For patients of all ages, nothing is as important to your oral health as routine dental care. Kids, teens, and adults need to see the dentist at least twice each year so that they can prevent serious dental issues, including dental decay and gum disease.
Here at All Star Dental, our five offices located in the Chicago area partner with families to help them manage and maintain their oral health long-term. With regular cleanings and exams, we work hard to ensure our patients receive top notch oral care, and that issues are addressed promptly.
During your dental cleaning our team of hygienists will professional clean your teeth. This includes brushing, flossing, and scaling. We have special tools that allow us to scrape off plaque and tartar that have become bound to the surface of the tooth. Additionally, we may use a fluoride treatment to improve the strength and health of your teeth.
During a dental exam your dentist is going to check your teeth for any signs of dental decay. Part of the reason we recommend visiting a dentist twice per year is so that our dentists can find any issues early and address them quickly. Early tooth decay can often be reversed, but if it persists you will likely need a filling, root canal, or even a tooth extraction.
There are a few other dental services that might be recommended to you or your child during your regular dental visit they include:
Our five dental offices provide professional dental cleaning and examination services. Our dentists review your X-rays and dental records and use that information alongside a visual exam to determine if there are any issues like inflammation, infection, or dental decay. During this process, we also screen for gum disease. All of these steps help ensure that if there are any dental issues that you or your kids are facing, they are caught as early as possible, so they can be treated quickly and effectively. But beyond examination, professional cleanings also include specific treatments that decrease the risk of these issues happening in the first place.
During a cleaning, our dental hygienists will remove plaque and tartar using a scaler. Plaque and tartar frequently form near the gumline and are difficult to impossible to remove on your own. Because of this, adults who skip the dentist or don’t schedule their kids for routine dental care increase the risk of gum disease and decay. While we remove this tartar and plaque, we also brush and floss your teeth. This is especially great for kids, because we can encourage them and demonstrate proper brushing and flossing techniques. Finally, we provide treatments that include sealants or fluoride, which help strengthen your teeth and decrease the risk of dental cavities forming.
Ask almost any dentist in the country, and they will tell you that you should be scheduling yourself and your family members for two appointments every single year. Dentistry is a lot like wearing sunscreen; it is much better to be prepared than to have to deal with issues down the road. The reason we recommend dental cleanings and exams every six months is that it prevents issues by making sure that they can’t progress for long periods of time. Dental decay and gum disease are both a process that takes time. While there are some dental issues that are much more sudden, like a knocked-out tooth, most common dental problems take months to develop. By seeing the dentist regularly, you can catch issues early and resolve them when they are in their earliest stages.
There are also many benefits to dental cleanings, especially for young kids and teens. During visits, kids can learn more about how to brush and floss correctly, how their diets impact their oral health, and how their teeth are developing.
New parents should talk to their pediatricians about oral health around the time that the first few teeth start to erupt or when a child hits six months old (whichever comes first). Your pediatrician will likely recommend that you start introducing brushing with a safe toothbrush and toothpaste designed for babies. They will also recommend setting up a first dental exam with a pediatric dentist, usually around your child’s first birthday.
For ongoing kids’ dental care, you should book every six months with a family-friendly dental office in your area. These routine visits fight tooth decay, prevent diseases, improve your child’s oral health, and help them track their oral development as new teeth come in and baby teeth fall out. Because you need two visits each year that are spaced out by about six months, it is very common for some parents to try to line up those appointments with breaks from the school year. A late summer appointment usually corresponds to an appointment during a winter break. That said, you can schedule appointments whenever it makes the most sense for your family. One piece of advice is to always schedule appointments with the knowledge that follow-ups might be necessary. For example, if someone needs a dental filling, you want to give yourself ample time to schedule both the original exam and follow-up for the filling.
It is not uncommon for a dental office to be on a kid’s list of least favorite places to go. Like the doctors, a dentist’s office starts off as an unfamiliar place, where kids are sometimes alone, and they have to have their teeth cleaned and examined by a stranger. It is so important that dental offices work hard to help alleviate some of that uncertainty, anxiety, and discomfort. Here at All Star Dental, we provide play areas in our waiting areas, so kids can relax before their appointments. We allow parents to go with their kids to the treatment and exam rooms so they can have more familiarity. And most importantly, our team is trained to work with kids and help alleviate their concerns by explaining things and being patient with them. We want kids to have positive memories of the dentist and to be encouraged to improve their brushing and flossing skills.
With five offices throughout the Chicagoland area, our teams of dentists and dental hygienists are here to help your kids and teens manage their oral health. If you need to book routine cleanings and exams for your family, please click below to see our location information for all five of our offices, or book online using our online scheduling software. For more information, please do not hesitate to reach out to one of our offices to discuss insurance plans, our treatments, or any specific questions that you and your family have.
Almost every dentist in America recommends twice a year. In fact most dental insurances are designed around six month visits. By seeing your dentist twice a year, plaque and tartar do not have a chance to build up long-term and any signs of decay or gum disease can be handled earlier rather than later.
X-rays are a very safe procedure. In fact, dental x-rays use a much loser dosage of radiation than medical x-rays do. Not only are the safe, but they provide invaluable information. A dental X-ray can show us things we can’t see during a normal exam, especially when it comes to the roots of your teeth. That said, we do provide lead-lined bibs to provide extra protection when performing x-rays.
Fluoride is a natural mineral that has been used in many dental products. In fact, many municipalities put trace amounts of fluoride in the water to improve the overall health of the community. Fluoride as a mineral can encourage stronger bones and teeth. Aside from the water supply, a dentist might recommend fluoride toothpaste or a fluoride treatment during your regular check-up to improve dental health.
Cavities are very common. The best way to prevent them is with regular brushing and flossing, and regular dental visits. One mistake some adults make is not going to the dentist until they notice an issue. Our teeth are very resilient to pain, and by the time you start to feel sensitivity or other symptoms of decay, the decay has likely been there for a while. A regular dental check-up is the best way you can prevent cavities from forming by both cleaning the teeth and also noting any warning signs.
