General and preventative dentistry

Most of what keeps teeth is unglamorous and happens long before anyone needs surgery. The clinic does all of it, through colleagues who do that work every day.

Check-ups and cleaning

An examination every six to twelve months, depending on your risk, plus a professional clean. The examination is the part that matters: decay and gum disease are both far easier to deal with early, and neither hurts until it is late. We also check the soft tissues of the mouth at every visit, which is covered under oral pathology.

Fillings

Decay removed and the tooth rebuilt, usually with a tooth-coloured material bonded into place. A filling done early is small, quick and cheap. The same tooth left for two years is a root canal, and the year after that it is an extraction.

Root canal treatment

When decay or injury reaches the nerve inside a tooth, the nerve is removed, the space disinfected and sealed, and the tooth restored. It has an unpleasant reputation it no longer deserves: with proper anaesthetic it feels much like having a filling, and it saves a tooth that would otherwise come out. Our endodontist handles the difficult cases.

Gum treatment

Gum disease is the commonest reason adults lose teeth, and it is painless almost to the end. Bleeding when you brush is the early sign and it is not normal. Treated early it is reversible. Left alone it destroys the bone holding the teeth, and that does not come back.

It also matters for anything else we might do: active gum disease has to be under control before implants, because the same process attacks the tissue around an implant.

Who does this work

Dr. Diala handles surgery and implants. General and preventative work is covered by colleagues who specialise in it. Meet the team.