I was at the Denplan conference last weekend and the theme of the lectures was Minimally Invasive Aesthetic Dentistry. So, what does this mean? In simple terms it means doing as little as possible work to the teeth whist still getting the teeth to look good. Newer techniques mean less preparation of teeth with more use of adhesive materials.
This is great news for patients! No one wants lots of dentistry done, we want functional beautiful teeth. From a health point of view the best tooth is an untouched tooth and everything you do to a tooth will weaken it to some extent. So, this approach recognises this, as little tooth as possible is removed then the adhesive materials are used to restore the tooth, blending in with the natural tooth to provide a beautiful result.
This challenges some of the techniques that we learnt in dental school when I qualified some years ago, (ok nearly 20). There are less occasions for instance when we need to prepare a tooth for a crown. We can now use adhesive techniques that stick the dental work to the tooth so less tooth needs to be removed in the preparation.
If patients have worn down their teeth previously they may then have had the remaining tooth trimmed down to fit crowns. So worn teeth were reduced still further-it doesn’t really make sense, but this used to be the only way to make them look good again. One of the lectures beautifully showed how adhesive techniques can be used to rebuild worn teeth.
Recently one of our team, Dr Karl Walker-Finch showed a case he had treated using MID, you can read more about it here
In between all these lectures was the excellent Denplan hospitality. So, don’t feel too sorry for me studying at the weekend!
It is important that the dental team keeps their knowledge up to date and doesn’t stop learning. You can be assured at Lindley Dental the whole team does just that.
If you would like the minimal amount of dental work but want beautiful teeth why not get in touch and see how we can help?
Dr Sharon Jardine
