Having a smile that’s “good enough” isn’t good enough.
Maybe you’ve put off that necessary dental procedure because the problem isn’t bad enough yet. You’ve got a couple of cavities tucked away in the back of your mouth, perhaps, but overall your smile has the false appearance of looking healthier than it really is.
Just hearing the words “root canal” might send shivers down your spine, so you’ve settled for a smile that’s a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off.
At that rate, your next photo with friends or family could be the last one you’ll feel proud of––or maybe it’s already happened.
Without regular check-ups, the beauty of your smile is only a facade, and it’s only a matter of time before it collapses.
As a skilled endodontist, I know that no matter how good your smile might look, beauty is only skin deep.
What may look fine on the outside of your teeth may be a catastrophe in the making. You cannot possibly know what’s going on with your smile if you keep avoiding a regular check-up.
That’s how proper endodontics can help you: By improving the health and integrity of the inside of your teeth, I can improve their outward vitality and appearance for a brilliant, sustainable smile.
Anything less than that is only borrowed time, and it will eventually run out on you.
A Healthy Smile Begins Within Your Teeth
Endodontics is a skill set that dentists like me use in order to fix the insides of your teeth and their root systems.
If your mouth was a building, then endodontics would be similar to knowing how to fix a foundation. A foundation with a few cracks will need some repairs. One that’s deteriorated or improperly set will need to be rebuilt before the whole structure comes falling down.
Without a solid foundation to build on, everything else is mere window dressing. Any cosmetic work that you might want is just putting the cart before the horse if the very basis of your smile is at risk of collapsing.
Endodontics specializes in treating what’s known as the “tooth pulp,” which is a fleshy material inside of your teeth. We never see it unless it’s exposed due to advanced tooth decay or a serious dental injury.
It’s very much an ”out of sight, out of mind” part of having teeth, which can lead to destructive complacency if you’re failing to get regular check-ups at the dentist. Just because it looks fine, doesn’t mean that it is.
Healthy Pulp Makes For Healthy Teeth
Healthy pulp helps regenerate and nourish your teeth. It provides blood from the gum into the tooth itself, and when it’s working like it should, you can expect to have a better looking smile as a rule of thumb.
On the other hand, diseased or damaged pulp will prevent blood from properly flowing to your tooth. If untreated, it can have a disastrous affect on your confidence as a result of tooth loss or, in extreme cases, life-threatening complications.
If you have a cavity, you’ll likely notice a painful sensation whenever you drink or eat something that’s very cold. That’s because a cavity makes a hole inside of your tooth, exposing a hard layer of dentin that rests just above the pulp.
This layer of dentin sends signals to nerves inside of the pulp, and can make eating ice cream or drinking a frosty beverage much more painful than it should be.
What’s worse is that, at this point, you’re now at risk for greater damage to your entire tooth. The exposed dentin can erode further, giving food and bacteria direct access to the pulp itself. An infection like that could spread throughout your mouth in short notice.
In this case, a root canal procedure may be needed to drain and clean the pulp from any harmful elements to get your tooth healing itself again.
Fortunately, endodontists practice this kind of work far more than a regular dentist, giving us a more skillful hand that eases your pain instead of increasing it.
If you have any of the following symptoms, you could already be suffering from early stages of “pulpitis,” or inflammation of the tooth pulp, without even knowing it:
- Common toothache
- Sudden, intense pains in your teeth
- Painful reactions to eating foods or drinking beverages that are hot, cold, or especially sweet
- Infections in your mouth
There’s only one way to find out if you’re just getting by the skin of your teeth when it comes to the integrity of your smile, and that’s by scheduling an appointment with me.
Whereas most dentists would just extract a tooth whose pulp has been badly damaged, I specialize in saving teeth, not pulling them.
Even if you’re in the advanced stages of pulpitis, chances are that a simple root canal is all that’s needed to repair the damage before it gets any worse.
It’s a small trade-off in pain compared to the pain of losing one or multiple teeth, an infection of the gums, or the necrosis (or death) of mouth tissues.
An Appointment That Can Change Your Life
Tooth pain and tooth loss are easily avoidable, but only if you decide to quit suffering and do something about it. Come see me, Dr. Ted M. Pinney, D.D.S., P.A., and I’ll make your smile beautiful again from the inside out.
Call my office at 501-982-4447 to schedule an appointment, or click here to request an appointment online.