Most people, especially people who haven’t been in a long time or who most need to, aren’t huge fans of visiting the dentist, and the prospect of surgical dentistry can be downright daunting. One of the ways to reduce the stress of thinking about dental surgery in Orillia is to take a look at the different varieties of oral surgical procedures that are out there. Another is to consider just how far medical science in all fields has come, even over the last few decades. Great leaps have been made in medical, procedural technology, not to mention the procedural techniques used by dental surgeons themselves, and that has led to dentists being able to provide hugely beneficial, necessary treatments in a level of comfort and painlessness that would have been unheard of in previous generations.

Different Flavours Of Surgery

The term dental surgery is a broad one that encompasses a variety of different procedures that are used to treat a host of different maladies and injuries. Endodontic therapy, for instance, is concerned primarily with the roots of teeth and the soft substance within them (called pulp). Root canal treatment, where a dentist will drill  into the root of a tooth to access and clear out painful, infected material, is an example of an endodontic procedure. A related procedure, often employed when a regular root canal is unsuccessful, is an apicoectomy. This involves a dental surgeon removing the root tip itself to get at an infected area, replacing it after treatment with a substitute material that restores the tooth’s strength and function. Prosthodontic treatments, on the other hand, involve the use of implants and artificial materials that serve as dental prosthetics, helping to repair or replace damaged, decayed, or missing teeth. Crowns, bridges, dentures, and porcelain veneers are all examples of prosthodontic treatments, many of which are nearly or completely painless to undergo and can provide life-long benefits.

Knowing What You Need and When

It may seem silly to think that you might not know you need dental surgery. Images of accidental and serious sports or playground injuries leap to mind, where something very distracting indeed would have to be going on for you not to notice that your next stop should be a dentist’s office. However, did you know that not all broken teeth hurt the same way, or even hurt all the time? It’s possible to have the dental equivalent of a hairline fracture, where you only experience intermittent pain when chewing a certain way or when eating or drinking something particularly cold or especially hot. Cases like these are far more subtle, and it can be tempting to brush them aside and avoid making an appointment with a dentist to get checked out, but like with more prominent injuries, the consequences of ignoring them can be much worse than simply meeting the problem head on.

When the subject of conversation turns to dental surgery, Orillia patients are no different from those anywhere else: there’s a definite tendency toward stress. But with a little close examination of the purpose and procedures involved in a variety of surgical treatments, it becomes clear that this remarkable and necessary practice has come a long way over the decades, and has a lot to offer.