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Our Dental Care
Educational, preventive, compassionate, child friendly, and quality care - That's our promise!
Dental Exams and Cleanings
Children should have a dental exam and professional cleaning at least two times per year. Children shoud start seeing a dentist and establish a dental home within six months of the eruption of the first tooth or by age one year.
- Our Hygiene Team consists of highly trained and licensed ental hygienists who have dedicated their careers to helping children and families -- This is one of the most important reasons to consider a pediatric dental office over a family or general dental environment.
- Twice annual cleanings and exams are important in helping your child develop and maintain trust and positive experiences with their dental care providers.
- We promise to keep things simple, stress free, and as fun and silly as possible -- We want your child to LOVE coming to see us!
- Our goal is to always educate how dental and gum disease develops and ultimately prevent dental disease.
- Exams also help educate children and families on dental and skeletal growth and development -- We are here to answer your questions about orthodontic ("braces") care and timing.
- Typically around age four to five, annual dental radiographs become a necessary and VERY important tool in education, diagnosing, and conservative management and treatment of dental development and cavities. We are a fully digital office which helps minimize exposure risks and our team is dedicated to helping keep your child safe.
- Removal of both plaque and calculus and repeat education on how cavities are formed, diet, twice daily brushing, and daily flossing are critical to mainting healthy gums and minimizing the risk of cavities. At every cleaning, our hygienists will demonstrate proper brushing and flossing and work with you and your child to help decrease the risk gum disease and cavities.
Preventive Treatments
Our team is focused on improving your child's dental health and helping them avoid preventable gum and dental disease.
- Topical fluoride: Topical fluoride helps remineralized damaged enamel at the surface of your tooth. Every day the enamel of our teeth is under assault by acids in our food and beverages and acid produced by bacteria in our mouth after the bacteria have metabolised sugars from our foods and beverages. Acid demineralizes and breaks down our enamel and can lead to dental sensitivity and cavities. Fluoride helps protect against acid demineralization and helps rebuild damaged enamel and thus prevent cavities.
- Sealants: Have you ever noticed how "groovy" the chewing surfaces of your molars are? Unfortunately these grooves trap food and are the perfect places for bacteria to hide and cause cavities. Sealants show a 75-80% reduction in cavities on the chewing surfaces of permanent molars. Dr. Matt typically advises sealants on permanent first and second molars for all children and adolescents and sometimes on high risk premolars and primary ("baby") molars.
Personalized Dental Treatment
Every child's dental needs and the approach needed to deliver dental care are unique. Our team prides itself on ensuring parents understand their child's treatment options, providing the most caring and highest quality care while meeting children where they are at, and ensuring your child's experiences with the dentist are as easy and fun as possible. Through our training and experience our focus is on helping parents and their children through individualized treatment options and plans while upholding the highest standards of care supported by the American Acedemy of Pediatric Dentistry and using the highest quality dental materials and techniques. If your child's treatment needs are outside the scope of our training and expertiese, Dr. Matt will provide you a referral to the most qualified dental provider to meet your child's dental needs. We are specially trained and qualified to provide the following dental treatment options:
- Treatment of dental traumas
- Interceptive orthodontics and space maintenance appliances
- Minimally invasive dentistry such as Silver Diamine Flouride, Interim Thearapeutic Restorations, and Protective Restorations
- Esthetic white composite fillings (no amalgam or metal fillings)
- Esthetic white zirconia crowns for front teeth
- Stainless steel crowns for back teeth
- Primary tooth nerve therapies using the most successful biocompatible materials
- Extractions of over retained primary teeth, elective orthodontic extractions, and when indicated, extraction of non-restorable teeth
Children With Special Health Care Needs
Dr. Matt and team have undergone specialized training which allows our office to provide dental care for children of all ages, including those with special needs. Each patient, no matter what their special needs are, is treated equally and with respect. Our dental team takes pride in our abilities to care for special needs patients and to serve them with the highest standard of care.
- Cognitive and developmental delays and disorders
- Craniofacial Syndromes
- Autism spectrum disorders
- Complex systemic medical diseases and disorders
- Children/adolescents with physical disorders and assistive devices
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Nitrous Oxide Sedation
Nitrous Oxide, often refered to as "nitrous" or "laughing gas", is a safe form of mild sedation. Nitrous, or "the funny nose" as Dr. Matt likes to call it, is a very good tool to help young children (as well as teen agers) decrease anxiety they may have about dental treatment. Nitrous does NOT cause your child to fall asleep. As your child relaxes, they feel "floaty" and slightly less aware of potentially uncomfortable sensations. Some of the benefits of nitrous oxide include:
- Fast acting mild sedation
- Safe and magical -- we use these least amount of nitrous to gain the desired level of relaxation
- Helps reduce anxiety
- Helps with pain management
- Can help decreases gag reflex
- Relaxed, but not asleep, patients can still communicate with parents, Dr. Matt, and the Dental Assistant -- This is very important for anxious patients who may fear that they won't know what is happening during dental treatment
- Nitrous helps your child navigate the most difficult aspects of dental treatment, especially local anesthetic and other unfamiliar stimulation like noise and vibration from the handpiece
- Your child will easily and quickly return to normal once the nitrous is turned off
Surgery Center
When a very young child, a very anxious child, or a child with special health care needs requires dental treatment, nitrous and other strategies to reduce anxiety may not be successful or safe. In these circumstances, treating a child under general anesthesia allows the most compassionate, stress free, and highest quality comprehensive care. To provide the safest, most efficient, and most cost effective option for dental care under general anesthesia, Dr. Matt treats pateints with the assistance of excellent anesthesiologists and nurses at the McKenzie Surgery Center. Dr. Matt is very conservative in his treatment appoach and in advising patients to be treated under general anesthesia. In short, Dr. Matt will only advise treatment under general anesthesia when absolutely indicated.
