You have just chosen the dentist that you will work with to provide your dental care. The initial dental exam procedures have begun with the x-rays, teeth cleaning, exam, and now getting to the diagnosis. At this time, you may have a tooth that you know will need restoring. Or you may not have been aware that any cavity has started, such as between the teeth. Those are really hard to find as they are first noticed on the annual or biannual x-rays. With x-rays there is valuable information that the dentist looks for. He looks for cavities, even between the teeth, looks at the bone level, checks for any abnormalities. After the viewing of the x-rays, the dentist will look at the tissues all over the mouth; such as the palate, gums, tongue, feels for any lumps, looks for infection (swelling of the gums) or any redness of gums.

As this exam takes place, the chart is being recorded of the person’s mouth of all fillings that were done in the past as well as any missing teeth, and then any seen cavities, chipped teeth, or decay is noted on the chart. All these findings will help in the diagnosis and then to come up with a dental exam timeline and treatment plan on how to restore the teeth.

Now remember, a tooth has six sides. It has the top part called the crown, then all four sides of it and the last side is the root of the tooth which is anchored in the jaw. Now the cavities can start on one surface and if the patient does not see the dentist regularly, that cavity will grow into a second surface and becomes bigger and more cost to getting it fixed. If the cavity has gone beyond and spread deep down into the pulp, then you have an infected tooth, which at this time will require a root canal. Or some other findings could be a chipped tooth, or staining of some of the teeth, or a previous filling has started to decay around the edges and needs to be replaced and restored. Some of the tooth that has been fractured due to weakness of the tooth structure will need to have a crown placed over it, as well as any root canal tooth. I mentioned here some of the findings that the dentist will notice and then we will review the treatment plan and explain how the teeth will be restored to health.

After this appointment, another appointment will be made to restore any of the teeth that had been noted to begin treatment. We want you to have a healthy mouth with teeth that are strong; for as you are aware, we eat many times in a day, and they are very useful when chewing our food. And how many times do we sit and really think about this? I would say not very often, so preventive care is the very best that we can offer our teeth!