The Stow Dental Group Blog | Dr. Mark Iati

As 2009 draws to a close, you may be reflecting on the turns your life has taken in the past year and thinking about ways to make improvements in the upcoming year. While New Year’s resolutions are quite common, all too often, people fail to follow through with these resolutions once a busy and hectic life begins to get in the way.

Perhaps the best way to ensure that you follow through with a New Year's resolution is to commit to an attainable goal that has concrete meaning in your life. A perfect example would be a resolution to focus on maintaining proper dental health.

Besides the obvious benefit of ensuring healthy teeth and gums, maintaining proper dental health also plays an important role in your overall general health. If your body is constantly fighting off infections in your teeth and gums, it can adversely affect its ability to fight infections, viruses, and bacteria elsewhere in your body.

The first step to taking care of your dental health is to brush and floss regularly. By regularly, we recommend at least twice a day, although there is no harm in increasing your brushing and flossing regimen beyond this level. Furthermore, reducing your intake of sweets can also help prevent the development of cavities.

While regular brushing and flossing will greatly improve your dental hygiene, it is not enough to prevent the build-up of plaque and tartar on your teeth, which ultimately lead to tooth decay and gum disease. It is important to visit our Ohio family dentists twice a year for regular check-ups. This will ensure that your teeth and gums stay healthy, and if any problems do arise, regular check-ups will enable us to treat the problem before it becomes serious.

Stow Dental Group offers family dentistry services for people of all ages. We recognize that different stages of life present different dental needs. Therefore, we offer a variety of services that will treat the entire spectrum of dental health issues affecting different members of your family.

The easiest way to ensure a healthy smile throughout your life is to maintain proper dental hygiene and go for regular dental check-ups twice a year. This is certainly an attainable New Year's resolution. We hope it makes your list.

Please contact our Stow family dentists today to schedule your next check-up. Stow Dental Group serves patients in Stow and Akron-Canton, Ohio.

Stow and Akron-Canton, Ohio

Dentures are one excellent treatment option to replace missing teeth. Recent advances in cosmetic dentistry technology have vastly improved dentures, making them much more comfortable and functional than they were years ago. The Ohio cosmetic dentists at Stow Dental Group can fit you with dentures that will closely resemble the appearance of your natural teeth so that you can maintain a beautiful smile or enhance your previous one.

Causes of Tooth Loss

Tooth loss can be caused by:

• Periodontal disease (gum disease)
• Tooth decay
• Injury to the mouth

It is very important to replace missing teeth. Failure to do so can cause remaining teeth to shift in your mouth, impacting their alignment. Missing teeth can also prevent you from chewing properly, and they may lead to a sagging facial appearance that makes you look older than you are.

IMPLANT RETAINED DENTURES
Using implants under full or partial dentures is absolutely the most secure way to hold your dentures in place. Depending on each situation, your Stow Dental Group doctor will discuss and advise a consultation in order to decide where and how many implants will be needed to fully restore your function and appearance to years younger.

Full Dentures

Full dentures, also called complete dentures, are used to replace an entire set of natural teeth. If you are missing all of your upper or lower teeth, full dentures may be the most efficient and cost effective way to replace them. Your dentures will be custom fabricated over the course of several visits to our Ohio cosmetic dentists. Of course your input is always important in every step of the process.

If one or more teeth need to be extracted, it will take approximately six to eight weeks for your gums to heal. At this time, you will be fit for your set of dentures. While this may seem like a long time to wait for your dentures, failing to do so will only lead to potential complications and further dental work down the road. Temporary dentures can be constructed during the healing phase so that one never needs to go without teeth. These can also act as an excellent back up pair after the final dentures are constructed.

Partial Dentures

If you are only missing a few teeth, then you may be a candidate for partial dentures. Partial dentures, also called removable dental bridges, fill the gap between several missing teeth. Partial dentures are very versatile and are custom fited to the unique specifications of each mouth.

Removable partial dentures attach to your adjacent natural teeth using metal or tooth colored clasps. A porcelain crown is generally attached to provide additional strength and support to the denture.

If you only need to replace one or two teeth, dental implants may be a better option for you. At your initial consultation, our experienced Ohio implant dentists will advise you as to the best option to suit your needs.

The Stow Dental Group Difference

The Ohio cosmetic dentists at The Stow Dental Group use the most advanced techniques and technology to ensure that you receive the highest quality denture work possible. We custom design every set of dentures to address the unique qualities of your mouth. We pride ourselves on crafting every smile to enhance your surrounding facial features. The result is highly customized, quality denture work that yields aesthetically pleasing results. We are not dentures in a day…we are quality that shows in your smile!

If you need to replace missing teeth, please contact our Ohio cosmetic dentists today to schedule your initial consultation. Stow Dental Group serves patients in Arkon-Canton and Stow, Ohio.

Becoming more popular, especially amongst teens and adults, the days of metal braces may be on the wane with Invisalign. If you have crooked or misaligned teeth and want to fix them, but don’t want to deal with traditional braces, Invisalign might be the answer you've been looking for. These are virtually invisible when worn.

The Invisalign aligners fit over the top and bottom teeth, much like a mouth guard might. As your teeth straighten, you will get a different set of aligners about every six weeks. Changing aligners does not always require you to make an appointment with the dentist, and you can simply come down to the office to pick up your next series. However, one of the major benefits of Invisalign is that the aligners can be removed for special events or when eating.

While the Invisalign course of treatment varies from individual to individual, you can expect to see major improvements in less than a year. Compare this to the one to two years you might have to wear traditional braces.

While there is some pressure when wearing the aligners, there is no pain. Most of the discomfort will come during the time you change to a new aligner, but this will soon pass as you become used to the new series of aligners. Usually within 3 days.

If you are interested in Invisalign dental aligners and are in the Stow or Akron-Canton, Ohio area, please contact the experienced orthodontists at Stow Dental Group for an initial consultation.

Labels: akron, cosmetic dentistry, dentist, dentistry, invisalign, ohio

One thing many people dread about tooth restoration procedures, like getting a crown, is that it takes more than one visit to the dentist. No one wants to wait around with a temporary crown while the permanent is being made in a lab. With the E4D system used at Stow Dental Group, there is no waiting for the crown.

E4D is the latest upgrade to the CAD/CAM system, which has allowed dentists to create and mill crowns in one visit. This allows the patient to get back to their busy schedule and keep them from worrying about how they will keep their temporary from falling off.

E4D Process

• Using a laser scanning device over the area to get the crown, a digital impression is taken to make a 3D model of the tooth
• The 3D map is fed into the chair side computer that uses CAD/CAM software so that the dentist, can adjust and determine the parameters of the restorations
• The design is sent to the E4D milling center where the restoration is created. While the restoration is being made, the dentist can continue to focus on other areas that may need attention saving valuable time.

This is an accurate and quick way to get you smiling again with crowns that look and feel like your natural teeth. The technology has advanced to the point where even veneers can now be made in one visit. With the addition of a porcelain furnace, we can customize your restoration right at the chair side, just like the lab would do.

As with all dental work, every situation is different and this technology is not always the best way or even a feasible alternative for a laboratory fabricated crown. It is up to you and your doctor to decide which type of crown is best for your situation!

If you are in need of crown work or would like to know more about the E4D, please contact the experienced reconstructive dentists at Stow Dental Group in Stow, Ohio.

Labels: akron, cosmetic dentistry, dental crown, dentist, dentistry, ohio

Part of going to the dentist to have your teeth cleaned includes yearly x-rays. The images taken of your mouth and teeth allow us to see areas both above and below the gum line. This allows us to diagnose decay, periodontal disease and abnormalities of the bone. For years the way these radiograph photos were taken involved the patient wearing a lead-lined vest and a large camera or x-ray head pointed at the mouth while the patient was asked to “bite down.”

Staying on the cutting edge of technology, the Stow Dental Group in Stow, Ohio has begun to use the Schick wireless x-ray device. This digital camera technology is used by very few in the state of Ohio and is the first wireless instant dental x-ray system available in the world.

By using the Schick wireless system, our team is able to take high quality digital pictures of our patients’ teeth in a way that is comfortable to them, as well as giving us further mobility without sacrificing clarity. The sensor comes in two sizes to accommodate all patient types.

Rather than having to endure the old style films, the Schick wireless x-ray system allows the Stow Dental Group liscened radiologists to place the sensor in your mouth comfortably. The sensor is attached to a holder, and the whole thing acts as a radio frequency device. The images are taken and viewed within seconds.

Benefits
Freedom of movement and the ease of placing the Schick sensor are just two of the benefits. Other benefits that help us to give you the quality oral care you deserve are:

• Faster and more accurate diagnoses
• Ability to manipulate images for size and contrast as well as emailing quickly to dental specialists
• As much as 80% less radiation than using traditional film x-rays
• No harsh chemicals

Labels: akron, cosmetic dentistry, dentist, dentistry, ohio

The more the world gets busy, the more our lives do, too. As a result of trying to keep up, we sometimes forget things. Even those things, or especially those things, that have been scheduled for months. While Stow Dental Group has always called to remind patients of upcoming appointments, technology has allowed us to employ several other ways to contact you.

Stow Dental has implemented the “Smile Reminder” service in order to keep you and your family’s oral health and cosmetic needs from dropping off the radar. This service allows us to confirm, remind, or even schedule appointments through email, text message, paging, and more. Smile Reminder also allows us to send out newsletters to those who wish to receive them.

Stow Dental’s patients also benefit from Smile Reminder through the ability of updating their patient profiles. By adding new insurance information, pay bills, update addresses, and more, you don’t have to take a significant amount of time out of your busy schedule to keep your smile healthy and beautiful.

For more information about Smile Reminder, or to set up an appointment, please contact Stow Dental Group in Canton, Ohio today.

Labels: akron, cosmetic dentistry, dentist, dentistry, ohio

Are you a person with a crazy-busy schedule? If so, we have good news for you as far as tooth whitening is concerned: A Zoom! teeth whitening treatment takes only an hour or so. The “or so” part refers to preparation and follow-up done before and after the actual treatment.

When you are comfortable in our chair, we will apply a protective gel to the soft tissue in your mouth – lips, gums, some cheek tissue. Then the whitening gel is applied to your teeth and an activating light directed towards them. You can wear headphones and listen to music, or just doze off and catch up on a little sleep.

During the one hour of actual treatment time we will apply the whitening gel three times for 20 minutes each. That is because the whitening agent slows down after that amount of time. If at any point your teeth start to feel sensitive, we can stop treatment and apply a desensitizing gel. Most people do not have this problem, but we know that some teeth are extra sensitive and we do not want you to be feeling uncomfortable.

Your results will be transformative for your smile. It is quite fascinating what a large difference bright white teeth make to a person’s facial appearance. Many people immediately feel more confident about smiling, and of course, a person with a ready smile tends to elicit smiles from others. That can also boost one’s self-confidence

The Zoom! system includes a follow-up kit to take home with you. We will show you how to use it. You can use it right away if you think your teeth could become even whiter, or you can keep it for later touch-ups.

Please see our pages on Teeth Whitening and Cosmetic Dentistry for more information.

Our dentists and our supporting staff are all believers in patient education. If you would like to schedule an initial consultation at the Stow Dental Group to learn more about the best way to whiten your teeth, please call or email our cosmetic dentistry office today.

Labels: akron, cosmetic dentistry, dentist, dentistry, ohio, tooth whitening