Dental Sealants
The purpose of tooth brushing is to remove the soft, sticky
plaque that forms on
teeth. This plaque is basically made up of colonies of bacteria and
helps hold the acid waste they produce right up against the tooth. When
brushing your teeth one of the hardest places to clean is on the biting surfaces
of the back or molar teeth. This is because the biting surface of a molar
is made up of little dents and grooves call pits and fissures.
Bacteria can hide and live very comfortably in these fissures as they eat the sugars from your diet and produce an acid waste that slowly dissolves the enamel of your tooth. This is why a majority of cavities that we repair in our office occur on the biting surfaces of your molars.
We can prevent cavities from ever forming.
Dental sealants are a dental treatment
of a plastic material that covers or “seals” these pits and fissures on
teeth. This keeps the bacteria and their acids from getting to the deep fissures.
When properly applied dental sealants are nearly 100% effective in preventing cavities to
treated teeth.
The most common recipients of dental sealants in our office are children. Once we make sure the teeth are healthy and free of cavities we carefully clean the biting surface of the teeth to be treated and thoroughly dry them. We then apply a gel that etches or roughs up the surface to allow the sealant material to bond to the tooth.
We then clean and dry the tooth again and paint a thin layer of a liquid plastic material to the pits and fissures of the tooth. After the sealant is applied we shine a blue spectrum light on the material to cure it for a few seconds. This sealant material becomes a hard, protective armor against cavities.
The sealant material is tough and can generally last 5 to 6 years before needing to be reapplied. Sealants do eventually wear so we check them to make sure they are doing their job when you come in for your or your child’s regular exam.