The grooves are cleaned out, the cavity removed, and a tooth-colored filling is placed. The material not only blends well with the surrounding color, but it is ‘bonded’ into place. This helps decrease potential sensitivity afterwards and will dramatically improve the longevity of this filling.

Here’s a photo of the teeth in the previous blog. These teeth have staining in the grooves, and there is a cavity present. The smallest portion of the cavity is what you see on the surface. The actual cavity travels fairly deep within the structure of these teeth.

Deep grooves in the biting surface of teeth make it almost impossible to keep these areas bacteria free. The bacteria settles into the deepest portion of these fissures and begins to work. It often takes YEARS, but eventually a cavity forms. Here’s a mold of someone’s teeth who has VERY deep grooves. There was simply no way for her to prevent these teeth from getting cavities.

Now here is where things get interesting. Today, a cavity moves in exactly the opposite manner. With the use of fluoride and sealants, the enamel on most teeth is almost impervious to bacterial assault. A cavity can take many years to start and will almost always be small, or nonexistent, in the enamel. But once it breaks into the softer material inside the tooth, it can grow undetected for many years.

Still, the outside of the tooth looks perfectly fine.

In the past, as the cavity got larger, it worked it’s way further into the tooth. But as I mentioned before, the largest portion of the cavity remained on the outside of the tooth. As it grew, this would be easily seen by the dentist. He could then take the proper course of action to stop this destructive process, usually with a silver filling.

With the advances we’ve had in dentistry you would think that tooth decay was a thing of the past. Not so fast! Certainly there is less of it than we had a generation ago, but the type of decay, or cavities, that we see now has changed. In the past, a cavity started on the outside surface of the tooth, called the enamel.

As the cavity worked its way into the tooth the largest portion remained toward the outside of the tooth.

At the next visit, the healing cap is taken off. The newly made abutment is screwed onto the implant and the crown is placed over it. Here’s the final result. It came out great!!

Here you can see what the area looks like just before the new tooth, or crown, is made. The round metal cap is called a ‘healing cap’ and is placed on the implant by the surgeon when it is ready to be finished.

Here’s another quick example showing a dental implant. The tooth below had to be extracted. It had a bad root and we were not able to save it. This shows the tooth just before it was removed.

After placing the post (called an abutment) and the crown, this is the final result. Look how the crown comes out of the gum tissue like a real tooth. The patient was really excited about the new tooth, and you can see why!