Modern dental treatment is quite different from that of many years ago. These days the idea is to prevent decay rather than waiting for it to happen and then fixing it, which can often be painful. By taking your children to a dentist early, they can have some of the more modern treatment that works to reduce the risk of decay.
You may think the only thing to reduce the risk of decay is good dental hygiene. While it is true that this certainly helps, it is not the only way to avoid decay. In fact, it may not even be the best way, given that children don’t like cleaning their teeth and get out of it whenever possible. And they don’t always do it properly anyway. It takes a lot of effort for a parent to oversee cleaning every night when everyone is tired.
New treatments
With new technology, children can have painless treatment that helps to avoid decay completely, at least in their molars. How? Molars are the chewing teeth and the flat surface is indented to ensure food stays there long enough to get properly chewed up. However, some molars have deeper indentations than others, with the result that the food gets jammed into the crevice and is difficult or even impossible to get out.
The new treatment developed over the last several years is to paint the chewing surface of the teeth with a liquid that dries hard and thus, seals the surface of the tooth so it doesn’t get decayed. If the crevice is very deep, sometimes the dentist will recommend filling it in with a normal filling, so food is not caught in there, causing decay to set in.
Both these treatments are painless because there is no need to drill into the surface of the tooth. All that is needed is for the surface of the tooth to be clean of debris. It is really worthwhile to have this done as it saves the pain of decay and the cost of getting it treated. It is also more aesthetically pleasing to see normal teeth without them being filled with metal.
Having decay treated can be expensive and time-consuming, especially when it has been allowed to get really bad. If you need to have the nerve of the tooth removed and the cavity cleaned out and sealed it is not very pleasant. The only good thing is that with the nerve gone, there is no more pain. However, the tooth will then be discoloured, because it is essentially a dead tooth, even if it can still be kept in the gum and used. Regular dental checkups prevent this from happening and ensure your teeth always look nice.