Comprehensive Restorative Dentistry

A beautiful smile is important to your health, hygiene, confidence, and self-esteem. At our office, we can help you have the most attractive, natural-looking smile possible through comprehensive restorative dentistry. Comprehensive restorative dentistry, is an area of dentistry that concentrates on the aesthetic restoration, ideal positioning of, and replacement of teeth, while considering the entire mouth as a whole, restoring it to it's proper form and function.

As a comprehensive dental practice, we have the option to work with a team of specialists to develop a complete restorative treatment plan to rebuild the teeth broken down by years of heavy use or unrepaired damage.  This damage is often caused by:

• Bruxism, or teeth grinding
• Traumatic injuries to the mouth’s structures
• Congenital or birth anomalies to teeth or missing teeth
• Erosion from acids in the diet or from acid reflux
• Tooth decay 

Comprehensive Treatment Options

In order to restore your smile, we may recommend the following comprehensive restorative treatments:

Crowns

Crowns are a restoration used to rebuild your tooth’s shape or to strengthen a tooth. Crowns are most often used for teeth that are broken, worn, or have portions destroyed by tooth decay. Think of a crown as a “cap” cemented onto an existing tooth which fully covers the portion of your tooth above the gum line. In effect, the crown becomes your tooth’s new outer surface. Crowns can be made of porcelain, gold, or both. Porcelain crowns are most often preferred because they mimic the translucency of natural teeth and are very strong.

Conservative Cast Gold Restoration

Restoring a tooth with conservative cast gold is a great way to treat a damaged tooth with the ability to repair the damaged portion while leaving the remaining healthy part untouched. If there is damage on only part of the tooth, a crown may be more invasive than the tooth requires to repair it. With conservative gold the treatment including healthy tooth structure can be avoided, thus preserving the healthy undamaged portion of your tooth.

Dental Implants

An implant is an artificial tooth made of metal and porcelain that looks just like your natural tooth. It's composed of two main parts: one is the titanium implant body that takes the place of the missing root, and the second part is the tooth-colored crown that is attached to the implant. With dental implants, you can smile confidently knowing that no one will ever suspect you have a replacement tooth.

Dentures

Dentures are natural-looking replacement teeth made by Dr. Dicus that are removable. There are two types of dentures: full and partial. Full dentures are given to patients when all of the natural teeth have been removed. Partial dentures are often attached to a metal frame that is connected to your natural teeth and are used to fill in where permanent teeth are missing.

Fillings and Bonding

Fillings or bonding are often used to repair a tooth that is affected by wear, decay, minor fractures, or chips. The decayed or affected portion of the tooth is removed and replaced with a bonded resin composite that can be matched to the same color as your natural tooth. These are a good conservative option when the damage to a tooth is minimal.

Occlusal Disease Treatment

Occlusal disease is caused by a misalignment between the teeth of the upper and lower dental arches, also called malocclusion. If left untreated, occlusal disease and can damage your teeth, the supporting bones and gums around your teeth, temporomandibular joints, and the jaw muscles you use for chewing. Many people dismiss excessive or abnormally accelerated tooth wear as natural aging or wearing of teeth. Excessive tooth wear, or loose, cracking or breaking teeth is never normal. With comrehensive restorative dentistry we can assess the causes of occlusal disease and come up with a plan to address it and repair the damage it causes.

Veneers

Veneers are thin, custom-made shells made from tooth-colored materials, such as porcelain, designed to cover the front side of your teeth. Veneers are natural in appearance and a great option for patients who want to make adjustments to the look and feel of their smile.