Preventive General Dentistry
Routine care maintains your beautiful smile and your health!
Good dental health starts with healthy gums and clean teeth. Regular checkups include x-rays, a dental exam and oral cancer screening along with a thorough prophylaxis. Our hygienists are well trained, gentle, yet thorough and dedicated to your oral health. Your visit will be informative. We can help you eliminate bad breath, snoring, TMJ pain, recurrent decay, sensitivity, etc. Home care regiments are customized for each patient.
Dr. Cook can help you permanently restore decayed or broken teeth and replace missing teeth to provide you with a pleasing smile and good function.
In addition to a visual scanning for signs of oral cancer, we can provide a more definitive screening using Vizi-Lite.
Since we no longer use mercury based silver fillings (amalgams), newer custom shaded fillings are beautiful, long lasting alternatives. Called composite resins, these fillings require less drilling and are bonded chemically to the tooth surfaces. These are ideal for small to medium sized fillings.
If the filling involves three or more surfaces, we can save the strong parts of the tooth and replace the rest with a porcelain onlay. The porcelain is strong, beautiful and can avoid a crown altogether.
If a single tooth is too weak to support an onlay, a porcelain crown is the best long lasting restoration. All porcelain crowns made of Zirconium are virtually unbreakable and beautiful with no metal showing at the gum line.
Need more info about any of these?
Replacing Missing Teeth
The ideal way to replace one or more missing teeth is with implants. Dr. Cook is a Fellow at the Midwest Implant Institute, where he trained. The implant is surgically placed in the bone like an artificial root. The bone grows into the implant after several months and then a post is screwed into the implant and a crown cemented to the post. The implant is stronger than natural teeth and it preserves the bone and facial structure.
Before dental implants, the fixed bridge was the best way to replace a missing tooth or teeth The teeth on either side of the missing tooth or teeth are shaped to accept a crown and the bridge is fabricated and cemented onto the teeth. Bridges with porcelain over a precious metal substructure require a two week period in the laboratory.
Traditionally, this removable restoration includes a metal framework and clasps with acrylic teeth. Newer materials allow us tomake partial dentures without metal and tooth colored clasps for a more esthetic result
fI teeth cannot be saved, a full denture can be made. This economical solution can be very esthetic and comfortable. Lower dentures can sometimes be difficult to manage, so we recommend two or more dental implants or four mini implants to help stabilize it.
Mini implants are an economical and less surgical solution to stabilizing the lower denture. Once the lower denture is made, the mini implants can be placed and snapped into the lower denture in about an hour
Dental Emergencies
We can meet with patients in off hours with short notice to make them whole and pain free.
Dr. Cook will always find time to get his patients out of pain. Teeth can be saved with root canal therapy and in most cases the pain eliminated immediately. Extractions are sometimes necessary if the tooth cannot be saved.
In an emergency, teeth can be bonded quickly to eliminate a rough edge on a broken back tooth. Broken front teeth can be bonded esthetically in less than an hour to avoid the embarrassment of a broken smile.
Cosmetic Dentistry
Our office offers a home based way to whiten teeth called GO! The ready to use gel packets are inserted on each arch and effective whitening takes place in roughly 15 minutes. GO includes a desensitizing agent to minimize discomfort from whitening.
Porcelain veneers laboratory fabricated, thin custom shells that require minimal or no tooth reduction. Porcelain veneers are used to straighten teeth, close gaps and improve the shape and color of teeth.
Clear plastic devices can be made to maintain straight teeth (Orthodontic retainers), or to prevent tooth grinding and TMJ pain (Night guards), or to prevent snoring (Silent Nite mouthpiece).