Preventative Dentistry
It is important to brush your teeth at least twice daily to help remove plaque and food particles that get stuck to your teeth. It is recommended that you brush your teeth for two minutes (or longer), though most people rush through this time. You need to make sure that you reach every side of each tooth, including the inside and outside. To help keep your breath fresh, you should also brush your tongue. Then, you can begin flossing.
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Cleanings And Exams
Having a dental practice perform a checkup and regular cleaning gives a preventive approach to dental care. These general dentistry treatments help prevent problems with your teeth, gums and jaw bones, or they catch and manage problems before they worsen. During your visit, our doctors will take a picture of the current standing of your dental health and what would be needed to keep your oral hygiene in its best state.
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Teeth Whitening
A common request we receive is how to make a smile whiter and brighter. This is a relatively simple and quick treatment option that can be performed periodically. Certain foods and beverages, such as wine and coffee, stain the teeth and contribute to discoloration. The teeth whitening process provides a solution that lightens the shade of the teeth. Additionally, the process actually rids the teeth of plaque and tartar that tend to lead to dental problems.
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Fillings/ Dental Restorations
When you go to the dentist, there are a couple ways that he can determine whether or not you have a cavity. If you have a cavity on the exposed teeth, the dentist can use a pick on the tooth. If the tooth is soft, there is a cavity there. It is also possible to get cavities on the part of the tooth that is not exposed. In order to see these areas of the teeth, an x-ray is taken. Cavities will show up on the x-rays and the dentist will know where the problem is.
Typically, there are two materials that dentists use to fill the cavities in the teeth. The first type are amalgam fillings. These fillings are commonly made up of mercury, zinc, copper, silver, or tin. Amalgam fillings have been used in dentistry for over one hundred eighty years. When the metals in the material come together, they are soft. After the dentist places the material in the cavity, it will begin to harden. It will become as hard as the tooth that it is filling. This type of dental filling is typically used for back teeth and parts of the teeth that are not visible when smiling.
The other type of dental filling that is commonly used are composite fillings. These fillings are white, making them not noticeable when the cavity is on a front, very visible tooth. The consistency of this type of filling is the same consistency as modeling clay. After the dentist applies the composite filling to the tooth, he shines a bright blue light on it. This light causes a series of chemical reactions causing the filling to harden. After the composite filling has hardened, it will be as hard as your tooth and will also be the same color as your other teeth.
Getting dental fillings is a very routine procedure. The procedure is relatively painless and will keep your smile looking great for years to come.
Root Canals
Root canals are needed when decay and bacteria spread for too long without treatment. At a certain point, this decay makes it to the pulp inside the tooth. This pulp includes nerves, therefore infection generally causes a lot of pain. Since this is happening on the inside of the tooth, you won’t necessarily see the damage. Instead, you could feel it through pain and notice other signs that include bleeding, swelling and bad breath.
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Extractions
An extraction is performed to remove a tooth, whether because of disease, crowding, or damage. When extractions are required, the area around the tooth will be numbed and your dentist will remove the tooth. A small amount of bleeding is normal, as your mouth will replace the removed tooth root by forming a blood clot in the area.
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Emergency Care
Our highly trained doctors and staff are ready to manage all of your concerns. We have methods to alleviate the pain and help you feel calm during your emergency dental visit.
If you are facing a dental emergency, please don’t hesitate to contact us immediately at (413) 285-7283!
Oral Cancer Screenings
Nobody wants to hear that they may have oral cancer. Although it can be fatal, it is easier to treat the earlier it is caught. For this reason, we are proud to assist our patients with an oral cancer screening. We want to help our patients survive this often fatal disease.
Oral cancer will typically show up as white or red patches or lesions inside of your mouth. You may even notice the lesions on your tongue or on the floor of your mouth. Many people experience a hard time swallowing, bleeding in the mouth, or even swelling in your face or neck.
Sealants
When we apply a dental sealant, we paint a plastic coating on top of your teeth. This makes your teeth smooth getting rid of the rough edges, depressions, and grooves that are commonly found on teeth. It is essentially a protective coating against tooth decay and cavities.
The most common place to paint sealants is on back teeth since they are often irregular. They can also be very hard to reach, even if you brush your teeth regularly. We use it more on children though we do perform sealants on adults too!
Night Guards
It can be beneficial to use a guard, or covering, to protect your teeth from grinding while sleeping. Similar to how a mouthguard protects teeth during sports, this layer prevents damage to the teeth that can occur naturally.
There are a wide variety of different types of mouthguards, ranging from pre-formed pieces to ones that are custom fitted to your teeth and jaws. Some of these can even be formed at home through a boil-and-bite process.
TMJ Treatment
At New England Dental Care, we are proud to offer temporomandibular joint dysfunction, otherwise known as TMJ, treatments to provide relief for our patients. TMJ is caused by an inflammation in the temporomandibular joint, which acts as a sliding hinge that connects your jawbone to your skull.
What are the symptoms of TMJ?
TMJ causes pain and discomfort along the jawbone and can make it painful to even move your jaw. While jaw pain and discomfort don’t always equate to TMJ, if you are also experiencing headaches, trouble chewing, or pain in the face, jaw, and ear, you’re more than likely experiencing TMJ.
Invisalign
Invisalign® is a modern alternative to straighten your teeth without wires or metal. Invisalign® involves a series of custom trays designed specifically for you and the plan your dentist or orthodontist creates to move your teeth. The trays are made from a smooth plastic that covers your teeth and gradually moves them into place.
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Dental Implants
When you have missing teeth, an alternative solution to dentures is dental implants. While dentures are removable, dental implants provide permanent new teeth to restore your mouth’s function and appearance. Dental implants tend to offer a successful and lasting solution to the loss of some or all of your teeth.
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Dentures
Dentures are natural-looking replacement teeth that are removable. There are two types of dentures: Complete and Partial. At New England Dental both types of dentures are customized to meet each patient’s aesthetic and functional needs.
Partial dentures are attached to a resin or metal frame that is connected to your natural teeth and are used to fill in where permanent teeth have been removed.
Immediate dentures can also be fabricated so that you don’t have to go without your smile after the extractions. Immediate dentures act as a transitional while your gums heal and until they are ready to be fitted for the complete or partial denture.
New England Dental Care’s dentists work passionately toward creating the most beautiful and youthful smiles for patients whose natural teeth have been compromised and require replacement. Denture patients can be fully involved in the denture creation process, from providing a photo of past smiles for inspiration to selecting the desired gum shade.
Denture Partials
A removable partial denture is an optimal solution for patients who may be missing one or more teeth in a particular area of their mouth. Removable partial dentures are attached to a gum-colored base which may have a metal framework that helps to hold it in place against the surrounding teeth. These dentures serve to replace missing teeth, restore functionality, and generally improve oral health. When a tooth is lost, and the gap isn’t immediately filled, it can lead to the neighboring teeth to shift; this can create a significant change in your bite and can even cause long-term damage to your gums and jaw bone.
To begin treatment, we will determine if removable partial dentures are the best option for you. Factors such as oral hygiene, the location of the missing tooth gap(s), bone strength, and long-term viability for dentures all determine your treatment plan. Our team will start by taking dental impressions of your teeth which will serve as the mold used to create your dentures. Next, we will review the size, shape, and coloring of each replacement tooth to recreate your natural smile. Once these are determined, we send the molds to a dental lab which creates a mock-up partial denture for you.
During a fitting appointment with our team, we will have you test out the mock-ups to check how they fit, look, and feel in your mouth. This is the time you and our team will make adjustments to the fit or color of the teeth before sending the mock-ups back to the lab for alterations. Remember, your absolute honesty is needed as your feedback shapes the final removable partial denture you will be receiving. Once the final changes have been made to the mock-up, the lab will custom build your dentures. After we receive the final design, your last fitting session will be to make small adjustments for comfort, bite, or fit which can all be made in-house by our team.