Informational Videos

Restorative dentistry, specifically, is the part of dentistry that’s focused on repairing something that’s broken. So filling a cavity, putting a crown on a tooth that’s cracked, and even in children preventative stuff like sealants — that would fall in the technical term of what restorative dentistry is. How Nashville Restorative Dentistry got its name when we put “restorative” in the name Nashville Restorative Dentistry, our idea, however, was something bigger than that. So we’re talking about the restoration of confidence in someone that’s not happy with their smile, the restoration of health, in someone that’s dealing with pain or infection, the restoration of being confident or secure in knowing that you don’t have toxic materials in your mouth or something that’s negatively affecting the overall health of your body. So our idea of restorative is bigger than just fixing something. It’s about really looking at the person as a whole.

So when we’re looking at the two different types of dentistry between Cosmetic & Restorative, Cosmetic is typically gonna be more focused on elective things that are changing the appearance of your teeth, typically your smile. So we talk about things like Whitening, a non-invasive way to make your teeth brighter & whiter. We talk about things like Bonding or Veneers, something that goes over the teeth and the smile that can change the look of their straightness, their length, their position, their color; you can really recreate a complete smile by adding something over it. Restorative dentistry is more typically focused on repairing something that has a problem. So a tooth that has a cavity that needs a filling, a tooth that’s broken or worn that needs to have something put over it like a crown. That’s typically what we think of when we say Restorative dentistry. Restorative dentistry, with the way we use it to repair larger cases though, can actually still be cosmetic. So when we’re doing a Full Mouth Rehabilitation, not only can we repair what’s broken & worn and recreate the youthful appearance of a healthy smile, we’re still doing Cosmetic Dentistry. So we can repair what is unhealthy or broken and still recreate something that you’ll be absolutely in love with when you look at it in the mirror.

If you’re looking to transform your smile, dental veneers may be a great option to consider. They can be used to fill in gaps, lengthen teeth, repair chips or broken areas, hide rotations, and change color; there’s a lot they can do. They themselves are a really thin layer of ceramic or porcelain that we bond onto the front of your teeth. There’s actually a couple different ways veneers can be used sometimes. We can even place veneers on your teeth without having to cut or grind the enamel on the teeth themselves underneath the veneers, which is an awesome option where you can transform what you see without ever actually having to destroy what’s underneath them. The veneer process is totally unique to each individual patient. It really depends on what you need, what you want to change, and the health of the teeth that we’re considering working on. The first step is always going to be creating a mock-up or a blueprint of what the end product is going to look like so we can take a photo and digitally change what you see or we can take a 3D scan of your teeth and create that mock-up and actually use some temporary material to place it in your mouth and let you see what your teeth could look like. We don’t want to start the process without you knowing that you’re going to be able to create the end result that you have in mind.

If you’re wanting to change the look of your smile by moving teeth, you may have heard about Invisalign or clear aligners that allow you to do that without wearing braces. This is an awesome way to gently and slowly create the new smile you want to see without having to wear brackets and wires, like you may be thinking about when you envision what someone wearing braces looks like.
Clear aligners are a thin plastic tray that is going to go over your existing teeth that you’re going to change every seven to 14 days. Each tray is going to move a tooth about a quarter millimeter at a time. So, when we start a case, we’re taking a digital scan of the teeth, we’re using a computer to map out the change in position that we want to create, and then that series of clear aligners are going to be made start to finish they’re going to gently move the teeth into the new position that we’re trying to create.

A big focus of our practice is on what we call full-mouth rehab. You may have heard of full mouth rehabilitation, full mouth reconstruction, full mouth makeover. They are all more or less talking about the same thing. Taking someone either through trauma, neglect, tooth wear, or breakage over time, and they’ve found a place where they can no longer just have a tooth or two fixed at a time. Or they’re wanting to completely transform the way things look. But we can’t just change the way the smile looks without improving or recreating the way the back teeth function to allow the front teeth to look differently without breaking or being in a compromised situation. A lot of times, over the years, people go to the dentist. They have one problem, they get one tooth worked on. You play that same story over a couple of decades, and you end up in a place where your bite doesn’t line up, you may have muscle or joint problems now, you’ve got different materials in your mouth that look different, or the colors aren’t the same or your teeth start to wear, they’re breaking, or they’re getting shorter, they’re getting thinner, they’re getting crowded. There’s a lot of different reasons someone can find themselves in a position where they would benefit from recreating beauty aesthetic and proper function. So something that we’re very focused on is we don’t just want to treat the symptom of why your muscles hurt or why your jaw is tired. We don’t just want to treat the symptom of changing the way your front teeth look because they are worn or broken, or chipped. We want to fix causes. We want to take an answer to why is this functionally happening. Why do your teeth look like this? How can we stop this from continuing to happen? A lot of times, that means we have to build up height in the back teeth to change the way that front teeth look. Or we have to use implants or bridges to replace teeth that are missing. But regardless of what your individual needs are, there is a way to completely recreate the look of a beautiful, perfect smile with a bite that doesn’t have joint or muscle pain anymore. There is a better way to receive dental care than what you have been in the past.

We get a ton of people that come to us concerned about root canals and there is some good information and a lot of bad information that you’re going to read on the internet. So let’s start at the beginning. There’s two main reasons a tooth can need a root canal. One is an alive tooth that is sick. The nerve is inflamed. Either a bad cavity or trauma has created a hyper response or spontaneous pain, so cold or hot really hurts and lasts for a long time. Or you lay down and go to bed and the tooth throbs on its own. That’s an alive tooth. That is not going to get better on its own, but it’s not infected. It’s still alive. So there’s no bacteria problem yet in the nerve of the tooth. The other reason a tooth can need a root canal is the nerve is already dead. So there’s no blood flow to the tooth. The nerve doesn’t function. It can’t feel hot and cold, but there’s an infection at the base of the root of the tooth in the jaw bone, called an abscess that we’ll often find on a CT scan — a 3D image of the teeth in the jaws where we can identify any sources of infection, like, abscessed teeth. So, a root canal is a procedure that removes the either inflamed or dead blood supply and nerve inside the root of the tooth. All right, so we can be treating pain or it can be trying to treat infection. Your tooth and the roots are still there, but the vitality is removed from inside. So if a tooth is infected, it may heal. We’ve removed a lot of the bacteria from inside the tooth, but we can’t remove all of it. So, sometimes, we’ll see non-healing or something that gets better for a while, and then we’ll see an abscess return later. So unfortunately, no one can guarantee that an infection is removed by doing a root canal. A lot of times, it works, but there’s always the risk and we don’t know how much bacteria is still in the tooth, potentially, creating a subclinical level of residual inflammation, or systemic effect, without creating an actual visible abscess. So, unfortunately, the only way to give someone certainty that the bacteria and the infection are gone is to remove the tooth. If that tooth is extracted, we know the bacteria is dealt with. We know the infection can’t recur, we know that it can’t erode or destroy more bone and then we begin the conversation of, “What, if anything, do you want to do to restore or replace that missing tooth?” Our first line of choice is always going to be a dental implant because it’s replacing the one thing that we’ve lost. Something like a bridge can be an option, which is a crown on either side of the missing tooth and all three teeth at that point are connected. The downside there is if you have healthy neighboring teeth, you’ve now just ground all the enamel off of them to replace one missing tooth that those two teeth had nothing to do with. Furthermore, if anything goes wrong with that bridge, or the neighboring teeth. Now, you potentially lose an additional tooth or have to replace a whole bridge. So, a implant side steps increasing the risk, or letting that problem potentially snowball down the road. The other two choices for replacement are making something removable that you can take in and out that makes it look like you’re missing a tooth, or not missing a tooth rather, or you simply leave a missing space there, which is not a great treatment choice but is always an option. So hopefully that clarifies some of the questions that you have about what is a root canal, why is it needed and what can I do to avoid one.

Holistic dentistry may be a bit different from what you’ve experienced in the past, by taking a look at you as a whole instead of just individual teeth. Considering how your medical history or how any issues that you’re dealing with could be connected to problems you have in your mouth. Looking at materials that are in your mouth and how that may be related to concerns that you have. A lot of times we’ll have patients come to us that are frustrated because they’ve just been brushed off when they raise concerns about things like mercury in their mouth, or fluoride use, either in them or their children. You deserve to be in a healthcare setting where your questions are respected, they’re responded to, and you’re not brushed off for being difficult or going against the grain. You need to be a part of your healthcare choices. You need to be empowered to make decisions that line up with what your goals are. And we want to create a safe place where that is addressed, and we’re coming alongside you to help you achieve the healthcare goals that are important to you.

The two main components that we’re looking at when we’re evaluating what’s going on in your mouth that can negatively affect your overall health is gum disease and infected teeth. So Gum disease can have two different components: Gingivitis and Periodontitis. Gingivitis is reversible inflammation of your gum tissue that is caused by the bacteria and plaque. It creates inflammation which leads to bleeding, but it’s reversible which means we can make it go away and there’s no long term damage that’s taken place. Periodontal disease is where you’ve actually lost bone. That infection has progressed. It’s been more longstanding or more aggressive in its destruction. So when we look at X-rays of the teeth we see that bone levels have receded. So you’ve lost anchoring support that keeps your teeth stable.While that in and of itself is a concern, the bigger issue is that inflammation caused by the bacteria that creates the disease is entering your bloodstream. So whether it is gum disease, whether it is infected teeth that are actually abscessed, bacteria is at the root of all of that. The bacteria is getting into your circulatory system. So when you see all the headlines about how gum disease is connected to cardiovascular disease, heart attack risk, stroke risk, type 2 diabetes, certain types of cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, all the litany of research that is coming out right now is connected to how that infection is creating chronic inflammation and inflammation is the key to all of this. So treating gum disease is really about ridding our bodies of inflammation just as much as it is about making our mouths themselves healthier.

The ways to treat gum disease depend on which type of gum disease you actually have. Gingivitis is a reversible inflammation of the tissue that is really just based on plaque staying along the gum line. So, regardless of whether you’re using certain types of toothpastes or rinse, it really comes down to removing that biofilm consistently. As that plaque goes away, the tissue is going to heal, the inflammation is going to go away, the bleeding is going to stop and there won’t be a continued destructive nature to the disease. Gum disease that has transitioned into Periodontitis where we’ve seen bone destruction and attachment loss from the tissue, that treatment is going to be more involved. And there is different levels of severity of it, but more or less your treatment is going to consist of having in-office work done as well as what you’re doing at home. So in the office we’re using ultrasonics, lasers, ozonated water, different ways to disrupt the buildup of bacteria and biofilm below the guideline. At home, you’re going to be using electric toothbrushes, water picks, flossing, certain types of rinse or gel products that are usually going to contain an essential oil or be peroxide-based to be disrupting the bacteria while you’re in between visits. But the connection between your in-office and at-home recur program are going to be important because you can’t keep periodontal disease from being destructive just by going to the dentist. You can’t just do it at home. There’s got to be a teamwork focus between you and your dental care provider to keep that inflammatory process in remission so you’re not continuing to experience destruction of bone levels, bleeding of gum tissue or the inflammation that results from it.

Dr. Ryan Jones explains what dental implants are and how the procedure works. Nashville Restorative Dentistry offers titanium and zirconia implants that replace virtually any tooth without the drawbacks associated with other restorative choices like bridges and dentures. Whether you need a single tooth replaced or all of them, dental implants can be used to create the best and longest-lasting restoration available. Learn more about Nashville Restorative Dentistry’s dental implants services at the link below.

One of the absolute coolest things that we get to do in restoring someone’s mouth health and smile and confidence is the all on x type of treatment approach so all on x just stands for whether it be four, you know six, eight implants it’s all the teeth being gone in someone’s jaw and placing a minimum of four, six if we can or more if you need to implants that one restorative prosthesis called a Hybrid Denture is attached to so if you imagine that you lost all your teeth two decades ago you didn’t have a ton of options you know you think about what a traditional denture is it’s an acrylic prosthetic that you can take in and out of your mouth that visually replaces all your teeth but isn’t held fast or stable by anything other than suction and potentially some adhesive goo that you put inside of it when we take someone that has been in that position and then can place several implants into the remaining bone and attach something like a hybrid denture to it that they can’t take in and out that can’t come loose when they eat that doesn’t cover their palate and minimize their ability to taste or enjoy food it is absolutely transformational from a confident standpoint, from a functional ability and from a cosmetic result it is amazing.

We see a lot of people that come to us to talk about zirconia implants because they want to avoid the use of metal in their mouth. So, people that have an actual titanium allergy, which is a very small percentage but does exist, those that just want to be proactive with their healthcare and avoid the potential risk like long-term corrosion of titanium ions entering the body, these create motivations for some patients to consider zirconia dental implants. What are zirconia implants? Zirconia is a oxide of a metal called Zirconium which the body sees as a metal free compound it’s white in color, it’s got great tissue and bone biocompatibility, meaning we don’t see much inflammation or reaction around it, and it provides a stable metal-free substance for us to attach an abutment and crown to replace the missing tooth.

If you are nervous or afraid or anxious at the thought of coming to the dentist or having work done or you avoided coming to the dentist because of anxiety, Sedation Dentistry can truly be transformative in your quality of life, in your health, your smile, it just opens the door for you to have everything you need and everything you’ve been avoiding.
There are four main areas of sedation that we can consider when we think about dental work. The easiest is laughing gas. Nitrous oxide is something that you breathe while you’re having work done and it relaxes you, it may make you feel tired or groggy, warm and tingly, people respond differently to it. But, it can be something that relaxes you enough that a minor procedure might not be that bothersome to you. Once we leave that level we actually enter into true sedation options. The first sedation option is Oral Conscious Sedation. It is typically some medicine you will take at home, a pill, the night before your appointment and the morning of your appointment, typically an hour before you get to the dental office. We will then give you more in the procedure as we need to keep you comfortable and relaxed. Some important things to note here is you are not unconscious, you are not being put to sleep. That’s why it’s called oral conscious sedation. But the medicines have an awesome amnesiac effect when they work together. So you don’t remember much of your time in the dental office. So we’re able to oftentimes work on a patient all day long and get everything done they need and they just have a blurred memory of being in the office for a short amount of time. The important thing to also note there is that if something is uncomfortable or you need to use the restroom, things like that, you can communicate. So you’re not incapacitated in any way. You may be groggy, you may go to sleep, but we’re not actually putting you to sleep. When we go to a more deeper level of sedation, that’s where we’re looking at either an IV sedation or a general sedation appointment. If you require no memory being the office at all or even thought of using oral conscious sedation is not something that is comfortable to you we can bring a dental anesthesiologist into the office, they will intubate you, you will be under general anesthesia just like you would be if you were at the hospital having a major operation. So from just a little bit of help to a complete general anesthesia, we’ve got an option available that is safely going to make you comfortable enough to receive the dental care that you need.