Can Family Dentistry Prevent Common Toothaches?

In our family dentistry office, we have a unique perspective on caring for your family. Over the years, we build up relationships with our patients that often spans several generations. Being part of the development process for the younger children, helping you teach them important lessons like brushing their teeth regularly, all the way up to replacing teeth in older members of the family is what makes us unique.  Building relationships, becoming part of your family’s overall health strategy, and being there when the dental emergencies occur is all part of our process.

We treat generations, and each generation has their own unique set of challenges. Often these challenges are the same from generation to generation, occurring due to similar bad habits or family traits. For example, some families have a definite sweet tooth which tends to cause more challenges in the younger members of the family, since sweets are one of the leading causes of cavities and children tend to be more susceptible to eating sugar in excess. Working with several generations of families allows us, as a family dentist, to identify some of these patterns and help you to plan for them while keeping an eye on the teeth themselves for inherent weaknesses.

Preventative dental care is by far our preferred method of operation. Whenever possible we work with our families to prevent the more common occurrences of dental emergencies. The two most common reasons why people come in to see us, other than for checkups and cleanings, is to treat or diagnose toothaches or cavities.  Toothaches, for example, can occur without warning. Typically they are caused by some underlying problem that we will need to diagnose before determining what the best course of treatment is. While toothaches are extremely uncomfortable, they are not a problem in and of themselves which is both good and bad. It is good because once we treat the underlying problem the toothache will go away, it is bad because as a family dentist we know the causes can be extremely varied and so can the treatments. Toothaches can be caused by anything from bumping and loosening the tooth to a deeply spread infection that could require a root canal to fix. Since there is a long list of possible causes for a toothache, we recommend that you contact our family dentistry office immediately if you have an ache and before it becomes severe.

The most common thing we treat is cavities. Cavities are tiny holes in the tooth’s enamel that is caused by the bacteria found in plaque. Plaque, which naturally occurs in food, sticks to the teeth and unleashes bacterial acid which attacks the enamel of the tooth. Left in place for long enough, this acid causes the small hole to occur in the tooth, which is known as a cavity. Some foods, including excessively sweet or sour foods, are more likely to cause one. The good news is that with twice daily brushing, rinsing after meals and visiting our family dentist office twice annually for cleaning, you can greatly limit the occurrence and frequency of cavities. In our family dentistry office, we will also provide you with tips and solutions based on your particular health needs.