they are numb. Second, we have the latest in Apex Location. The Apex is the tip of the root. In the past, we relied on multiple x-rays to tell us how close to the root we were. We would drill a little, take an x-ray and measure and then go a little further and take another x-ray and measure and repeat this process. Well now we have cut most of that out and do far less x-rays in the procedure because in the handpiece we use to do a lot of the cleanout, there is an apex locator that sends out a small electrical current (not enough to shock anybody) but it completes a current once it exits the root. So, we know exactly how close we are to the end of the root and often do not go out past the end of the root. That was often something that would cause additional pain. Breaking through the end of the root could push the infection and bacteria that we are trying to clean out down through the root and into the bone and surrounding tissue. This would cause inflammation and discomfort after the procedure. And we can now avoid that.
So now root canals are much faster and produce less radiation for the patient because we aren’t talking all those x-rays.
Also, we have added Ozone disinfection. This is something we use to disinfect the tooth after a root canal far more effectively. Ozone gas is a very biocompatible disinfecting medium. It works similarly to hydrogen peroxide but in a gaseous form and because of that it will actually diffuse out into the tooth tissue up to 4mm and disinfect which increases the success rate of root canals themselves.
How have x-rays and scanning changed?
Digital dentistry in imaging has changed x-ray imaging and 3D scans! One of the x-ray machines we have now that we do most of our x-ray imaging on is extraoral, meaning it doesn’t even go inside your mouth, it rotates around your head. And because of that we don’t have to put those sensors inside the mouth nearly as often. Since we aren’t putting these sensors inside of the mouth, its quicker, it’s digital which means less radiation than the old films, and it doesn’t scratch or cut the inside of the patients mouths the way that the old sensors and films would. We have gotten good feedback from our patients about how much they like how much more comfortable that is for them.
Other digital imaging techniques would be 3D scanning. We all dread the impressions when goop has to be shoved into the top or bottom of the mouth and it feels like it starts to flow backwards and down the throat. And we do still use impressions at times, but only when it is most appropriate. But we are doing more and more digital 3D impressions with our 3D scanner and that takes place off all that goop! It produces a 3D rendering or model instantly of the tooth on a computer that we can use for crowns, 3D printing clear aligners, dentures, or hard night guards and things of that nature.
And the scans are helping us move towards more and more 3D printing. We can now use 3D printing for removable appliances, dentures or partial dentures, aligners, occlusal guards, and more.
Is sedation offered for procedures?
Sedation is not necessarily new technology, but it is something that we offer here at Integrity Dental. I would say that the general dentist using IV sedation where a patient can be put to sleep for all of their dental work is something that is becoming more popular. It’s something that we added to our practice about 5 years ago and a fair amount of people really appreciate that they don’t have to be awake for their dental work.
Are lasers used at Integrity Dental?
We use lasers for a lot of different things, mostly for gums and gum surgeries and cleanings. We will also use it sometimes in biopsies. If there are lesions in the patients mouth that either need to be removed or tested to make sure they are not cancerous, we will use lasers for that as well.
There are new lasers that are gaining popularity and use in the medical field that can even cut teeth! They are used for small fillings and someday, I’m sure, we will even be able to do crown prep with them. The advantage of a laser for that would be that we wouldn’t have to use anesthesia since lasers don’t heat up the pulp, or the inside of the tooth, to the point of causing discomfort the way that a drill does.
That being said, we choose not to have a hard tissue laser in our office currently because it works so slowly. It’s just not yet able to do what we want it to do in a timely manner and in a way that would benefit the patient. It’s a good example of technology that would simply increase the prices and amount charged to patients to make it worth the cost but would not benefit us or the patient enough to be worth it.
Botox and fillers by a dentist?
This is something we are seeing more and more in the dental industry and it’s something that we do offer here. Botox does have several functional purposes in the office, one is to help with headaches, and with clenching and grinding which causes pain in the jaw joint. We can inject botox into the masseter to help relax the jaw.
Fillers do not have a real functional purpose in the dental world but are rather an aesthetic purpose. So if people have deformations we can help repair that a lot of the time. We have done that for cleft lip and palate people to help their lips look a little more like normal. We can also use it for aging, we can inject it to help deal with the loss of fat in the face that creates wrinkles and sagging and things like that. Botox can also be used for that. So we do offer those things here. It started originally for more of the functional uses of Botox and we realized it was also very easy to expand that a little bit to help with things like wrinkles, sagging and aging.
Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP)
We can also use Platelet Rich Plasma to inject into the face as a filler. PRP is when we do a blood draw and isolate certain parts of the blood that help people heal very quickly. It can be used for wisdom tooth removal as well as implants to help patient to heal quicker and help with pain and reduce side effects. Several new studies are showing that if we use PRP with implants, we will be able to put a tooth on top if implants much quicker. PRP is coming! We do not have it yet, but stay tuned. In the near future we will be implementing this at Integrity Dental.
Is Netflix available to watch?
Being in the dental office can often be very boring! We have in each of our operatories where we do work on patients TVs that can be pulled up and over the patient so that they can see and we can stream Netflix and other music or podcasts for patients while they are having work done.
Do you have electronic forms?
Electronic forms are becoming much more feasible. They will allow patients, whether new or existing, to use our online services to fill out all different types of paperwork before coming into the office. We also will work towards making certain types of appointments available for patients to schedule themselves online without having to contact the clinic. Of course, calling to schedule an appointment will always be an option. Stay tuned, we don’t have that in our office yet, but we plan on making the updates necessary to have it very soon.
What are the benefits of advanced dental technology?
Our patients here already know that we have a lot of great technology. But we don’t use technology just for the sake of being cool or being on the cutting edge. There is a lot of dental technology that we don’t have. We believe that new technology needs to be balanced with functionality and how it either helps us as your practitioner to be more efficient, how it helps the procedure to be less expensive or time consuming or helps the procedure to be less painful for the patient. When a technology provides better quality care, faster care, more efficient practices, or with lowering costs for the patient, those are the criteria that we look for when applying new technology here. And we are aggressively working to ensure that any technology that fulfills those criteria we capture and use here because we really want to ensure the highest quality of care for our patients.
How can I get scheduled?
We hope that this is exciting for you as our patients or perspective patients and motivates you to give us a call and schedule an appointment. We would love to help you with whatever dental needs you have. If that’s something we can do, and this technology is interesting to you. Please give us a call at Integrity Dental. Our office number is (719)545-2468 and you can look us up at www.letushelpyousmile.com