Dental Blog - Farnham Road Dental Practice

Six Month Smiles for discreet straightening

How much do you hate the idea of having braces on your teeth? Is it so much that you can only bear to get your teeth straightened if your braces are either completely hidden or almost invisible? Or do you not mind the world knowing you are having braces treatment as long as you don’t end up looking like a cross between a James Bond baddie and a large railway interchange?

If it’s the latter, then, at Farnham Road Dental Practice, we think we have got just the braces for you. They are called Six Month Smiles.

What are Six Month Smiles?

We could call these braces discreet rather than invisible. They are bracket and wire braces, but the brackets are smaller and are made of clear ceramic. The wires are finer and are coated with a tooth-coloured material. All in all, the braces blend in with your teeth rather than totally disappearing from view. Some even say they are rather attractive, like jewellery for the teeth.

Who can have Six Month Smiles?

These discreet braces are aimed at people who want mild to moderate misalignments on their front 6-8 teeth fixing. These teeth are the ones that are easiest to see in the mouth, and they have only one root each. This means that they are easier to move and therefore gentler forces can be used. Gentler forces mean smaller brackets and finer wires, plus more comfort.

How long do they take to work?

As the name suggests, these braces don’t take long to correct your teeth. Depending on your alignment issues, they can take as little as 4 months to do their job, or as long as 9 months, with 6 months being the average treatment time.

What about maintenance

After your teeth have reached their final position, you will need to wear a retainer to keep them in place while the newly formed bone hardens around them. You can have a retainer bonded to the back of your teeth, or you can wear a mouth guard-style retainer at night. If you lose things, go for the first option. After all, you don’t want your teeth to wander out of place after all that hard work.

You could have straighter teeth in time for your next summer holiday

If you have had enough of living with your wonky teeth, maybe now is the time to get started on the road to alignment. It doesn’t have to take forever, and your braces don’t have to be huge, clunky metal train tracks that take over your whole mouth. Modern braces treatments can be fast and discreet, especially if your alignment issues are related only to your teeth, and not to your jaw.

Six Month Smiles in Guildford If you are an adult with wonky teeth, it’s highly likely that your issues are in the mild to moderate bracket of wonkiness. Such issues can be sorted out relatively quickly.

Depending on how your teeth are right now, you could even have them straightened out by early summer next year.

That’s right, getting your teeth straightened doesn’t have to take forever. Here at Farnham Road Dental Practice in Guildford, we have a kind of brace that can take as little as 4 months to realign your teeth. It’s called Six Month Smiles, which is the average amount of time it takes to do its work.

Brackets and wires, but with a twist

Six Month Smiles uses the tried and trusted bracket and wire technology that steadily pulls teeth into their correct positions. However, with this make of braces, the brackets are smaller and made of clear ceramic, and the wire is finer and coated in a tooth-coloured material. As such, the braces blend in with the teeth rather than overwhelming them. They won’t be noticeable from across the room, and as people get closer it will take a while for them to spot your braces. They can even look rather good, like a necklace of glass for your teeth.

Who can have Six Month Smiles?

Here at Farnham Road Dental Practice, we use Six Month Smiles to treat people who want their front 6-8 teeth straightened. These are the teeth most on view when we speak and smile. They have only one root, which makes them easier and quicker to move.

Why not come in and find out if Six Month Smiles are your investment for 2019?

When were you last screened for mouth cancer?

One of the sad facts about cancer is that often people die from it because it was not detected early enough. Not all cancers have good survival rates but mouth and throat cancers do, provided they are detected in their early stages. Most cases of mouth cancer occur in older adults aged 50 to 74.

Detecting mouth cancers is not difficult. All that is required is a visual check of the mouth, and feel around in the neck, once a year. We carry out mouth cancer screening in Guildford here at Farnham Road Dental Practice, and we want to make sure that every one of our patients over about the age of 35 receives an annual screening. This is easy to achieve as long as our patients book a check-up twice a year; we just add a mouth cancer screening onto the check-up. It only takes a few minutes.

Taking a good look round

There are no complicated requirements for mouth cancer screening. All we have to do is take a careful look at your lips and inside your mouth, using a mirror for those hard-to-see places, such as under your tongue. We are on the look out for lumps and bumps that seem to have no reasons, red or white patches, and lesions that don’t heal.

We also use our fingertips to feel gently around in your neck and through your neck to your throat for anything that should not be there.

We will also have a chat with you and ask if you have noticed anything odd. You may have had tingling sensations that don’t go away, for example.

When we catch mouth cancer early, it is easy to treat. It is also fast growing, which is why, if you are worried about a lump or any hoarseness that hasn’t gone away after 3 weeks, you need to come in and get it checked out by your dental practice.

You are more at risk of mouth cancers if you are over 40, have been a smoker, drink alcohol, are obese or have the HPV virus. November is Mouth Cancer Action Month, come into to us to find out more.

Get screened for mouth cancer

When you think of cancer, which ones do you worry about? Breast cancer? Prostate? Bowel? How about mouth and throat cancers? It probably never crossed your mind that you might get cancer in your mouth or throat, but mouth cancers account for 2% of all cancers in the UK. Each year 6,800 people are diagnosed with mouth cancer.

Mouth Cancer Screening in Guildford Scientists say that these numbers are on the rise. What’s driving the rise in mouth and throat cancers? Well, it’s a lifestyle thing. This means that you are more likely to develop mouth and throat cancers as you get older and your lifestyle catches up with you. Smoking and drinking play a large part in people developing mouth cancers. Being overweight also makes it more likely you will develop mouth cancers and so does not eating plenty of fruit and veg.

The good news is that, if it caught early, mouth cancer is easily treated. So, to stay on top of mouth cancer, you need to come for a mouth cancer screening in Guildford once a year. We can tack it onto one of your 6-monthly check-ups.

What to expect in your mouth cancer screening

We will be looking for visual evidence of mouth cancer by carefully examining your lips and the inside of your mouth. We will use a mirror to make sure we can see everywhere:

Your tongue and under your tongue
The back of your throat
Your palate
Inside your cheeks
All around your gums.

Then we will use our fingertips to have a good, but gentle, feel of your throat through your neck, probing for any lumps and bumps that shouldn’t be there.

We will also want to know if you have been aware of any odd things like developing a hoarse voice or a cough or a tingle that won’t go away.

If we do find something and it’s in its early stage, simply having it removed in a minor surgery should be enough. As long as you come every year for a mouth cancer screening, there is no need for any problems to develop beyond the early stages.

Your missing teeth, your secret

It’s bad enough suffering the loss of your teeth, let alone suffering the indignity of never knowing when your replacement teeth are going to let you down by doing a rumba in your mouth or even falling out. Wobbly false teeth are only funny for the onlookers, not the wearer.

However, there is a way to get replacement teeth that allow you to keep your dignity and your food choices, and your lovely strong jawbone, and that solution is dental implants.

Dental Implants in Guildford At Farnham Road Dental Practice in Guildford, we have been seeing more and more of our patients choose dental implants to replace lost teeth. Dental implants have one big advantage over dentures and bridges in that they are fixed into the jaw, rather than relying on the gums or neighbouring teeth for stability.

How dental implants work

Dental implants are small tapered screws or posts that replace tooth roots. To put them into your jawbone, the dental surgeon opens up a flap in your gum and carefully drills a hole into your jawbone. It sounds a lot more painful than it is, and the pain is easily controlled with a local anaesthetic as there are very few nerve endings in the bone. Pain is not the same as anxiety however, so you can have sedation to relax you during the procedure.

Once the implant is in place, the bone around it grows new bone cells and blood vessels all over it. This takes several weeks, but will eventually hold the dental implant in place as securely as a natural tooth in its socket.

Crowns, bridges and even dentures can then be attached to the implants. One implant can hold up to 3 teeth on a bridge and it only takes 4-6 implants to secure an entire arch of teeth (4 for the lower, 6 for the upper).

Maintenance

Looking after your dental implants is important and easy. All you need is to brush and floss them thoroughly twice a day to get rid of food and plaque. Couple this with regular trips to the hygienist for plaque removal and your implants can last for decades.

Adult orthodontics are easy

Getting straighter teeth used to be the sole province of teenagers and if you didn’t get yours done as a kid, that was it. You had to live with your wonky ones, or look a right twit in teenage metal-mouth braces for a couple of years.

Now, though, there are some great devices available for adults with mild to moderate misalignment issues. They don’t take forever to do their job and they don’t take over your mouth, filling it with so much metal that you can’t see the white enamel behind them.

Orthodontics in Guildford Here at Farnham Road Dental Practice in Guildford, we have 2 ways to straighten teeth both of which are very discreet. One is almost invisible. Let’s take a look at them.

Six Month Smiles

This brand of braces work on the front 6-8 social teeth, which are the teeth that most people can see when we talk and laugh. They are called Six Month Smiles because that’s how long the average treatment with this brand takes, although it can take as little as 4 months and as long as 9. These braces feature traditional brackets and wires, but updated for modern purposes. The brackets are smaller than that of old and they are made of clear ceramic. The wires are finer and tooth-coloured. Together they blend in with the teeth.

Invisalign

There are no brackets and wires with Invisalign. Instead you receive a series of mouth guard-style, transparent plastic aligners that snap on over the teeth. Each aligner in the series has a slightly different configuration of pressure points and they gradually nudge the teeth along the route to alignment. The average treatment time is 12 months, but it can take longer. The great thing about Invisalign is that, when they are in place, they are very hard to spot. You can go about your business without having to worry about casual observers staring at your teeth. They are also removable, which makes eating and cleaning your teeth a lot less hassle.

The best way to find out which, if either, of these devices is best for you is to come in for an orthodontics consultation.

When you need to see us as soon as possible

What’s the definition of an emergency? It’s when something happens out of the blue that needs to be dealt with as soon as possible, and if it’s not, there may be serious consequences.

Emergencies and Dental Pain in Guildford How do you know when you have a dental emergency on your hands? And what are you supposed to do? There are basically 2 types of dental emergencies and pain is involved in both of them. Pain is your body’s way of telling you that something is wrong and you need to get it seen to. Pain usually comes in the form of a bad toothache that won’t go away, or in the sudden pain that comes with an accident. Both are going to involve a trip to the emergency dentist here at Farnham Road Dental Practice in Guildford.

You never know when an emergency is going to happen, so it’s best to store the practice number in your phone, and the phone of every person in the family who is registered with us.

Out of hours

Because emergencies are no respecters of office hours, we are a member of the local out of hours dental emergency service. This swings into action every evening from 6-10pm, and also from 8am-10pm on weekends. The dental practices involved rotate the duties, so when you call us, a recording will tell you how to get in touch with the dentist on call at the time.

What happens during an emergency appointment

The main goal of an emergency appointment is to get you free from pain. Once that is achieved the dentist can examine you and discover what the problem is.

If you have been in an accident and have lost some teeth, we may be able to put them back in. You need to get to us within 2 hours and with your teeth safely stored, either in your mouth, or in a pot of milk. Never let them dry out or store them in tap water. They will die. Also avoid touching the roots and any flesh on them, as these need to remain intact if your teeth are to be restored to their sockets.

In pain? Lost or damaged a tooth?

If you have been developing a toothache that has been getting more and more severe then please don’t keep thinking it will go away all by itself. Give Farnham Road Dental Practice in Guildford a call and book an appointment with the emergency dentist.

Why take notice of pain?

Pain is a signal from your body telling you that something is wrong. You may want to ignore and get on with your work or your studies, or making sure that the kids get to school, but the longer you ignore that toothache the more chance there is that you may be doing yourself some long-term damage.

Severe toothache

If you have a powerful toothache that goes all over your face and even into your ears and neck, it could well be the sign of an infection. When there is infection around the tooth, pus can accumulate under the gum around the tooth root. This is known as an abscess and if it is not drained, it can lead to the loss of the tooth.

If you have such a toothache it is important to call us as soon as you can, and we will do our best to book you in for an emergency appointment on the day you call.

Stop the pain

When you get in to see the dentist, our first task will be to get you free of pain. When we have got you comfortable, we can take a look at your teeth and make a diagnosis.

Root canal therapy

If you do indeed have an abscess and an infection in the tooth root, we will drain away the pus and then clean out the infection. We then fill the root and cap it off with a crown. This way you get to keep your tooth. If we extract the tooth, we will then need to think of how to replace it. This could be done with a bridge, a partial denture or a dental implant.

Put our number in your phone

When it comes to dental emergencies and dental pain in Guildford, don’t be caught out without our number. Put it in your phone, that way you will be able to call us with no hassle.

The secret to dentures that stay still

Have you noticed that since you got your dentures they have started to wobble around? Are you surprised, since they fitted so well when you first started to wear them? Now you can’t really trust that they will stay put, even with messy dental adhesives applied before you slip them over your gums. What on earth is happening and is there anything you can do about it?

Why do dentures start slipping?

Dentists go to a great deal of trouble to make sure that dentures adhere well to the gums. The trouble is that when there are no tooth roots sending tremors down into the gums every time the teeth come together, the jawbone believes that it is no longer in use and starts to dissolve itself. This happens very quickly and people can lose up to 25% of their jawbone in the first year alone after tooth loss. There is less depth of bone for the dentures to grip onto and that makes it hard to get a good suction between gum and denture.

What can you do about it?

It used to be that all you could do was get your dentures relined so that they fit your jaw again. This is a simple solution but the trouble with it is that the jawbone continues to shrink and so your dentures may have to be relined about every year.

However, here at Farnham Road Dental Practice, we have another way to stop your dentures wobbling around and that is to secure them to your jawbone with dental implants in Guildford. This technique is called denture stabilisation, and we can adapt your current dentures so that they can be attached to the dental implants.

We find that you will need 2–4 dental implants on the bottom jawbone and 4–6 implants on the top jawbone. We can put in the implants, customise your denture and attach them all in one appointment, so you need never be without your teeth. You continue to treat your dentures as dentures, taking them out at night to clean them and rest your gums, but you will find that during the day, they behave more like natural teeth than your unsecured dentures ever could.

Why we love dental implants

It’s grim when you lose your teeth. Nobody sails through the loss of these vital body parts without feeling some distress. If you’ve had a tooth or two knocked out playing sports, you may worry that you now have to go through decades with a denture and no one is ever going to want to kiss you again. If you are starting to experience tooth loss after watching teeth be filled time and again over decades, losing them may feel like the beginning of the end of the prime of your life. All sorts of fear and worries come up around tooth loss, and it used to be that there were only fairly good ways to replace teeth, each with their own set of hassles and inconveniences. Dentures could mean a restricted diet and embarrassment from them wobbling around. Fixed bridgework meant losing at least two more teeth to act as buttresses for the bridges. Not much fun if you’ve only lost one tooth to start with.

Dental Implants in Guildford Thank goodness then for the advent of dental implants. Here at Farnham Road Dental Practice in Guildford, we can’t quite believe that this innovative solution to tooth loss has been around for more than 30 years already. Considering that, it’s also surprising that many people do not know about this fabulous way to replace teeth. But then, when something is fulfilling its remit to be indistinguishable from real teeth, both in form and function, and people don’t like to tell others about their teeth, dental implants can remain a very well-kept secret.

However, in the time that they have been available to the public, dentists have been experimenting with ways to use them and also ways to make them more available to a wider range of people.

Now you can use dental implants to replace one tooth, several on a bridge, or the whole lot. You can even use dental implants to stabilise loose dentures. And if you have been told your jawbone is no longer strong and dense enough to support implants, there are ways to sort that out too.

All hail the dental implant! We are so glad you got invented.