Comprehensive Dentistry in Scarsdale
Our patients undergo regular preventative maintenance and diagnostic procedures. Our experience is that early identification leads to better outcomes for your oral health, and smile. When our doctors identify a developing condition they work with you to create an optimal treatment plan.
When conditions require restorative, cosmetic and/or periodontal procedures Scarsdale Dental Group works with you to select the right procedure(s), over the right timeframe to restore optimal oral health and the best possible esthetics.
In cases where the findings of your oral condition presents advanced issues, the dentist will likely recommend further analysis through traditional study model, bite analysis and 3D scan.
Preventive and Diagnostic
We believe that good dental care begins with an evaluation that provides us both with objective information in planning your treatment. Scarsdale Dental Group understands it is very important for you to guide us in the direction you would like your treatment to move toward once we share our findings. Working together, we can build both short term and longer term plans, with the common goal of keeping your smile beautiful, maintaining your teeth in maximum health comfort, function and esthetics throughout your life.
During each routine office visit we will discuss your goals and desires for your dental treatment. Generally, Digital (low dose) X-rays and digital photos will be taken to allow you and the doctor to fully examine your teeth. As part of your exam, an oral cancer-screening exam is always performed. In addition to the examination, we recommend a thorough cleaning and polishing to complement our exam and enhance your smile.
In cases where the findings of your oral condition presents advanced issues, the dentist will likely recommend further analysis through traditional study model, bite analysis and 3D scan.
Periodic dental cleanings are a foundational element in preventing decay and diagnostically allow close examination of any developing issues with your oral health. Most insurance companies will pay for cleanings every 6 months, and with some patients we recommend cleanings even more often due to their history.
A dental cleaning is the removal of dental plaque and tartar from the teeth. Specialized instruments are used to gently remove these deposits without harming the teeth. First, an ultrasonic device that emits vibrations and is cooled by water is used to loosen larger pieces of tartar. Next, hand tools are used to manually remove smaller deposits and smooth the tooth surfaces. Once all the tooth surfaces have been cleaned of tartar and plaque, the teeth are polished.
Many sports require or recommend athletes to use a mouth guard to protect the player while practicing and playing. The mouth guard covers the gums and teeth to provide protection for lips, gums, teeth and jaw. A properly fitted mouth guard can reduce the severity of injuries such as preventing tooth fractures or dislocations by cushioning the opposite teeth from contact with each other. The lower jaw is protected by the mouth guard, so impact does not fracture or damage the bone, which is known to help reduce injury to the brain.
Pre-formed, ready-to-wear mouth guards can be purchased inexpensively at many sporting stores, but they do not always fit well so they do not provide the full benefits of a custom fitted mouth guard. Most noticeably, they can be uncomfortable and interfere with talking and even breathing.
Our office creates custom mouth guards by taking an impression of your teeth and fabricating a device fitted to your mouth for the highest level of both comfort and protection. We take the extra steps with attention to canine guidance and stabilizing occlusion for better protection and comfort. A custom-fitted mouthguard can be particularly important for athletes who wear braces and for patients who grind their teeth.
The Scarsdale Dental Group is ready to assist you with this important purchase. Note that mouth guards do wear out and require refittings if you have extensive dental work such as braces or other major changes to the teeth structure.
Restorative Dentistry
Prosthodontics, also known as Prosthetic Dentistry, is a dental specialty that deals with the replacement of missing teeth and other oral structures by artificial devices.
Scarsdale Dental Group doctors have decades of experience in prosthetic dentistry and remain on the leading edge of these treatments through continuous educational credits, especially for implants. Our doctors lecture both locally, nationally and internationally and do work that provides stability for years to come. Our dentists will advise you of your treatment options and allow you to select the options to order a treatment plan that makes you most comfortable.
Click Here to Learn More About Prosthodontics at Scarsdale Dental Group in Scarsdale, NY
Ideally, no one would get cavities. The reality is most of us end up with small cavities over time. At Scarsdale Dental Group, we provide patients with tooth color fillings, also known as composite fillings, to repair teeth that have been affected by decay or other similar conditions. Tooth color fillings look more natural than their metal alloy counterparts, so you can smile, laugh and chat with friends without feeling self-conscious.
Our practice of over 70 years also are masters of the more traditional filling materials of silver and gold selected.
Root canals are often necessary to preserve a natural tooth when decay has reached the nerve of the tooth or the tooth has become infected. When root canal therapy is performed, infected or inflamed pulp is removed from the tooth chamber. The inside of the tooth is then cleaned and disinfected before being filled and sealed to limit the possibility of future infection. Soon after the root canal is performed, the tooth is restored with a dental crown or filling to protect the tooth and restore normal tooth function.
Inlays and onlays are among the custom restorative options that Scarsdale Dental Group offers that are protective and esthetically pleasing. Inlays and onlays are recommended to restore teeth that have moderate to advanced decay or wear, and the natural tooth can be preserved in a single procedure versus multiple fillings. These customized ceramic restorations add to the esthetics of your smile, and increase the structural strength of the tooth, helping to prevent other complications.
Crowns can provide our smiles a little assistance to look their best and provide for improved natural tooth integrity. With ceramic crowns, Scarsdale Dental Group can fix a chipped tooth, a fractured filling and many other problems that may be adversely affecting your smile and extend the life of the natural tooth.
Scarsdale Dental Group is also the master of more traditional materials for crowns and offers that choice to patients.
Click here for more information about how ceramic crowns can rejuvenate your smile.
Missing teeth leave gaps in your smile and accelerate the loss of additional teeth if left untreated. When you have a gap in your teeth, the teeth adjacent to the gap tend to migrate into the open space making the patient more susceptible to developing a bad, unaligned bite, which can cause gum disease or TMJ (temporomandibular joint) disorder. An option to fill this gap of missing teeth that Scarsdale Dental Group may suggest is a bridge.
Bridges span the gaps caused by missing teeth. The bridge is bonded to dental implants or teeth on either side of a gap. These anchoring teeth or implants, are called abutments. The bridge will match the color of a ceramic bridge to your remaining teeth for the best esthetic result.
For a single missing tooth, a bridge or a dental implant may be recommended. For multiple missing teeth, we recommend one or more implants be used to anchor the bridge.
At Scarsdale Dental Group, we meet many patients who shy away from smiling and exposing the state of their teeth. There are multiple options for replacing severely damaged or missing teeth, including dental implant(s), bridges or dentures depending on the number of teeth involved, and the long-term prognosis for the resilience of other teeth. Dental implants are a popular choice of patients in each of these procedures for the benefits listed here.
A dental implant is comprised of 3 parts, a titanium fixture called an implant that is placed into the jaw (bone) to replace the original tooth root; an abutment or post that connects to the titanium implant, and a permanent porcelain crown that snaps onto the post. The dental implant(including crown) collectively serves as a replacement tooth that is esthetically pleasing, strong, supportive and resilient enough to very comfortably perform all the functions of natural teeth.
The ideal candidate for a dental implant has good general and oral health. Adequate bone in your jaw is needed to support the implant. Some people who have lost bone in their jaw still can get implants by having a bone-grafting procedure. During the initial consultation we analyze every item on your dental and health history, and if required work with your physician, to ensure the procedure is right for you.
A key to implant treatment success is the quantity and quality of the bone where the implant is to be placed. The upper back jaw has traditionally been one of the most difficult areas to successfully place dental implants due to the close proximity to the sinus. If you’ve lost bone in that area due to reasons such as periodontal disease or tooth loss, sinus lift surgery can help correct this problem by raising the sinus floor and developing bone for the placement of dental implants.
Bone grafting can repair implant sites with inadequate bone structure due to previous extractions, gum disease or injuries. The bone is either obtained from a tissue bank or the patient’s own bone is taken from the jaw, hip or tibia (below the knee).
Certain patients may have abnormalities in the lower or upper jaw that leave them with insufficient bone quantity to support implants. In these cases, our dentists may perform Ridge Augmentation. During this treatment, our dentists lift the gum away from the ridge to uncover the bone abnormality. We then fills the defect with artificial or natural bone to augment the ridge enough to support implants. Bone grafting like this is routine (a standard of care) especially in conjunction with tooth extraction.
Click Here to Learn More About Bone Grafting and Ridge Augmentation
Dentures are among the custom restorative options that Scarsdale Dental Group offers for missing teeth. Dentures are esthetically pleasing, can make eating more enjoyable, and are structurally sound for a smile to last a lifetime. Dentures are an option when there is a need for multiple teeth replacements within the same (upper or lower) arch. Historically, a denture is different from a crown or bridge in that it does not rely on an existing tooth structure, and it completely replaces the missing teeth.
With the rapid adoption of implants in dentistry, Scarsdale Dental Group typically recommends titanium implants and posts be used to provide attachment to the upper or lower jaw for a more comfortable fit. Note that the procedure, Same Day Teeth can simplify the installation of comfortable temporary dentures to a single day. They provide the benefits of implants and are comfortable, easier to maintain, and need only a second visit at a later date to snap on the permanent denture(s).
There are three distinctions in categorizing dentures:
- Full or Partial
- Removable or Fixed
- Traditional or Implant-Supported
Click Here to Learn More About Partial or Full Dentures, and Fixed or Removable Dentures
Cosmetic Dentistry
Some people are unhappy with their natural or current smile and the detraction from their overall appearance. We offer comprehensive smile design that allows the patient to design the look they always wanted. This involves intra-oral and full-face photographs, which can be photoshopped to show the potential changes. Furthermore, we partner with daVinci Dental Studios to create your dream smile in model form. Once you approve the smile model, the dentists at Scarsdale Dental Group use their expertise in translating the functional models to perform procedures to complete the physical transformation as was custom-designed by you.
At Scarsdale Dental Group, we treat many patients whose teeth have been discolored or stained with time. When periodic dental cleaning is not enough to restore the color of teeth’s surface by removing debris or dirt to the patients’ satisfaction we may suggest other procedures. One of the ways we offer patients to acquire brighter, whiter teeth is via teeth whitening (bleaching) treatments. This noninvasive treatment will leave you with a genuine, bright, inviting, and confident smile.
Braces can rectify problems like crooked or crowded teeth, overbites or underbites, incorrect jaw position and disorders of the jaw joints. Patients turn to Scarsdale Dental Group for clear braces because we offer the choice of the newest, nearly invisible treatment options from ClearCorrect™, Invisalign®, and Invisalign® Teen.
Click Here to Learn More About Clear Braces
Porcelain veneers are a way to restore the natural beauty of your smile and may be the thing to boost your confidence. Veneers are a preferred option to restore a few crooked or discolored viable teeth with natural looking teeth covers customized for you and when complete allows you to project a radiant smile.
Dental veneers are paper-thin, tooth-colored laminates that our office places over the surface of a cosmetically imperfect tooth to provide a brilliant looking front to your teeth and improve functionality for chipped or cracked teeth. Scarsdale Dental Group’s cosmetic dentists use porcelain veneers because they are translucent, reflect light like natural teeth and are extremely resilient.
Cosmetic bonding is the process of filling or restoring teeth with a tooth-colored material in order to improve a tooth’s appearance. In order to bond a tooth, composite material is added to the tooth structure to adjust the size, shape, or color of the existing tooth.
This technique can minimize or eliminate stains, yellowing or spots by removing a very thin layer of the tooth’s enamel.
Scarsdale Dental Group is gratified with the trust that patients have placed in our practice to do cosmetic work
We have a separate section to share with you some of the before and after results. We hope to perform similar work for you if required.
Periodontal Treatment
Scarsdale Dental Group has prescribed the Perio Tray by Perio Protect to patients to combat gum issues by applying medication deep under the gums where bacteria live. Conveniently, you only have to use it for a few minutes each day for it to take effect. The tray is comfortable, flexible, and custom-fit.
The goal is to improve patient’s overall dental health so that the repetitive and invasive procedures can be reduced.
With Perio Tray therapy, you have healthier gums, whiter teeth, fresher breath and improved overall homecare. Scarsdale Dental Group is grateful for the trust that patients have placed in our practice to do cosmetic work and to share with you just some of the before and after results.
We have found that ongoing home care is an extremely important part of maintaining healthy but even excellent home care cannot prevent bacteria and plaque. If the plaque is not removed, it can harden, becoming calculus. We will recommend a periodontal maintenance program that is best for you based on how quickly you develop calculus and your past and current periodontal health.
During your maintenance visits, we will perform an oral examination as well as a dental cleaning. During an oral examination, a visual inspection is performed to detect normal and abnormal structures of the entire mouth, head and neck. Along with radiographs, an examination detects cavities, abnormalities in existing dental restorations, gum and bone recession and any other abnormal findings within the mouth, head and neck.
A dental cleaning, also known as an oral prophylaxis, is the removal of dental plaque and tartar (calculus) from the teeth. Specialized instruments are used to gently remove these deposits without harming the teeth. First, an ultrasonic device that emits vibrations and is cooled by water is used to loosen larger pieces of tartar. Next, hand tools are used to manually remove smaller deposits and smooth the tooth surfaces.
Specialty Services
TMD (temporomandibular disorders) can cause pain in the jaw joint and in the muscles that control jaw movement. Causes of TMJ (Temporomandibular joint) include injury to the teeth or jaw, misalignment of the teeth or jaw, teeth grinding, poor posture, stress, arthritis and excessive gum checking.
Click Here to Learn More About TMD TMJ Symptoms and Treatments
Occlusion in a dental context, means simply the contact between the upper and lower teeth. It is the relationship between the maxillary and mandibular teeth when they approach each other, as occurs during chewing or at rest.
Poor Occlusion can be due to three specific occlusion motions that if not properly aligned generate symptoms of TMJ TMD.
A major external symptom often related to TMD and TMJ is the grinding of teeth. The link below opens a pamphlet that explains the what, why and how of teeth grinding.
Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is a disorder in which one experiences one or more pauses in breathing or shallow breaths during sleep. For mild sleep apnea, a custom fitted mouthpiece can provide supplementary or primary relief and/or some lifestyle changes (weight loss, smoking cessation, clearing nasal passages) may be helpful.
Call 914-723-4707 to schedule an appointment with a dentist in Scarsdale, NY today!