Frequently Asked Questions - General FAQs

No. But they can get their own and it is just as bad for them.

The one that you are prepared to use and can afford.

Yes, but be careful to self medicate. Using sensitive tooth toothpaste when tooth sensitivity is a warning sign that there is something wrong is like switching off the burglar alarm in your home. Using sensitive tooth toothpaste under proper justifiable professional guidance is sound therapy.

There are three applications for mouth washes. The first is to loosen the plaque before brushing; the second is to kill the bacteria on the teeth and in the mouth and the third is for fresh breath. The pre-brushing rinse does make a difference but in very specific areas, usually those that are rather easy to clean anyway. The bacteria killing rinses work but they do not clean the teeth. Without proper physical cleaning of all the dead bacteria, a killer rinse simply creates cemeteries around your teeth. If used to get out of the manual labour of physical tooth cleaning, it is wrong. The body is still capable of mounting a gum damaging defense response even against dead bacteria. Be careful also of the alcohol content of mouth rinses as alcohol in the mouth is associated with skin cancer of the inside of the mouth. The use of oral rinses for fresh breath is invalid if used to mask the halitosis (smelly breath) of gum disease. In a healthy mouth, it is a valid part of personal grooming, professional marketing and social appeal. Most manufacturers offer a rinse, an oral spray, a gel, toothpaste and a chewing gum depending on the duration required for the product to act. These products on their own (except the chewing gum) do not clean the teeth, facilitate brushing or kill bacteria. They simply take the smelly gases out of the mouth, leaving you with fresh breath.

At least theoretically all people with adjacent teeth have to floss. However, oral hygiene is prescribed by your teeth and gums. You need to consult your dentist on whether you have a dentition where it is compulsory for you to floss or else……Ons size does not fit all.

This refers to minor oral surgery on the gums around the teeth. It is aimed at removing excess gum – gummy smile, replacing missing gum – long in the tooth or gum recession or filling in defects to eliminate dark shadows or food entrapment sites. In a comprehensive aesthetic dental reconstruction, it will be aimed at exposing an aesthetic length of tooth with left and right, front and back tooth harmony.

There are many bodily diseases that have been associated with gum disease. This means that researchers think there could be a link between gum diseases and for example that pregnant women with gum disease give birth early (pre-term) to low birth weight but normal babies. Many of these links are being watched carefully and responsibly by various authorities because the impact of a proven connection can have far reaching implications. The principles by which such a connection is possible is however basic science. In other words it is highly conceivable and possible. The principles are – that you chew on your teeth into the infection in your gums and this causes living bacteria to be injected into your bloodstream, possibly causing the bacteria to lodge in another distant site in your body and causing a new mini-infection at that site-that the body defences are armed to a higher level of awareness and that , as these armed cells and defence factors circulate through your body on their way to the gums ,that they may get stuck in a non-gum tissue site and cause inadvertent harm because of their destructive defence capacity – that certain inherited characteristic in your defense system ( Interleukin , HLA system ) makes you more vulnerable to gum infection while it also plays a key role in other body diseases for example rheumatoid arthritis. Continuously stimulating the activation of this unique genetic defense characteristic through your gum infection also activates it to play a role elsewhere in the body.

The main features of a dental implanted tooth are that it is the closest thing that you can get to a natural tooth. It is non-removable (stays in the mouth), easy to maintain, easy to repair, very aesthetic and very strong.

An implant is placed surgically. When you are considering an implant as an option, you can negotiate to have it done under local anaesthetic (simple injections only) with sedation (either gas or intra-venous) or even a general anaesthetic. When the recipient area is numb and you are comfortable, the operator may make a small incision in the gum and then proceed to use a fairly normal dental drill (without the whining sound) to prepare a recipient cavity in the jaw. The implant is then screwed into place, tightened and the small cut is closed.

Usually but many complications can arise even before implant placement, requiring advanced bone rebuilding and gum enhancement techniques.