One day, you look in the mirror and notice a small brown spot on your tooth. Or, after a few days of problems, you start to notice that one of your teeth is prone to pain when you eat and drink. Perhaps, you have had dental infections in the past, and you’re concerned that you may be developing new issues.
You know what we’re talking about: sometimes, despite our best oral hygiene efforts, cavities rear their ugly heads.
The good news is that our Elmhurst dentists offer the treatments that you need to regain oral health after cavities develop.
Let’s say that you have a small cavity that is confined to the dental enamel. In this case our team will eliminate the infected dental material and clean your tooth to minimize the risk of re-infection. Then, because the spot of infection was fairly contained, we can restore the tooth using a simple filling of dental resin.
When cavities have spread through more of the tooth, you may end up with a large hole on the surface of your tooth after our team extracts the damaged dental material. We can restore these teeth using customized dental crowns, rather than dental fillings. Crowns are restorations that are custom-crafted to look like natural teeth, and designed to fit the patient’s tooth perfectly.
If a cavity is quite severe, and it has spread into the core of the tooth, our treatment protocol may change a bit. In these instances, our dental team will likely recommend root canal therapy. During root canal treatment our team goes into the center of the tooth, and clears away progressively more material until the dental nerves, pulp, and roots are all removed. Then we fill the tooth with an inert material, and restore the outer layers of the tooth.
As you would imagine, the sooner that you seek treatment for dental infections, the better your prognosis. So, please don’t hesitate to call our Elmhurst dentists if you think you have developed problematic cavities.