Dental restorations procedures are a means of treating tooth cavities, damage, or disease to protect the teeth, restore their strength, prevent further dental problems, and bring the teeth back to their best health.
Procedures that can be considered restorative dentistry include:
• Treatment of the nerve
It’s a procedure done when the decay overtakes large spaces (deep cavity), there is pain from infected teeth, or when the decay’s spread is very close to touching the dentin-pulp or the nerve of the tooth.
• Silver stainless steel crowns
A silver stainless steel crown is needed when the primary teeth are not formed properly or suffer from fractures or cracks.
The silver stainless steel crown serves to cover the remaining tooth and maintain its integrity.
First, the dentist uses a special dental drill to ground down the tooth. (The amount the dentist must drill depends upon how much damage the decay has caused).
Then the dentist will fit the stainless steel crown over the top of the remaining tooth to keep it protected using special glue to keep them from slipping off.
It takes about half an hour to do the x-ray and place the crown over the remaining tooth.
• Silver or white fillings in a tooth or teeth
Dentists use dental fillings to fill the areas drilled out to remove decay (usually not deep decay ).
The dentist will use :
– Silver fillings(amalgam): are a mix of mercury, silver, tin, and copper.
– white fillings(composite): are mainly resins.
• Extractions (removing teeth)
Pulling a tooth out may be required in several cases like severe infection or a large cavity or for plastic reasons like braces or fixing crowding. Your child will be under a local anesthetic, which takes about 20 minutes.
• Space maintainers
A space maintainer is a device made of stainless steel and looks like a silver band and loop. It serves the purpose of saving a place for the permanent tooth if the primary tooth is lost early (It works by preventing the teeth on both sides from moving and the permanent tooth from coming out) and avoiding crowding while the permanent teeth are growing.
They are temporary and usually removed once the teeth erupt.
Well, we all know that prevention is the first step regarding teeth and oral care. However, according to studies, Tooth decay is ranked as the most common chronic childhood illness. Studies show that up to 42% of children between the ages of 2-11 suffer from cavities, With 23% of those children being undiagnosed, making the decay worse and causing the restoration process to be much more difficult (requiring more extensive restoration processes).
Not really. Restoration procedures are complex only if we have to replace many-if not all-in complicated cases.
What we consider to be a complicated case is when a patient presents with teeth that are decayed, defective, damaged, or missing altogether, which is very rare in kids.
It is usually a simple procedure during which your child will be under local anesthetic for about 30 to 45 minutes.
It takes longer if your child requires several procedures or if more sedation is required. Your kid can go home with a few restrictions and a promise not to ignore the follow-up and a visit every six months for cleanings.
