If you are a parent, you know that children are a lot of fun, but they aren’t always as careful as you would like.
You also know that you can’t be around your children at every moment to make sure they aren’t eating things that could cause cavities. However, you can put up a barrier that will protect their teeth when they gobble up more cookies and candy than they should.
Dental sealants are one of the services we offer at our office in Cincinnati. They are a great way to help your kids keep their baby teeth as long as they should. (The tooth fairy will get what she needs, but there’s no need to rush it.)
To keep your family’s teeth looking their best, visit Anderson Dental Care to get dental sealants for all your little rascals.
What Are Dental Sealants?
Dental sealants are a simple, low-cost way to keep your children’s teeth free of cavities and decay. In case you didn’t know, cavities are the most chronic disease in children between the ages of 6 and 19, according the Centers for Disease Control.
Sealants are made with a plastic material, which a dentist or dental hygienist will place over your children’s back teeth. As this material hardens, it creates a protective barrier over the weakest part of your children’s teeth.
We have four kinds of teeth in our mouths, and each of those teeth serves a different purpose.
Our molars are the bigger, flatter teeth that we have in the back of our mouths. These teeth are the ones that we use to chew our food.
In children’s teeth, the groove in the middle of their molars is sometimes a weak spot. This makes it more vulnerable to discoloration and decay. By placing dental sealants over your child’s molars, you will protect those teeth from the many sweets that children like to eat.
Can Adults Get Sealants?
So far we have focused our attention on the benefits of dental sealants for children, but adults can get them, too.
Sealants provide a barrier for cavities in adults just as they do for kids. They can be part of a comprehensive approach to keeping your mouth as healthy as possible. According to the American Dental Association, sealants provide an added layer of protection for your mouth.
Toothbrushes are wonderful tools, and when used with a fluoride toothpaste, they can remove a lot of the bacteria that grows inside your mouth every day.
Our teeth are not perfectly flat. That means your toothbrush can’t always remove the bacteria and plaque from inside the grooves in our teeth.
A dental sealant can take care of that by blocking bacteria from reaching the some of the more vulnerable parts of our teeth.
How Are Sealants Applied?
This is a simple procedure. The plastic resin is painted onto your teeth. When the sealants harden, they becomes part of the defense system inside your mouth. The whole process is as painless as can be.
Now, we want to be clear. Sealants do not last forever. With time, they will wear down, but you can have new sealants added when needed.
Considering the low cost of sealants, they are a good investment in your teeth and the overall health of your mouth. When you compare the cost of getting sealants to the cost of say, a root canal, a tooth extraction, or a dental implant, sealants look like a great investment in your teeth and your children’s teeth.
And sealants are practically invisible, so your teeth will still look like your teeth when you have them applied.
You Still Need To Brush, Floss, And Visit The Dentist
Sealants are an additional step you can take to keep your teeth and your family’s teeth as healthy as possible, but please realize that sealants are something you can do in addition to your normal oral health routine.
You still need to brush your teeth twice each day for two minutes each time. You need to scrub your teeth on all sides, and you should remember to brush your tongue, too.
You also need to floss every day to reach the places between you teeth and gums that you can’t get with a toothbrush.
And you should schedule regular cleanings at Anderson Dental Care. Our dental hygienists will give you a professional cleaning, and we will examine your mouth to make sure your teeth and gums stay as healthy as possible.
To schedule an appointment to get your dental sealants, call our office in Cincinnati at (513) 817-0763 or fill out our online form.