Restorative Treatment Overview

Here are some of the restorative treatments that our experienced dentist may recommend after completing a dental examination of your mouth.

In some cases, you may have stains that are difficult to remove or that can’t be removed with a bleaching system. When this happens, your Santa Barbara dentist will use an air abrasion system that sprays tiny particles of aluminum oxide, silica, or baking soda onto the tooth.

Another way we use air abrasion is to remove shallow decay (decay that’s only in the enamel). In these cases, you won’t need to be numb. Dr. Omid will simply spray the surface of the tooth to remove the decay and fill it in with composite.

Dental crowns are like caps or hats that sit on top of your tooth. They’re recommended if you’re experiencing cracked tooth syndrome, have had a root canal, or have deep decay that’s compromised the structure of the tooth.

Your Santa Barbara dentist will make your tooth shorter and reduce its circumference, then take an impression, which will be sent to a dental lab tech who will fabricate a permanent porcelain crown.

To restore missing teeth, we provide full and partial denture restorative treatments.

A full or complete denture is for patients with no remaining teeth, while a partial is for patients who still have some or most of their teeth present.

Full dentures can be utilized in conjunction with implants, which promote bone health and help secure the dentures.

If you’re missing a tooth, it’s important to restore it. One of the ways to do this is with a fixed bridge.

A bridge is made up of three parts:

• A pontic (to replace the missing tooth)
• Two abutments

The abutments are crowns that fit over the teeth adjacent to the missing tooth. They’re fused to the pontic to create a three-unit restoration.

Inlay and onlay restorations are like fillings (inlays) or partial crowns (onlays). They are made of higher quality materials than the composite resin used in fillings. Instead, porcelain or gold is typically used.

After preparing the tooth just as they would do for a normal filling, your dentist will take an impression and send it to a dental laboratory where your permanent inlay or onlay will be fabricated.

Root canal therapy is needed if you have:

• Deep decay into the nerve chamber of the tooth
• Trauma that causes a severe fracture or inflames the nerves
• A tooth infection

Root canal therapy helps preserve the tooth even after the nerve has been removed, instead of having to extract the tooth. After the tissue has been removed, the root canals will be filled with a thermoplastic substance made of coagulated latex called gutta-percha, and a temporary filling will be placed.

You’ll need either a permanent filling or a dental crown once the tooth has healed.

Dental bonding is an alternative to veneers. It’s a more affordable option but can look just as good.

Using composite resin material – the same used in our composite fillings – we can:

• Eliminate the appearance of stains, particularly those around old fillings and intrinsic stains (stains inside the tooth that show up on the outside)
• Fill in small gaps between the teeth
• Repair chips and small fractures

The latest composite material comes in a variety of shades, which can be mixed and matched, creating a custom shade that will match your natural tooth color. After bonding the material to your teeth and polishing it, no one will even know you’ve had restorative work done.