OUR SERVICES
Our complete menu of services is designed to provide comprehensive oral healthcare for you and your family. And our passion for staying on top of the latest developments in oral and dental care means that those services will always be state-of-the-art.
Every service we perform for you will be provided with the utmost attention to your personal comfort; the emotional side of a dental visit is every bit as important to us as the physical treatment. We have a lot of experience and expertise in helping patients who are uneasy about dentistry.
Let’s start with an overview of the services available at Schwerer Dental Care.
Helping you achieve your Schwerer Dental Care isn’t our only goal. We want to keep that smile bright and healthy, as well. For instance, twice-a-year dental cleanings and regular x-rays may seem like only twice-a-year glitches in your personal calendar, but they are quite likely the most import treatment we provide. The opportunity to examine and clean your teeth, as well as check for gum disease and oral cancer, gives us a steady view of your oral and dental health over time. By monitoring changes from visit to visit, we can identify potential and small problems early, keeping them from becoming large problems later—the kind of problems that usually result in expensive treatment.
Dental Emergencies
Just as ERs provide emergency attention for broken bones and bodily trauma, we offer emergency treatment for your teeth. If you break a tooth, have one knocked out or loosened, or find yourself in pain due to a lost crown or filling, call us right away. We’ll tell you how to handle your situation until you get to our office, where we’ll make room for you in our schedule.
It’s amazing how much our teeth can affect our moods and even our self-image. Have you, or has someone close to you, ever been literally afraid to smile? Or gotten irritated when someone tries to coax a smile for a photograph? That’s the case for many people with cracked, discolored, crooked, missing or oddly-shaped teeth. Cosmetic dentistry is a field that helps people with such problems get beyond them, feel better about their appearance and interact more comfortably with others. Here are just some of the cosmetic dentistry procedures we offer:
- Bleaching:You may know this better as “tooth whitening,” in which the teeth are immersed in a whitening mixture.
- Crown: A shell of medical-grade porcelain molded to the exact size and shape of a damaged or largely decayed tooth.
- Bonding: A procedure in which a bonding substance is smoothed into cracks or fissures in teeth and then hardened.
- Bridge: A set of artificial teeth, that bridges a gap between two healthy teeth.
- Veneers: Thin shells of porcelain or composite resin that are cemented over cracked, broken, misshapen or discolored teeth.
Restorative dentistry is very likely your first dental memory. Every time your childhood dentist spotted a cavity and filled it, you had restorative dentistry (most likely followed by a good talking to about brushing your teeth properly). Restorative procedures let us keep your teeth in good condition by repairing decay, breaks and infection. For teeth that can’t be saved, there are strong, durable replacements available. Some of our restorative procedures are:
- Fillings: When a portion of a tooth is lost to decay, the dentist prepares the area for a composite mixture that is pressed and shaped to fit the spot and then hardened.
- Root Canal: When the actual pulp material inside of a tooth becomes infected, a root canal procedure reaches into the tooth, removes infected material and then replaces it with filler material that supports the tooth’s structure.
- Dental Implants: These are basically replacement roots, made of metal and screwed into the jaw. The portion of the implant that is above the gum line is fitted with a dental crown that matches your healthy teeth.
- Bone Grafts: When bone loss or weakness makes a section of the jaw unable to accept an implant, processed bone is used to reinforce the area and provide enough anchor space for the implant.
- Dentures: Otherwise known as “false teeth,” a denture is a carefully crafted set of replacement teeth, set in a plastic plate that is colored to look like gum tissue.
Gum Disease
If you get your twice-yearly cleanings/examinations and make effective at-home dental hygiene a priority, gum disease is easy to avoid. But when it shows up, there are two types:
- Gingivitis (inflamed gums that are swollen and that bleed easily,
- Periodontal Disease (a painful advanced infection that causes gums to recede and teeth to shift).
Gingivitis is most often eliminated by a heightened focus on hygiene. As for periodontal disease, depending upon its severity, a more strenuous cleaning procedure, called scaling & root planing, may be needed:
Scaling & Root Planing: In this procedure, the teeth are aggressively cleaned below the gum line. That is followed by a process of smoothing out any rough spots on the surface of roots, to prevent the collection of bacteria. Unlike a regular cleaning, a scaling/planing procedure needs to be done with anesthetics.
Contrary to some people’s fears, dentists no longer “pull teeth.” That’s a term left over from very early dentistry—the kind you might see practiced in an old Hollywood western. When a tooth needs to come out, the procedure to remove it is called an extraction. It’s a very careful, patient-friendly procedure—especially here, at Schwerer Dental Care.
- Simple Extraction:The procedure for a tooth that needs to go and presents no unusual challenges.
- Surgical Extraction: The term for a procedure in which more intricate methods are needed due to the condition and/or position of the tooth.
- Wisdom Teeth Extraction: The most common surgical extraction, which removes the teeth at the very back of the mouth (“third molars”).
