Types of Dentists and their Importance to Your Oral Health

Good oral hygiene is essential to keeping your mouth, teeth and gums healthy. It also helps in your overall quality of life as well as how you appear and how self-confident you are. Asides from brushing your teeth daily and flossing, it is important that you visit a dentist from time to time. This should be at least once in 6 months even if you do not have a pressing dental issue.

By visiting with a dentist, they can easily ascertain the state of your oral health and ensure that you get professional maintenance and care. They also help to prevent any potential issue that can lead to a decline in your quality of oral health and by extension your life.

A dentist is a doctor that diagnoses, prevents and treats oral health issues. Dental checkups are a major part of this doctor’s job because these are important for their patient’s oral health. Additionally, they carry out basic treatments and different procedures to ensure that your teeth are in good shape. These procedures can include scaling and polishing, filing, and tooth filling. It can even be performing a minor dental surgery like extraction. Dentists also encourage their patients to practice good oral care to prevent tooth diseases such as cavities, bad breath, tooth decay, and so on. You can read further about them here.

Types of Dentists

In the field of dentistry, there are various specialties. This means that there are various types of dental health care providers who can be involved in caring for your mouth, teeth, and gums. Below are descriptions of the various specialties available in dentistry.

General Dentists

These are the most common types of dentists. They are primary care oral doctors that provide regular dental treatments such as routine dental examination and cleaning. They also diagnose and provide treatment for root canals, gum care, veneers, crowns, etc. When you need services that they do not qualified for, the general dentist will refer you to more qualified personnel.

Periodontists

These set of doctors helps to treat diseases and problems that are associated with the gums as well as bone and tissues that support the teeth. While a general dentist will help with preventing gum disease, periodontists provide treatment when there is an issue with the gum which may damage the tissue.

Orthodontists

These are oral health care providers that specialize in diagnosing, preventing, intercepting and treating malocclusions. Malocclusion is when a person’s dentition is out of alignment. An orthodontist helps to straighten the teeth and the jaw by using braces, wires, retainers, and other such devices.

Endodontists

Endodontists specialize in dealing with issues, diagnosis, prevention as well as treatment of the nerve of the tooth or injuries to the dental pulp. They can perform both simple and difficult root canals when there is decay around the nerve of a tooth.

Pediatric Dentist or Pedodontists

A Pedodontist specializes in diagnosing as well as treating dental issues that are associated with children. These can be children that are from age one to teenagers or early adulthood. The Pedodontist recognizes and treats dental issues with decayed, crooked, missing, or crowded teeth. You can learn more about Pedodontists here https://www.healthgrades.com/right-care/oral-health/pediatric-dentist-your-childrens-teeth-specialist.

Prosthodontists

Prosthodontists typically provide cosmetic dentistry. They make replacement teeth or prostheses which can be removable or non-removable for people who are missing all or part of their teeth. They also repair the teeth and jawbones and generally improve their appearance. This can include teeth whitening, installing veneers as well as fitting the teeth with dentures, bridges and crowns.

Oral Pathologists and Surgeons

These types of dentists specialize in treating oral diseases and perform oral surgery where necessary. They are good with extracting wisdom tooth which is a very important treatment. They also perform other kinds of extractions, corrective surgery, facial trauma surgery, and so on. They sometimes work closely with ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialists.

Which Dentist is Right for You?

Usually, when you visit a general dentist, they examine your teeth and proceed to treat you. If they find out you need more specialized care, they will refer you to the appropriate dental health care practitioner that can handle your case.

Why Dentists Are Important

Asides from regular cleaning, polishing, filing, and other basic oral care tasks, dentists help to detect problems early and prevent them. Most serious dental issues do not appear apparent or painful until they have reached an advanced stage. This is why visiting the dental clinic regularly is important.

In Sarnia Ontario, Sarnia dentists help to bring smiles to people’s faces and restore their self-confidence. If you are a resident here, you can pay a visit to one of them.

Conclusion

Visiting a dentist is not just for when you have a problem with your teeth or just for cleaning. Much more than that, they help to perform other services. Most importantly, they help to catch and prevent oral problems before they become serious.