Why you can’t afford not to visit the dentist in Mackay

Visiting the dentist in Mackay isn’t anyone’s favourite appointment. You could have the nicest dentist in the world, in a super comfortable surgery, with lovely reception staff and it’s still not going to be the highlight of your day. Allowing a stranger to poke around in your mouth and scrape, pull and blast plaque off your teeth is never going to be a joy.

But it is very necessary, not just for the health of your teeth, but for your overall wellbeing too. People avoid going to the dentist in Mackay for all kinds of reasons: lack of funds, fear of tdhe dentist, worry about what they might hear or not wanting to face up to the possibility of further dental work. While all this is perfectly understandable, taking care of your dental health can’t be avoided. Dental disease is preventable, and it is possible to keep your teeth for life. But you need to play your part and one aspect of that is making sure you go for regular check-ups at the dentist in Mackay.

However well your brush your teeth at home, only professional dental equipment can remove the hardened tartar that builds up on teeth. Everyone has this and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. By getting a scale and polish from the dental hygienist every six months, you can keep this under control. If you don’t get this removed, it can lead to gum disease and tooth decay, and ultimately tooth loss. Then you really will need to visit the dentist in Mackay for an expensive restoration procedure.

Dental health also plays a part in overall health. Healthy teeth that bite and chew food effectively help us to get the vital nutrients out of our food. Poor dental health has also been linked to an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and stroke.

Here at Walkerston Dental in Walkerston GP Superclinic, Queensland, as well as keeping you on track with your maintenance appointments, we can also offer you advice on nutrition, lifestyle habits and oral hygiene techniques that will help you keep your teeth in tip top condition in between check-ups. Don’t put it off, it’s not worth the risk. Visit our surgery today.

Gum health essential for oral health

We often only become aware of gum disease when we have continued bad breath or bleeding gums. Although both of these symptoms indicate gum disease, it’s often ignored, especially in the beginning stages, as it’s painless. Gum disease, apart from undermining the health of your teeth, has now also been linked as a contributing factor for heart and lung disease, so it’s very important to prioritise your 6 month check-ups with your dentist in Mackay.

Mackay dentist; regular checks to prevent gum disease

Sore, reddened or bleeding gums can be indicators of gum infection which can develop into gum disease such as gingivitis and periodontitis. By attending your appointments for check-ups and cleaning at Walkerston Dental in Walkerston Superclinic, we can get to the root of the issue before it develops into gum disease.

Gingivitis and periodontitis are both gum diseases that can damage your oral health long term, leading to more expensive reparative dental work.

Gingivitis is a mild, curable gum disease, often indicated by bleeding gums and persistent bad breath. If left untreated it can develop into periodontitis, a more chronic, incurable condition which can eventually attack your jawbone, undermining its integrity and leading to tooth loss.

During your 6-monthly check, both of these infections can be diagnosed and treated effectively.

Sore gums can also be an indicator of tartar build up which is irritating your gums. This will be removed during your clean and polish appointment.

Ultrasonic scalers to the rescue

Sticky bacteria builds up on our teeth throughout the day, known as plaque, it is removed during our regular brushing and flossing routine. However, since all the surfaces of our teeth are hard to reach, we often miss plaque build-up, that will then harden into tartar. Tartar is a hard substance that builds up around the teeth, irritating the gums. Only a dental professional can remove tartar during a descaling clean and polish.

At Walkerston Dental we use only ultrasonic scalers during our clean and polish appointments. It gets into all the spaces between the teeth and deeply cleans away any build up. 6 month check-ups and clean appointments with your dentist in Mackay results in good oral and general health.

Routine is the key to healthy teeth

As everyone knows, brushing and flossing at least twice a day, helps to keep your teeth and gums healthy. By making visits to your dentist in Mackay twice a year part of your routine, you pave the way for great dental and overall oral health. At Walkerston Dental in Walkerston Superclinic, we put prevention at the heart of our dentistry, by using ultrasonic descalers along with thorough oral examinations, we maintain, spot and treat issues before they create problems.

Mackay dentist descale at the deepest level

At Walkerston Dental we use only ultrasonic scalers to clean your teeth. So, once one of our dental professionals has given you a thorough examination, check of your gum health and complete mouth and neck assessment, they will then clean your teeth.

The ultrasonic scaler can really get into all the tiny spaces in between teeth, where bacteria build-up creates the perfect environment for decay. By receiving twice-yearly cleaning appointments, tartar build-up can be eradicated and your teeth will be left fresh, clear and clean.

Once cleaned, your dentist can then address and treat any issues they have found during the examination.

Everything in one place

As your dentist in Mackay we offer a wide range of treatments, so if your twice-yearly check-up has unveiled a problem we can treat you in-house without referring you to other dental professionals.

Our general practice includes root canals, fillings and tooth extractions, whilst also offering more extensive treatments such as veneers. Veneers are employed when one or more teeth have become badly stained, damaged or out of alignment. They create a new, long-lasting facade that fits over your tooth, securing and strengthening it whilst also radically transforming its look.

Veneers are also part of our cosmetic dentistry range, where we offer other services to vastly improve and correct dental issues. Treatments such as dental implants can replace missing teeth, whilst clear discreet braces can now realign your teeth without impacting on your smile.

Dental services, such as ours can now provide you with the latest in dentistry techniques, information and advice, making your dental routine highly effective, that creates a lifetime of good oral health.

It’s time to visit the dentist

There aren’t many people who relish the thought of visiting the dentist in Mackay. Most consider it a chore that needs doing twice-yearly, something to tick off the To Do list and forget all about until next time. But a visit to the dentist in Mackay at Walkerston Dental in Walkerston doesn’t have to be a bother. It can, in fact, be something to look forward to, as there is more on offer than just your dental check-up.

Creating smiles worth showing off

If you find yourself hiding your smile because you’re embarrassed by your teeth, our Mackay dentist can help. With a suite of cosmetic dental treatments, we can rid your smile of bothersome dental imperfections. Veneers can cover over stained, discoloured, chipped, cracked or misshapen teeth. Teeth whitening can lift off surface stains to restore the natural gleam to your teeth. Gum reshaping can get rid of excess gum tissue to create balance between your gums and teeth. We even have clear aligners to straighten out mild to moderate misalignments of your teeth.

Helping you get a good night’s sleep

Snoring and sleep apnoea can both be incredibly disruptive to your sleep, leaving you fatigued and far from ready for the day ahead. In some cases, a dentist in Mackay can provide a solution with special dental appliances that will help keep your airways open as you sleep.

Putting your comfort first

While creating a more confident smile or helping you feel more rested are certainly reasons to look forward to going to see the dentist in Mackay, sometimes your visit will be all about treating dental disease. In some cases, this involves spending a fair amount of time in the dental chair, which is enough to make the most stoic of patients feel anxious. That’s why we offer dental sedation to help relax you, on top of providing you with effective pain relief. This can be in the form of a tablet that you take before your procedure or in the form of a mixture of gases that you breathe in through a small mask placed over your nose.

Whatever your dental needs, we’ll do our best to make your visit a pleasant one.

Dental care that is bang up to date

There is a persistent image in pop culture of dentists as villains armed with hulking wrenches to yank out the teeth of unsuspecting patients. This probably stems from what dentistry used to be like back in the bad old days. Thankfully, modern dentistry is nothing of the sort. In fact, your dentist in Mackay is all about saving your teeth.

Here at Walkerston Dental in Walkerston GP SuperClinic, Queensland, we are dedicated to helping you hold onto your teeth for as long as possible. To that end we’ve invested in modern equipment to help us do our jobs to the best of our abilities and ultimately deliver you dental care that you can trust.

Here are just 2 of the amazing widgets we put to use as your dentist in Mackay.

Digital x-rays

Perhaps hard to believe but even x-rays have gone digital today. This doesn’t just make it quicker and easier for us to capture images of your jawbone and teeth, it also makes it safer. Digital x-rays expose you to considerably less radiation than traditional x-rays. Add to that the fact that digital x-rays provide higher resolution images and it really was a no-brainer when we decided to get a digital x-ray machine.

Intra-oral camera

Have you ever been to the dentist in Mackay and heard them rabbit on about what they’ve discovered in your mouth and how you need to get it treated as soon as possible? You nod and smile, but you don’t really understand what they’re talking about. At Walkerston Dental, we want to make sure you understand exactly what is going on with your dental health. That’s why our Mackay dentist uses an intra-oral camera, which streams video images direct to a screen that both you and your dentist can look at. When words won’t suffice, a picture often does the trick.

Even more

We have a digital orthopantomogramme to capture a complete view of both jaws of teeth in a single image, surgical microscopes and loupes so we can see every detail of your mouth and advanced dental implant planning software.

Get in touch to find out how we’ll put all of this technology to good use for your dental health.

What does a regular dental check-up and cleaning in Walkerston involve?

Regular dental examinations are an important ingredient of a thorough oral routine. Most people are advised to return to the dentist every 6 months for a check-up and cleaning – however, some patients may need to repeat this process more often.

A dental examination is a very carefully planned and systematic process during which our Walkerston dentist at Walkerston Dental in Walkerston GP SuperClinic, Queensland, will examine and screen our patients’ teeth for signs of various oral concerns. Once this procedure finishes, our dentist in Walkerston will continue into a thorough scaling and polishing session, where plaque and bacteria will be removed from the patients’ teeth. Both these procedures need to be repeated at least twice a year if you wish to avoid the appearance of plaque and gum disease.

An overview of the dental examination

Here is a rundown of the basic steps of a typical dental examination:

• an oral health evaluation through a thorough examination of the teeth and gums followed by examining the soft tissues in the mouth
• x-rays in order to look for signs of gum disease or tooth decay
• regular oral cancer screening
• alignment and bite check.

Once the dentist performs all of these steps, they will decide whether treatment is needed and create a customised plan you. They will also offer advice before handing you to the oral hygienist for the scaling and polishing treatment. This advice can be general tips on brushing and flossing, smoking cessation advice or diet advice.

Removing plaque and debris from the teeth

The cleaning process can be performed by a dentist or a dental hygienist. They will use a special tool (scaler) to remove hardened plaque from the teeth and gums and then the teeth will be polished with a special paste, which is slightly abrasive. This step is important because it prevents bacteria from sticking to your tooth enamel.

Better safe, than sorry

Visiting our dentist in Walkerston is the only safe way to keep your teeth healthy and disease-free. Plaque can develop regardless of the degree of brushing or flossing you perform at home, therefore removing it professionally at regular intervals is essential.

Check-ups and hygiene with the dentist in Mackay

Run your tongue over your teeth? Do they feel smooth and glassy like a mirror, or can you feel little ridges and layers of something? That’s plaque and plaque is the mortal enemy of your teeth. Plaque is the reason why you need regular check-ups with the dentist in Mackay, and also why you need to back up your teeth cleaning with deep cleaning sessions with the hygienist here at Walkerston Dental in Walkerston.

What is plaque?

Plaque is the common name for a particular bacterium that lives in your mouth. Its scientific name is Streptococcus mutans. It has 2 characteristics that make it such a problem. Firstly, it feeds off sugars in your saliva and when it does so, it gives off acids as a by-product. Secondly, it avoids being swallowed in your saliva by gluing itself onto the surfaces in your mouth: your teeth, gums and cheek linings. It reproduces more quickly each time you eat something sugary, which is why it can seem to appear like magic after you’ve been eating ice cream or drinking fizzy drinks at the beach.

You can brush it away. In fact, getting rid of plaque is why we brush our teeth. But because plaque hides away in crevices, brushing never entirely gets rid of it. If it is left undisturbed, after 3 days, that layer of plaque hardens into a rock-like substance, called calculus. But the active layer next to thee teeth and gums continues to give off acids. Like all acids, they’re corrosive, making holes in your tooth enamel and inflaming your gums.

Check-ups

Your 6-monthly check-up gives your dentist in Mackay a chance to spot the early signs of dental decay and gum disease, caused by plaque. The first signs of decay are whiter patches on your tooth enamel, and then tiny holes through it. We can treat them easily with little fillings.

The hygienist is on the look-out for early signs of gum disease: red, inflamed gums and pockets developing between the gums and teeth. These are easily treated by upping your oral hygiene game.

However, leave either problem untreated and the ultimate result is tooth loss. Don’t let it come to this. Visit us every 6 months.

Lesser known treatments from the dentist in Mackay

What do you think of when you think of treatments that are available from Walkerston Dental in Walkerston, your dentist in Mackay? Do you think of check-ups, fillings, root canals, dental implants, crowns and such like? That’s not surprising, these are the treatments that make up the backbone of dentistry in Australia. But there are other treatments that we offer that are related to dentistry because the problem is to do with your mouth.

Your jawbone plays a vital role in your dental health

Dentistry is not just about teeth, it’s also about the rest of your mouth, such as your gums and jawbone because your teeth are housed inside them. So anything that affects your jawbone and your gums will at some point also affect your teeth.

Snoring and sleep apnoea

You may think you need to see your doctor if you are snorerr or suffer from sleep apnoea but the cause may be to do with your jawbone. Both snoring and sleep apnoea, which is when your oxygen supply gets cut off during sleep and you stop breathing temporarily, may be caused by the soft tissues at the back of your throat collapsing inwards and blocking your airways. With snoring, you get that characteristic sound of the snore. With sleep apnoea, you actually stop breathing before waking with a gasp or loud snore. Sleep apnoea can interrupt your sleep all night, making you drowsy during the day.

We can treat mild to moderate cases with a device that brings your lower jaw forward to open up your airways.

Grinding your teeth at night

If you have neck and shoulder pain, or suffer from headaches, or your jaw feels tight you could be grinding your teeth at night. It’s entirely possible that you don’t know you are doing it, but bruxism can lead to all sorts of problems including your teeth wearing out and crumbling away. We supply devices that protect your teeth from night time grinding, putting a cushion between your upper and lower teeth to reduce wear and tear.

To find out more about lesser known services at your dentist in Mackay, ask us when you next come in.

Really scared about visiting the dentist in Mackay?

For most of us, visiting the dentist in Mackay is not a problem. Yes, we may be a bit nervous, but it’s nothing we can’t handle. However, about 13% of the global population have a dental phobia.

Phobias are different from nerves. They give people feelings of extreme anxiety. These can manifest as sweating, trembling, even feeling faint and a full on fight or flight reflex can kick in. Imagine you felt like you had just come face to face with a croc, and then imagine that croc was the dentist. You can see how people with dental phobia might not want to see that croc ever again. Now imagine, they had to see that croc twice a year, or face losing their teeth. No wonder so many of them would prefer to go through the terrible pain of tooth decay and gum disease than put themselves in the way of the croc/dentist in Mackay.

Time was, dental phobics were brushed off as being scaredy cats and were told to man up. Nowadays, dentists the world over, including us at Walkerston Dental in Walkerston understand that people with dental phobia need to be treated differently.

Dental phobia can be created by a number of different experiences. It could be that you grew up with a parent who was scared of the dentist and they passed their phobia on to you. Or it could be that you had your own nasty experience with an uncompassionate dentist as a kid. Some people are scared of the pain of the needle. Others get sent into a panic by the sound of the drill. Wherever your phobia stems from, we aim to treat you as compassionately and gently as possible, so that you can get your teeth treated and will feel better about visiting the dentist in Mackay each time you return.

We do everything to make your visit a relaxing experience. The team is friendly and reassuring in its approach, and we use modern, often digital, equipment to treat you. We also have in-chair entertainment to distract you from what we are doing, and, we can offer you sedation to deeply relax you as we treat you.

Billions of visitors to the dentist in Mackay

As you go about your daily business, it probably never crosses your mind that you are not alone. Accompanying you as you go to school, college or work, to your sports activities, at home and as your sleep are billions of other invisible creatures. They live on your skin, in your gut, and in your mouth. Yes, when you bring your mouth to the dentist in Mackay, it’s not just your teeth and tongue that come along, about 20 billion microbes come along for the ride.

A whole new world

20 billion microbes are a whole world in themselves. Scientists call this the human oral biome, and it contains 500-650 different species of microbes. Some are good, some are bad, some don’t seem to do anything much, but they all hang out and reproduce in your mouth. Some only take 20 minutes to make new copies of themselves in ideal conditions. You may wonder how come you don’t end up with a mouth stuffed so full of microbes that you can’t even speak. The answer is that every time you swallow, about 100 million microbes go down the hatch with your spit; and you swallow about one litre of saliva a day.

Sticky teeth?

No wonder then that some microbes cling on for dear life to the surfaces inside your mouth. One clinger is Streptococcus mutans. This is the bacterium that we are the most aware of. It forms that sticky layer that builds up on our teeth during the day; we call it plaque. The trouble with this little critter is that it feeds on sugars in our saliva and then gives off acids. Because it clings to the teeth, gums and cheek linings, these acids come into direct contact with our mouth before they get diluted by our saliva. That’s why we get tooth decay and gum disease. They are caused by the acids given off by plaque.

If you don’t remove your plaque, it hardens into a chalky substance called calculus, but the living plaque next to your teeth still give off acids.

So book an appointment with Walkerston Dental in Walkerston, your dentist in Mackay, so we can help deal with your plaque.