Dental Treatments
The information below is intended to cast some light on common dental topics and to inform you about the services and type of treatments available at Guidepost Dental Practice. We hope that this information will give you some basic dental knowledge so that together we can devise a plan of care and treatment to keep you healthy and give you a smile you are happy and confident with.
"Invisalign: The invisible way to straighten your teeth."
Invisalign® can give you the beautiful straight teeth you've always wanted. It works through a series of invisible, removable, and comfortable aligners that no one can tell you're wearing. So you can smile more during treatment as well as after. Over seven hundred thousand adults and teenagers have already benefited from treatment from Invisalign, and now it's finally available here in the UK. Because Invisalign uses a computer database every step of the way, they are able to put their knowledge of their 700,000 previous cases to good use by advising us of the best treatment plans in any given situation.
How Does Invisalign Work?
- You wear each set of aligners for about 2 weeks, removing them only to eat, drink, brush, and floss.
- As you replace each aligner with the next in the series, your teeth will move - little by little, week by week - until they have straightened to the final position your orthodontist or dentist has prescribed.
- You'll visit your orthodontist about once every 6 weeks to ensure that your treatment is progressing as planned.
Total treatment time averages 9-15 months and the average number of aligners worn during treatment is 11-30, but obviously it varies.
Inman Aligners
Did you once spend years undergoing painful orthodontic treatment and unsightly braces only to see your teeth slowly slip back to their former wonky ways? Are you one of many who are generally unhappy with the alignment of your teeth and longing for a beautiful, straight smile?
Until now, the alternatives to straighten front teeth involved either long and expensive orthodontic treatments or destructive and expensive restorative treatments such as veneers or crowns. Even ultrathin veneers involve heavy reduction of natural teeth when used to align crowding or protrusion.
But with the arrival of the Inman Aligner, all that has changed.
The Inman Aligner is a cost-effective removable orthodontic appliance that moves teeth in a fraction of the time of other systems. It aligns crowded or protruding anterior teeth with two opposing spring loaded aligner bars. This provides gentle but continuous pressure over a large range of movement. Surprisingly, this gentle pressure is the quickest way to move teeth but it also makes treatment very safe and kind to teeth.
People love the speed of treatment and it's changing the face of dentistry as we know it. The average treatment time is only 4-16 weeks.
Implants
An implant can be used to replace a single or multiple teeth or to secure or replace dentures. We have a specialist who visits monthly for assessments and treatment.
Aesthetic Dentistry
Advances in modern materials and techniques have meant that we can now offer treatment to improve the shape, colour and appearance of your teeth to give you the confident smile you've always wanted. Old fillings and broken or missing teeth can make your teeth look unsightly and cause you to hide your teeth and feel embarrassed about smiling. Modern techniques such as crowns, bridges, veneers, tooth-coloured fillings, orthodontics, tooth whitening and dental implants are all available at Guidepost Dental Practice. This kind of treatment is aimed at giving you natural looking teeth and restoring confidence in your smile and ability to eat anything you wish.
Veneers
Porcelain veneers can be used to change the shape or position of a front tooth or to improve the appearance by masking discolouration, mottling or rough enamel.
Tooth Whitening
Teeth often become stained and discoloured, as we get older, since teeth will gradually absorb colour from things like coffee, tea, red wine and tobacco. Tooth whitening enhances the natural beauty of your smile.
What are Smile Strips?
The Strips are thin, flexible and are coated with a tooth whitening gel containing 6% Hydrogen Peroxide are designed to mould to your teeth.
6% concentration is the level the European Union Scientific Committee on Consumer Products deemed safe AFTER a dental examination to check for dental disease.
SmileStrips make the news with Shevue online magazine
Prevention and Oral Hygiene
Prevention and early detection is the key in avoiding costly and extensive dental treatment.
Anxious Patients
We are able to offer intravenous or inhalation sedation at the practice for particularly anxious patients. This can be discussed in more detail with the dentist. Richard and Josie are very experienced in the administration of sedation and we follow all the recommended guidelines in the use of this technique.
Characterised Dentures
We work together with the patient to give you the appearance you want.
Filling materials
There are now many improved materials available that can be matched in colour to the tooth and will bond to the tooth surface.
Crowns
Crowns are often needed to strengthen and restore a tooth that has been extensively damaged by decay or trauma.
Bridges
When teeth are lost or missing, the gap can be filled with a bridge.
Root Canal Treatment
If a tooth's pulp (nerve and blood supply) becomes infected or inflamed, root canal treatment is the only way to clear the infection and save the tooth.
