Dental Blog

Are you dreaming of a white Christmas and looking forward to the most wonderful time of the year? While the festive period may not always quite live up to idyllic images conjured by popular seasonal songs, there’s one sure way to put an extra shine on the holidays – with a sparkling smile.

Dental implants are a popular, state-of-the-art alternative to more conventional methods of replacing missing teeth. Implants hold key advantages over traditional dentures in terms of convenience and comfort, and they look, feel and function like natural teeth.

People living in the Plymouth MN area who’ve suffered tooth loss can get artificial teeth from local dentists who’re the experts in teeth replacement – prosthodontists. Prosthodontics is a dental specialty.

Dental crowns and bridges from Metropolitan Prosthodontics in Plymouth, MN provide effective solutions to replace missing teeth. In other cases, a crown can avoid extraction by repairing a badly decayed tooth.

Artificial teeth – dentures, bridges and dental implants – are known medically as dental prostheses. And there’s a specialty in dentistry that focuses on these treatments – prosthodontics, from the Greek “prostho”, meaning replacement, and “dont”, which refers to teeth.

Losing a front tooth can be particularly distressing, as, after all, your smile is an important part of your personality. When you cannot smile, laugh and talk freely without feeling embarrassment, it can affect your self-esteem and self-confidence.

Complete tooth loss is still very common, and more than 36 million Americans are edentulous, meaning they do not have any teeth. If you have lost all your teeth or are facing their loss quite soon, then you have two main choices for their replacement. One option is to have ordinary dentures, or you could consider dental implant treatment which is often regarded as being the gold standard for replacing missing teeth.

If stained teeth are spoiling your smile, the professional teeth whitening experience offers many advantages over DIY treatments with teeth bleaching merchandise. Whitening by a dental professional is safer, more comfortable, and achieves better, longer-lasting results faster.

Every time you talk, yawn, laugh and chew food, you use your temporomandibular joints. These are the joints that hinge or connect your lower jaw to your skull, which are operated by facial muscles. If you develop problems with your temporomandibular joints then these are known as temporomandibular joint disorders, called TMJ disorder or TMD for short.

Dentures today are a far cry from the false teeth earlier generations had to put up with. Thanks to state-of-the-art technology, modern dentures – with porcelain or plastic teeth on an acrylic base – are much more comfortable. They also look more natural, and people can now rarely tell when someone is wearing a denture.