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Your Teeth, Our Tech

by | Jun 25, 2015 | Blog

The difference between a good dental practice and a great dental practice comes down to the three basic elements:

  • A caring dentist, and an experienced, caring staff
  • Care that is patient-centered, and puts the bottom line of the practice second
  • The most modern technology, ensuring that you receive the best, most comfortable care

The first two criteria aren’t easy, but when it comes down to it, it’s simply a matter of philosophy: patients benefit and actually have better oral health when they are treated like actual human beings, not just case numbers, or problems to be solved as quickly and profitably as possible.

Staying on top of technology requires a bit more. Our dental practice (in Glen Ellyn, IL and serving patients all over the Chicago area) has committed to providing our patients with the most advanced technology available. Here’s a brief guide to the most exciting tech available to our patients.

Laser Dentistry at Smile Glen Ellyn

What could be more advanced than lasers? In our practice, we use lasers to replace many of the tools you’ve seen at the dentists’ since you were a child. In fact, after experiencing the virtually pain-free procedures that are possible thanks to laser dentistry, those old hand tools your dentist might have once used will seem absolutely barbaric!

Lasers and Fillings

Most folks you run into will have at least one filling; tooth decay and cavities are the second most frequent health complaint in the US, just behind the common cold.

If you were to ask people what part of the cavity filling procedure they remember most clearly, it’d be fairly easy to guess how most would respond: the drill.

At Smile Glen Ellyn, we don’t use a drill; instead, we use the Waterlase Dental Laser. One of three laser systems we use in our dental practice, the Waterlase makes the pain and trauma of the drill a thing of the past. No more of that awful drill sound, and it’s so accurate that we can save more of your healthy tissues! This also means less pain and swelling, which translates into speedier treatments! Laser dentistry allows us to perform more procedures in a single appointment for your greater convenience.

We also use lasers to identify cavities, before they become big problems. Traditionally, dentists find cavities in a decidedly non-technical way: using a dental pick (the “hook” you’ve probably seen your dentist use), your dentist would poke and prod your teeth; if the end of the hook got caught on a cavity, that’s when the dentist knew there was a problem.

This isn’t a very effective way of finding cavities, because for the hook to get “caught” in a cavity, the cavity has to be pretty advanced, and your tooth has to be seriously decayed. The Diagent Decay Detecting Laser allows us to catch cavities when they first start, as tiny, shallow, microscopic openings in your enamel caused by bacteria and the acids they produce as waste. By catching  cavities this early, we can treat them, often non-invasively!

Imaging Technology

Dentistry is all about image (literally). As a profession, we’ve embraced advanced imaging technologies, because the better our view into your mouth and teeth, the better and more accurate care we can provide.

In our practice, we use these advanced imaging technologies for a number of procedures:

Cone Beam CT Scan

The Cone Beam CT Scan, sometimes referred to as the CBCT, is the latest twist on the traditional x-ray machine.The X-ray machines most people have encountered in their lives take one, two dimensional image of your teeth; they aren’t as detailed as they should be, and they’re usually only available as a hard copy. Furthermore, it only gives us a limited angle on what we can see at once.

Instead of taking just one x-ray image of your teeth, the CBCT takes hundreds; the beam emitter rotates around your head, and takes digital x-ray photos from all possible angles; these are then combined into a single image, which is much more detailed than a traditional X-ray, and it is 3-D. This allows us to diagnose problems such as bruxism (teeth grinding), TMD (temporomandibular joint disorder, also sometimes called TMJ), as well as create custom dental restorations and orthodontic appliances.

The CBCT also emits much less of the potential harmful radiation that many patients are concerned about.

Visit Our 21st Century Dental Practice!

Why not see what dentistry looks like today? You’ll be surprised at how much easier, and how much more comfortable, your dental care will be in our practice, thanks to our caring staff, and our considerable investments in technology.

Dial 630-858-8800 or click here to reach our online appointment form.

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