Just like baseball and gymnastics are types of sports, an orthodontist (say: or-thoh-don-tist) is a type of dentist. Using braces, retainers, and other devices, an orthodontist helps straighten a person’s teeth and correct the way the jaws line up.
Straight teeth and aligned jaws create nice smiles. On top of that, when your jaws and teeth are well aligned, it is easier to chew food. Orthodontic care can even help prevent snoring! Continue reading
A night guard, sometimes spelled “nightguard,” is a piece of hard or soft plastic or silicone molded (in some cases) to fit the shape of your teeth. Its purpose is to keep teeth from grinding into one another. A night guard is worn while sleeping and taken out in the morning. A night guard is also a popular treatment for TMJ, or temporomandibular joint disorder. Night guards are sometimes used in place of a nightly retainer, because a night guard also serves to keep the teeth in place as well as prevent grinding and clenching. Night guards are a well-known treatment for bruxism, otherwise known as tooth grinding and jaw clenching. Continue reading
The lost wax technique originally goes back to ancient times and is believed to have probably originated in China or Egypt. The method was employed to create figurines and objects in gold. Then in 1907, a centrifugal casting machine was invented by William H. Taggart. Although he patented his idea using the lost wax technique, he lost the patent when it was discovered another dentist had written a paper on the same idea some 25 years earlier. Continue reading
Denture fitting is so crucial to comfortable use that a slight misalignment can create many far-reaching problems in your mouth. Due to the nature of gums, dentures need adjustments from time to time to properly fit. Gums and jawbone shrink with time as part of the natural aging process. Dentures that may have fit perfectly at first can become unsuitable for chewing as they loosen and slide around. Two types of adjustments are available: hard reline and soft reline. Both types of relines can either be performed in office or by using a do-it-yourself denture reline kit. Continue reading
Permanent dentures are the dentures that are fixed to the tooth, teeth, root stumps, or implants in the mouth. Therefore, it is not removable. It has various names – overdenture, hybrid denture and telescopic denture. Continue reading