QODC

The Importance Of Preventative Dental Care

For many people, a dental appointment can bring anxiety and dread. But, in reality, a visit to the dentist can save you a lot of pain, suffering and money in the long run. Preventative dentistry focuses primarily on keeping dental issues like cavities, gum disease, enamel wear, and more at bay through education and awareness. It provides the education and techniques needed for children and adults to keep their teeth clean and strong, and maintain dazzling, white smiles.

At Quince Orchard Dental Care, our practice is a complete health practice, which means that while our specialty is oral health, we consider your overall health in everything we do. We believe that a healthy mouth translates to a healthy life and are constantly looking for new and effective ways to educate our patients.

Dental Cleaning and Re-care Appointments Need To Be a Priority! 

A healthy mouth is free from biofilm, oral pain, calculus (tartar), oral cancer, sensitivity to hot and cold, bad breath, decay and gum disease. Dental visits and re-care appointments will ensure you are covered on all fronts. Most insurance companies recommend scheduling a Dental Re-care appointment every six months, but we believe that re-care appointments should occur every 3 or 4 months. At these appointments, our dentists and hygienists will carefully measure and assess your teeth for their attributes using pocket-depth measurements and dental x-rays to check the supporting bone levels, interproximal cavities and buildups of tartar under the gums. Prevention is definitely the best medicine.

Don’t Ignore Oral Cancer Screenings!

Statistics reveal that one death every hour of every day in the United States is caused by Oral or pharyngeal cancer. Expanding the definition of oral cancers to include cancer of the larynx, the number of diagnosed cases shoots up to 54,000 individuals and 13,500 deaths per year in the U.S. alone. These numbers emphasize the importance of getting frequent oral cancer screenings. At Quince Orchard Dental Care, we use the Identafi Oral Cancer Screening System. This screening tool, which is not a diagnostic tool, performs enhanced oral assessment that detects lesions that are not yet visible to the naked eye. It helps clinicians by directing our attention to areas that are potentially problematic. If we find abnormalities in your mouth, we refer you to an oral surgeon to have further checks done or to have a biopsy done, which will give a definite diagnosis. If detected early, oral cancer patients have an 80 to 90 per cent survival rate.

Did You Know Sleep Apnea Screenings are Part of Your Dental Check Up Too!

To further highlight how vital the overall health of each of our patients is, we also provide Sleep Apnea Screenings. 

Sleep Apnea is a common sleep disorder that occurs when regular breathing is interrupted during sleep, resulting in reduced oxygen to the brain and body. After the screening, if a patient has any indicators of sleep apnea, we partner with an agency called Sleeptest.com to send a screening package to the patient’s house. This is an easier and more cost-effective alternative to getting a sleep test done at a sleep center. Standard treatment options include oral appliance therapy, continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy and surgery. Oral Appliances or devices can significantly help patients suffering from mild to moderate sleep apnea. The mandibular advancement device is one of the most widely used dental appliances for treating sleep apnea. It looks like a sports mouth guard and works by slightly forcing the lower jaw down and forward. This offers tremendous help in keeping the airway open, thereby preventing problems with breathing.

Professional preventive dental care can help you keep your teeth and gums healthy and maintain your overall health. At Quince Orchard Dental Care, our highly trained dental team is dedicated to ensuring that you have the best dental care in the most comfortable setting. Contact us to schedule an appointment.