21 Jul Selecting a Brisbane Dentist
Selecting a Brisbane Dentist
Reconstructive Dentistry is the process of repairing and rebuilding a broken down mouth. The way in which a Dentist transforms a mouth during a Reconstruction will impact the long-term effectiveness of the work performed.
To ensure your Dental Work is long-lasting, your Dentist should be able to:
- Make you feel comfortable and be someone you can trust
- Demonstrate knowledge, diagnosis of future concerns, and be able to explain why your mouth is as it is
- Be a current member of professional organisations such as the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry and the American Academy of Implant Dentistry and the Australian Dental Association and the Australia Society of Implant Dentistry
- Provide a comprehensive treatment program with logical thought processes
- Provide alternative treatment options
- Provide Treatment in the least invasive treatment means possible.
- Show previous cases similar to your condition and show their own actual ‘before and after’ photos of the cases
- Provide continuing comprehensive care for you on an ongoing basis after your treatment is complete
- Have a team of professionals who can provide areas of experience and expertise
- Demonstrate the necessity to have routine cleaning appointments with a Dental Hygienist
The way in which a Dentist positions your jaw impacts largely on how extensive a Dentist may need to rebuild your teeth. In a typical treatment schedule a program will involve between six and ten teeth. This is however very dependent on the individual. It can also depend on how early the Dentist can diagnose and treat your situation, before more damage is done.
We have noticed a current trend for Dentists, backed by well marketed branding campaigns, to push for “pain-relief dentistry”. Whilst this form of dentistry does have clinical benefits, there is a push for some Dentists to utilise this program to “sell” very large treatment plans when in fact other, similar, well reviewed, and well published techniques can also similarly relieve the symptoms of jaw pain, all whilst being less invasive! Frank Spears at the Annual AACD Conference in 2006 lectured on comparison of many different jaw positioning techniques, and in the end concluded that “the least invasive treatment program” should always be the most desirable treatment recommended by Dentists.
Another important fact is that it is the Dentist who provides the clinical skills to perform the work inside your mouth, but it is the Dental Technician/Dental Ceramist who is the other half of the team. It is the Ceramist who is the skilled professional who artistically builds the Porcelain to create beautiful, realistic looking results, which are ‘built to last’. In our experience, we have seen so called “Cosmetic Dentists” who send their laboratory work off-shore to cheap laboratories. This is in fact how the Dentist offers their lower cost treatment to you at a lower cost. Lower cost, quite often means cheaper build! In dentistry, getting that perfect precision, which means having fillings and crowns fit within 10 micrometres rather than hundreds of micrometres means lasting for decades versus just a few years!
Looking closely at advertising images of other Dentists’ work is often interesting! We are continually amazed at terrible photographic records taken by so called “Cosmetic Dentists” and even more amazed at the terrible gum health that is visible in photos, which in some cases is a direct result of quick dental procedures. These “quick dental procedures” may amaze a patient at the time of the appointment, but where not enough care and attention to detail was taken to carefully manipulate gum tissue, the resulting red inflamed gum presentation really ruins what could have been an otherwise lovely Smile Makeover. Good Reconstructive Dental Care, as is good cosmetic and general dental care, is really determined by ‘expertise’, ‘experience’, ‘artistic ability’, ”technology’, but is not possible without very close ‘attention to detail’.
