Home/Services & Procedures/General & Preventive Dentistry
General & Preventive Dentistry
Our dental team places a strong emphasis on providing the general and preventive dentistry options you and your family need to enjoy the best possible oral health. General and preventive treatments encompass a full range of family dental care options designed to provide the foundation for excellent teeth and gum health for patients of virtually all ages. These routine procedures can reduce the risk of serious problems occurring later, which may require more invasive dental treatment to resolve.
Find out more about our general, preventive, and family dental care options below, and don’t hesitate to contact Vaccaro Aesthetic and Family Dentistry for more information!
Preventable Teeth & Gum Problems
Most people know that if you don’t brush your teeth regularly, you can develop bad breath. But regular and effective oral health maintenance routines are important for so many other reasons, as well. In addition to halitosis (bad breath), bacteria left on your teeth due to poor oral hygiene can contribute to conditions such as:
- Gum disease
- Tooth decay
- Tooth discoloration
- Tooth sensitivity
Visiting Vaccaro Aesthetic and Family Dentistry at least twice a year for preventive dental checkups and teeth cleanings can help prevent problems from progressing. If we notice areas where home dental care can improve, we will also give you tips on how to make your oral hygiene routine more successful. Proper home care along with routine dental visits offer the best ways to keep teeth and gums healthy for as long as possible!
Preventive Checkups & Cleanings
Prevention is the foundation upon which our dental practice is built. With routine exams and cleanings, we hope to find problems while they are still in their earliest stages. This almost always means less invasive treatment that is less expensive and quicker to complete.
Even if you take good care of your teeth at home and aren’t experiencing dental issues, twice-a-year exams and cleanings are crucial. No matter how often you brush and floss, you simply cannot get all of the plaque and bacteria off your teeth and gum line. Eventually, it will harden into tartar. If you don’t get this removed professionally—the only way to do so—it can lead to tooth decay and gum disease. With that in mind, professional dental care can address these concerns and help you maintain good oral health for the long-term.
Routine visits to our dental office will typically include the following:
- A visual exam by Dr. Matthew Vaccaro
- Intraoral photographs to show you what we see
- A full set of digital x-rays or other types of advanced digital imaging
- A comprehensive review of your current oral health
- A thorough dental cleaning by one of our dental hygienists
Seeing the dentist twice a year provides a solid platform for good oral health. At Vaccaro Aesthetic and Family Dentistry, we like to see patients every six months for routine checkups and cleanings. This enables Dr. Matthew Vaccaro to spot oral health disease, including decay or infection, and to recommend treatment for any issues that might be developing. The earlier he discovers a problem, the easier it is to treat—and the less money you’ll likely have to spend on dental procedures.
We generally recommend x-rays regularly—once a year for most patients—so we can see any dental issues that are not yet visible to the naked eye. Digital x-rays are a safe diagnostic tool, and they emit less radiation than their film x-ray counterparts. Our intraoral cameras can also detect cavities (dental caries). We can often diagnose a cavity using this technology, even without an x-ray.
At your routine visits, we will also assess your gum health. In many cases, people have gum disease without even knowing it because they may not be experiencing overt symptoms. The truth is that you cannot have healthy teeth if you do not have healthy gums, so it is crucial for us to identify and treat gum disease when it is present. This is why our Periodontist Dr Beth Dorfman and our hygienists will complete a probing of your gums once a year.
Even the most diligent tooth brushers and flossers need biannual dental cleanings. Plaque builds up on the teeth that cannot be removed with a toothbrush and dental floss, so our hygienists use special tools to do so.
Gum Health & Periodontal Treatment
Gum disease is the leading cause of tooth loss among adults, so biannual visits to the dentist are imperative. You may think your gums are healthy, but the truth is that you might have gum disease and not even know about it. In its earliest stages—when it is most treatable—there are often no symptoms at all. However, if it is discovered early enough, gum disease can often be reversed. If the condition progresses without treatment in early to latter stages, the best one can expect is to be able to manage gum disease and prevent it from getting worse, because once it gets to a certain stage it cannot be cured.
It is important to know that, for those individuals who have had more than the “average” amount of dental work completed in their mouth, we may sometimes recommend you return for routine maintenance more often than every six months. The reason for this is that plaque and bacteria will adhere and colonize around those foreign materials in your mouth and affect the gums in a negative way.