Preventative Dentistry
Preventative dentistry is the cornerstone of family dentistry and a healthy smile at every age, and aims to prevent common dental issues, such as tooth decay and periodontal disease, before they happen in the first place.
Cavity Prevention & Detection
Cavities are holes in your tooth enamel that typically develop when a sticky bacterial film, called plaque, builds up on the surface of your teeth. While enamel does not regenerate once decayed, you can help prevent cavities with daily at-home hygiene, twice-annual dental visits, and preventative dentistry treatments, such as fluoride treatments and sealants.
Professional Fluoride Treatments
A professional fluoride treatment is a fast, safe, simple, and pain-free preventative dentistry treatment that delivers a concentrated dose of topical fluoride directly to the surface of your teeth to strengthen weakened areas and keep cavities at bay.
Sealants
Dental sealants are a thin covering of clear, body-safe plastic that coat and protect the textured and grooved surface of your, or your child’s, back teeth, where food debris and bacteria are most likely to get stuck and cause cavities. When combined with routine dental care and daily oral hygiene, sealants can prevent up to 80% of cavities in back teeth.
Tooth-colored Fillings
If you or your child already has a cavity, there’s no need to fret, as you can prevent the cavity from worsening while maintaining a natural aesthetic with tooth-colored fillings. Made of durable composite resin, tooth-colored fillings are now the preferred choice over silver-colored amalgam fillings for multiple reasons. Along with perfectly matching the shade of your natural teeth, tooth-colored fillings bond directly with your tooth, which means less healthy tooth structure needs to be removed to seal out bacteria and restore your smile’s strength and beauty.
Periodontal Therapy
Periodontal (gum) disease is an inflammatory bacterial infection of the tissues that surround and stabilize your teeth. In its first stage (called gingivitis), gum disease can cause bad breath and sore, swollen gums that bleed easily during brushing, flossing, or eating. If left untreated, gingivitis can advance to periodontitis, which can cause your gum tissue to recede and pull away from your teeth. Along with disfiguring your smile’s appearance, periodontal disease can undermine the stability of your teeth, cause tooth loss, and contribute to serious health conditions, like heart disease and diabetes.
Though the consequences of periodontal disease are great, periodontal therapy is more advanced than it's ever been, especially with laser dentistry. Laser therapy disinfects both the hard and soft tissues around your teeth and heightens your body’s ability to regenerate strong, healthy gum tissue.
Oral Cancer Screenings
Because symptoms are often mild to nonexistent, cancers of the mouth and throat are hard for individuals to catch on their own. Dr. Sexton prioritizes oral cancer screenings during your routine dental visits and combines a hands-on approach with modern dental technology to detect cell abnormalities in your mouth’s soft tissues at their earliest stages.
Snoring & Sleep Apnea Treatment
Consistently getting high-quality sleep is essential for your physical and mental performance and well-being. Snoring and sleep apnea deprive your body of oxygen while you sleep and interrupt your sleep, which can cause or contribute to brain fog, morning headaches, fatigue, poor concentration and memory, weight gain, and an increased risk for serious health conditions, like diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Though the impacts of snoring and sleep apnea can have serious consequences for your daily function and long-term health, the solution can be as simple as getting a snoring consultation and wearing a custom oral appliance from Dr. Sexton while you sleep. A comfortable, compact, and nonsurgical intervention, oral appliances can help you (and your bedmate) get the restorative rest you need to think, feel, look, and perform your best every day.
TMJ & Migraine Treatment
Issues with one or both of your jaw joints (called the temporomandibular joint, or TMJ) are one of the most common causes of ongoing facial and neck pain, popping or clicking jaws, migraines, tension headaches, broken or worn-down teeth, and poor-quality sleep. Though the root cause isn’t always known, TMJ issues are often caused by grinding and clenching the teeth (called bruxism) or a misaligned bite (called malocclusion).
Dr. Sexton can help you experience a better night’s sleep and long-lasting symptom relief with a custom oral appliance that suits your individual needs, such as a bite splint for bruxism or NTI-TSS for migraines (which stands for nociceptive trigeminal inhibition tension suppression system, or NTI for short).
Bite splints help relieve pressure on your teeth, facial muscles, and jaw joints, while NTI for migraines gently pushes your lower jaw forward and keeps your back teeth from grinding against each other while you sleep.
Insurance & Financing
Everyone should have access to the best dental care.
Your smile is forever, and your comfort with the financial aspects of your dental care is important to your experience. We are here to help you find the best payment option to fit your budget. Most dental insurance plans only cover a portion of your treatment, however, you can count on Dr. Sexton’s business team to work with you to maximize your dental benefits to ensure you get the most out of your coverage.
