Dental Cleanings in Sheridan: More Important than You May Know

Posted May 12, 2013 by Dr. Coon

checking teeth While most people are aware that brushing and flossing your teeth twice a day is vital to keeping your smile clean, but how often do you visit your dentist for a regular dental checkup and cleaning? Your daily hygiene ritual is fairly simple and can be practiced in a matter of minutes every day, but visiting the dentist’s office every six months may seem like more of a chore. Your Sh eridan dentist, Dr. Coon, explains why your dental cleaning is also vital to your smile’s health, and why you shouldn’t ignore professional maintenance when caring for your oral health.

What Your Toothbrush Can’t Do for You

The point of brushing and flossing your teeth is to control the buildup of dental plaque, which contains over 600 different kinds of oral bacteria. Some of these germs produce acid that erodes your tooth enamel (the strong protective layer around your teeth), and others can irritate and inflame your gum tissue, paving the way for gum disease. While brushing and flossing is essential, however, it is not full-proof, and missing a spot of plaque now and then is natural. After about 48 hours, dental plaque calcifies (hardens) into tartar, which is more stubborn than plaque and cannot be removed with your toothbrush and floss. (more…)

The Beauty of Dental Implants, with Your Sheridan Dentists

Posted May 3, 2013 by Dr. Coon

There are a number of options for restoring your smile after losing one or more teeth, each designed according to the amount of teeth lost and their pattern within your mouth. However, dental crowns, bridges, and partial/full dentures focus only on replacing the crowns, or visible portions, of your teeth, which is necessary to once again complete your smile, but does not effectively address the destruction that follows the loss of healthy teeth. Your Sh eridan dentist, Dr. Coon, has extensive experience restoring our patients’ smiles after they’ve suffered tooth loss, and explains why dental implants are a must-have for eligible patients who need to replace one or more teeth.

The Discrete Destruction of Tooth Loss

While manmade replacement teeth offer a variety of anchors, including intricate frames and powerful dental adhesives, your natural teeth provide the sturdiest base of all—healthy tooth roots, which are embedded in your jawbone. (more…)

Porcelain Veneers—A New Face for Your Smile in Sheridan

Posted April 26, 2013 by Dr. Coon

Your smile is one of the most dominant features of your face. It plays an important role in first impressions, and can significantly impact your self-confidence, for better or worse. Luckily, like other aspects of your appearance, you can tweak your smile’s visage to improve its aesthetic value and your pride in showing it. When it comes to giving your smile a makeover, however, limiting the disturbance to your healthy tooth structures is vital to maintaining your good oral health in the process. To this end, porcelain veneers provide the optimal solution in many smile makeover cases that involve multiple tooth blemishes on more than one tooth. Your Sheridan cosmetic dentist, Dr. Donald Coon, explains the diversity of porcelain veneers, and why they’re ideal for providing your smile with the face it deserves.

What are Porcelain Veneers?

In the quest to provide dental restorations and replacements that closely resemble the real thing, dental porcelain is perhaps one of the most valuable resources. Used for a variety of treatments, including dental crowns and dentures, porcelain is also used to create dental veneers. Essentially thin wafers of dental porcelain, veneers are small shells that are custom-designed to match the contours of your smile, and the porcelain is specially layered to mimic the light-reflecting properties of natural tooth enamel. Porcelain veneers are bonded to the front surfaces of your teeth and can simultaneously cover a variety of cosmetic blemishes, including severe tooth stains, unsightly chips, odd spaces, and slightly misaligned teeth, among others. (more…)

Sheridan Dentist Explains How Gum Disease Leads to Tooth Loss

Posted April 21, 2013 by Dr. Coon

If asked, many people might answer that tooth decay is the leading cause of adult tooth loss. It would be a logical assumption, considering over 90% of adults in America have been affected by cavities in at least one of their permanent teeth. However, they’d be wrong—more adults lose their teeth to aggressive gum disease than any other cause, although fewer people are affected by it (about 80%) than tooth decay. Your Sheridan dentist, Dr. Donald Coon, explains how gum disease works to destroy your smile’s foundation and your ability to retain your natural teeth.

Your Smile’s Foundation Under Siege

While tooth decay attacks your teeth and gum disease afflicts your gums and jawbone, both diseases begin with the silent but destructive accumulation of dental plaque—the sticky substance that you can sometimes find on the surfaces of your teeth and along your gum line. (more…)

Sheridan General Dentist—Weird Human Tongue Facts

Posted April 14, 2013 by Dr. Coon

Do you brush and floss your teeth at least twice a day? Do you include your tongue during these rituals? Most people think first of their teeth and gums when contemplating their oral health, but your tongue is also a vital part of your mouth’s health and function. It helps you enunciate your words clearly, and move food to the back of your mouth for swallowing. Then again, not everything pertaining to the human tongue is of vital importance, even if they are interesting. Your Sheridan general dentist, Dr. Coon, explores some of amusing, but lesser-known, facts about the human tongue.

What You Don’t Need to Know About the Human Tongue

Your tongue is often hailed as the strongest muscle in your body. Technically, however, it’s a group of muscles, which work without the assistance of bones (a unique structure called a “muscular hydrostat”). An elephant’s trunk and an octopus’ tentacles are other examples of muscular hydrostats. (more…)

Learn How Invisalign Clear Braces Can Improve Your Smile in Sheridan

Posted April 6, 2013 by Dr. Coon

How would you like a straighter smile? Many older teens and adults are dissatisfied with crooked teeth, but are hesitant to undergo traditional orthodontic treatment to correct them, which involves a network of metal braces connected by metal wire. While the aesthetic concern is understandable, the importance of straight teeth to the function of your smile should trump any potential embarrassment you may feel about wearing braces. Nevertheless, knowing that your teeth should be straight doesn’t always prevent the negative effect braces can have on your social and professional confidence. Luckily, you no longer have to choose between crooked teeth and conspicuous metal braces—with Invisalign clear braces from your Sheridan dentist, Dr. Coon, you can straighten your smile without announcing your treatment to the world.

The Science Behind Invisalign Clear Braces

Traditional braces use brackets that are connected by wires to control the prescribed movement of your teeth. Some innovative orthodontic treatments utilize white brackets and wire that blend in with the color of your teeth, making them unnoticeable from a distance. Invisalign clear braces, however, eschews the philosophy of bracket-and-wire apparatuses and instead utilizes a series of clear acrylic aligners that fit snugly over your teeth. Each successive aligner gently forces your teeth a step closer towards their desired positions, and advancing your treatment simply requires changing your clear aligner. (more…)

Improved Dental Bridges in Sheridan

Posted March 25, 2013 by Dr. Coon

Losing a tooth is like losing a part of yourself. Well, since your permanent teeth don’t grow back, you’re literally losing a part of yourself; but luckily, you don’t have to permanently suffer the loss. Recently, we discussed replacing missing teeth with a crown-supported dental bridge. As the name suggests, a dental bridge closes the gap left by lost teeth with the appropriate number of prosthetic teeth, called pontics, effectively restoring the function and beauty of your smile. In many cases, however, your Sheridan dentist, Dr. Coon, may recommend supporting your bridge with one or more dental implants for improved security and oral health preservation.

Resounding Effects of Tooth Loss

Even if you don’t mourn the loss of a tooth, its brethren will. Remaining teeth can drift towards the opening created in their ranks, which can lead to a host of complicated dental problems. The changing landscape can throw your bite off balance, causing excessive wear on certain teeth, and shifting teeth are at an increased risk of developing gum disease and tooth decay. Replacing a lost tooth as soon as possible can help prevent the chaos, and a dental bridge is designed to do exactly that. (more…)

What’s the Deal with Dental Fillings?

Posted March 18, 2013 by Dr. Coon

If you or someone you know has ever been affected by tooth decay, then you may be familiar with the concept of a dental filling. Considering the fact that tooth decay affects the permanent teeth of about 90% of America’s adult population, there is a good chance that you are. However, not everyone that is familiar with a dental filling understands the mechanics behind the procedure. To help strengthen your concepts of good dental health, your Sheridan dentist, Dr. Donald Coon, explains what a dental filling procedure entails and how it can help save your tooth.

With Tooth Decay, it’s All About Timing

Tooth decay is a progressive disease; treating it depends on the stage at which you detect it. The earliest stage, known as enamel erosion, involves acid produced by oral bacteria after consuming sugar and carbs. This acid erodes your tooth enamel (the protective layer around your teeth) in preparation for the onset of tooth decay. When caught at this stage, enamel erosion can typically be reversed with fluoride treatments and other enamel-enhancing techniques, along with an improved dental hygiene routine and diligent control over your eating habits. When enamel erodes and decay infects your tooth’s main structure, the infected material must be removed. (more…)

How Deep Should Your Dental Cleaning Go?

Posted March 11, 2013 by Dr. Coon

How often do you brush and floss your teeth? If you answered at least twice a day (and we hope you did), then you’re on the right track to keeping your smile healthy and clean. Yet, however effective your daily hygiene routine is, it is not enough to stave off dental disease and protect your oral health by itself. Like a well-kept vehicle, your smile needs professional maintenance from time to time in the form of your regular scheduled dental checkup and cleaning. The question, then, is how thorough should your dental cleaning be? As Sheridan dentist, Sheridan dentist, Dr. Donald Coon, explains, that depends on how much trouble your oral health is in.

Help with the Tough Spots

The more common form of dental cleaning is the care you receive during your routine dental checkup and cleaning, which involves our talented hygienist using professional tools to remove residual dental plaque and tartar, which is plaque that has calcified (hardened) after remaining on your teeth for more than 48 hours. Your brushing and flossing may miss some spots, allowing plaque to continue clinging to your teeth and threatening your oral health. A dental cleaning every six months, or sooner if Dr. Coon recommends it, can help control the plaque population along your teeth and gum line and is typically employed for patients with otherwise healthy teeth and gums. (more…)

Enhacing Your Smile in Sheridan, WY

Posted March 7, 2013 by Dr. Coon

If you had to guess the most popular cosmetic dental treatment, what would you choose? Any guesses?
(more…)

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