When one of your teeth starts to decay, you need help from your dentist to save the tooth. You receive a filling, the best method of tooth decay treatment. The filling keeps the decay from continuing and enables you to maintain a full, healthy smile. Not visiting your dentist allows the decay to worsen and you may lose your tooth or experience even worse damage to surrounding bone.

How Tooth Decay Begins

Young man talking to staff about tooth decay treatmentTooth decay starts very quietly and without pain. You see no signs of the problem that sneaks up on you when plaque builds on your teeth. Using the sugars in foods you eat, this plaque forms acids that destroy protective tooth enamel. Without treatment, the decay proceeds deeper into your tooth’s layers.

Cavities start forming with no pain or sensitivity. In this early stage, your dentist finds cavities before you know they exist. The decay spreads rapidly once it reaches the dentin of your teeth. There, tiny nerve endings start causing sensitivity. After decay reaches the dentin, you also feel some pain or discomfort when you bite down.

The decay continues working on your tooth toward the root. Your root does not have enamel protecting it. In these stages of decay, you feel more intense pain, more often.

If you still do not get your dentist’s help with treatment, an infection begins when the decay reaches pulp. This inner core of your tooth contains the nerves and blood vessels, so the damage leads to intense pain as an abscess forms. Your face swells, a foul taste remains in your mouth, and you experience a fever. Without urgent dental treatment, the infection spreads to your jawbone or other parts of your body.

Orlando, Florida Tooth Decay Treatment

In Orlando, Florida you need tooth decay treatment before your decay causes infection and an abscess. S. Keith Mahan, DDS finds the decay early and works to save your tooth. If you did not wait too long to see your dentist, he stops the decay using an amalgam metal or composite tooth-colored filling.

If you did wait too long to see your dentist, porcelain crowns strengthen and support a severely damaged tooth. After your filling, the dentist places this crown to restore the tooth’s shape. This also helps you maintain a healthy bite.

The biggest problem of waiting longer than you should to see your dentist is an abscessed tooth. For this dangerous problem, you need a root canal or extraction. Today’s dentists try to save your tooth first. Only if it suffered damage beyond repair will the dentist remove your tooth.

Even with a root canal as tooth decay treatment, a severely damaged tooth may require a crown. Crowns cost more than tooth fillings, just as root canals cost more, too. So waiting to see your dentist causes many problems that cost a lot more money. This is one reason why you need ongoing twice-yearly checkups, to catch issues like decay early.

Prevent Tooth Decay Damage By Seeing Your Dentist Regularly

Seeing your dentist twice annually keeps your smile healthy, bright and strong. With these ongoing exams and treatments, the Orlando family dentist finds problems before they are visible to the naked eye. He uses digital X-rays and other means of finding decay early before you need a filling, crown, root canal or extraction.

Other dental services provided by S. Keith Mahan, DDS include:

Your whole family enjoys brighter smiles and healthy days ahead, with twice annual checkups and early tooth decay treatment. For your consultation with S. Keith Mahan, DDS in Orlando, call 407-841-7241 now.