A lifetime of proper oral health starts with establishing two major cornerstones in your life. The first and most important is a consistent and thorough dental hygiene routine. This means twice a day brushing, flossing at least once, and using mouthwash to eliminate the bacteria on your teeth. However, equally important is maintaining a routine of visiting your dentist twice a year for preventative care. These can be difficult for those who suffer from dental anxiety. A visit to the dentist can be a problematic, or even terrifying, prospect for them. Dental lasers are looking to make this a thing of the past.
How Dental Lasers Are Reshaping Dental Care
For over a century, dental drills have remained largely unchanged. While the power source use has evolved, the spinning rotary tip has been present. Before, dental drills were all about files, chisels, and hammers. After that, it was clockwork powered, and then electric, and ultimately pneumatic, or air powered. This was the status quo for the last 60+ years until the invention of the dental laser. With the advent of this new dental tool, the whining sound of the drill has been fading from dental clinics worldwide.
Dental lasers bring a range of benefits to dental procedures, including:
- Precision Dentistry – While the dental drill has certainly performed millions of procedures over the years, its time is coming to an end. This older generation of drills had a tendency to inaccuracy. While they could eliminate decay, they often took some healthy tissue with them. Dental lasers, conversely, can precisely eliminate decayed tissue without impacting the surrounding healthy tissue.
- Reduced Discomfort – Dental lasers bring with them another benefit as well. The beam of concentrated light that they employ vaporizes the decayed tissue without damaging the healthy tissue. It also automatically cauterizes the wound when used as part of a gingival treatment. This means fewer stitches, less need for anesthetic, and faster treatments.
- Rapid Recovery – By eliminating the need for stitches and anesthetic, dental lasers speed recovery time by a significant degree. They also make the treatments go faster. All of this results in less time in the dental chair and less time recovering in the waiting room. The healing process also happens more quickly.
These factors are the driving force behind dental drills being removed from clinics. There’s no need for these outdated tools’ high-speed whine and other failings. Dental lasers are quieter, and what sound they do produce is often referred to as being ‘a soft pulsing’. This pulsing sound has been reported to be soothing by some patients who suffer from dental anxiety.
Talk With Your Dental Professional About Laser Dentistry
Every year this innovation in dentistry has begun being used in a wider range of treatments. Dental lasers can enhance the effectiveness of tooth whitening and eliminate tooth decay. Recently it has even been investigated for treating gingivitis and periodontitis. Contact your dentist’s clinic today if you want to know what procedures your dentist uses dental lasers in.