I am pleased to announce that both Annie and Lou were selected to participate in the prestigious JP Institute’s Registered Dental Hygienist Mastership program in San Diego. The JP Institute’s rigorous interactive hands-on Mastership curriculum embraces research and technological advances to go beyond the concepts of conventional dental care to achieve excellence. Beyond treating disease, the JP Institute teaches the evidence based science objectives for periodontal, restorative and aesthetic care. For three full days, Annie and Lou participated in intense workshops designed to help them elevate their practice of Dental Hygiene to new levels applying leading edge technology and techniques. The classes were a comprehensive review of the dental sciences with relationship to real time dental hygiene practice. Annie and Lou experimented with the newest instruments available to enhance patient health, comfort and technology into our practice. They will return to San Diego in February for two more days of workshops designed to help them integrate the concepts they have learned about in our office. The extraordinary time and effort Annie and Lou have taken to complete this course is testimony to their devotion to our patients. When they complete the certification with written testing and actual clinical proficiency they will be awarded Masterships in Dental Hygiene! I am very proud to be working with such accomplished professionals.
The next time you visit Ryesmilesforlife, feel free to congratulate Lou and Annie on their professional accomplishment!
I’m very excited to be amongst the first dentists in Northern Virginia to practice a new technique using leading edge technology to provide implants and restorations in as little as one hour. Until now, you would have to have your tooth extracted, wait for the site to heal, have the implant placed, wait for assurance that the implant was successful, then have the restorative porcelain placed on the implant. The entire process could take as long as six to twelve months. Now, thanks to evolutionary advances in CT scanning and virtual surgical planning, we can shorten your waiting and healing time and at the same time minimize bruising and swelling. In one surgical visit you can enjoy a brand new fully functional smile! If you need a single implant or several implants, you may be a candidate for this fabulous new technique. You don’t have to spend a lot of time going back and forth between your dentist and oral surgeon. You don’t need to wait. You can start smiling now with your new teeth in an hour. I have been fortunate to be able to train with world-renowned Dr. Jim Balshi at the Institute for Facial Esthetics in Philadelphia, and am one of only a handful of dentists in the country trained to perform this procedure. I have invested my energy to master this technique because I understand that most people don’t want to spend valuable time and energy going back and forth to the dentist. Now you can spend less time at the dentist and more time doing whatever makes you smile.
Oral cancer kills one person every hour, 24 hours a day in North America. This year over 30,000 Americans will be diagnosed with oral or pharyngeal cancer. It will be the cause of over 8,000 deaths this year. At Ryesmilesforlife we have recently added a new piece of technology, the VELscope, to ensure early detection of oral disease. The VELscope handpiece emits a safe blue light into the oral cavity, causing abnormal tissue to fluoresce. This revolutionary hand-held device provides dentists with an easy-to-use examination system for the early detection of abnormal tissue. VELscope is the only non-invasive adjunctive device clinically proven to help discover oral disease. I am pleased to be able to offer this service to our patients to ensure early detection of any irregularities so that they can be treated expediently.
I recently had a patient express concern about the future costs of maintaining the full mouth reconstruction she was contemplating. She understood that veneers have a life expectancy of about 10 years, and she wondered whether she should expect to face replacement costs equal to the extensive costs she was preparing to spend on her new smile.While my concerned patient was correct that the national average life expectancy for porcelain veneers is 10 to 12 years, this statistic includes loss of veneers due to periodontal disease, tooth loss for unrelated reasons, decay and aesthetic reasons, such as recession of gums, exposing darker colored tooth structures. There is no real reason for well-cared-for mature veneers to fail. We have veneers that are 25+ years old, put in with 25 year old technology. These long-lived veneers look like they were just put in. Occasionally they will fracture when the forces of occlusion (the bite) are unfavorable, or the forces change and become unfavorable, and when they encounter immovable objects, bobby pins and the like. We take great care to make the bite comfortable and free of destructive interferences. Most of our crowns and veneers far outlive the national average. I would expect a crown or two to be lost or require replacement within the first month to six months after placement in a full mouth reconstruction case. But these are the norm for complex cases requiring multiple restorations made simultaneously, and I replace these free of charge. Following these “growing pain” adjustments to a new set of teeth, I expect the porcelain work to last a long, long time. At the ten year mark, you might expect one or two to require some work or replacement, certainly not the whole set of teeth. Our cements today are fantastic. If we do a great job fitting and adjusting, and if you do a great job keeping them clean, coming in for regular preventive maintenance, and if you stay away from swinging doors, peanut brittle, and bobby pins, together we will continue to bring the national average way up!
Any dentist can supervise the maintenance of your veneers. From time to time adjustments in the occlusion may be required. If you do need work some day, you will want to be extremely careful in selecting a qualified dentist. We have many patients who have regular maintenance visits with their local dentists, but they come back to us to have any work done.
Ultrasonic scaling is one of the most effective procedures for treating periodontal disease.
We are fortunate to be able to employ many tools to improve our patients’ oral health, but it occurs to me that those unfamiliar with dentistry may want to know more about some of our leading edge technology. An ultrasonic scaler consists of a wand with a small scaling tip that produces a soft ultrasonic vibration. The small quick vibrations, in combination with a gentle water flow, thoroughly remove tartar, while decreasing the number of destructive bacteria (biofilm) below the gumline. Removing tartar and bacteria are crucial to controlling periodontal disease. Ultrasonic scaling has many benefits over using hand scaling alone. These include: more efficient removal of plaque and tarter; less need for hand removal of stubborn deposits; greater comfort for you. At Ryesmilesforlife we are pleased to be able to offer this high tech method of treating our patients’ teeth and gums. Our exceptional hygiene team, Annie and Lou, have received hours of specialized training in this method of treatment, which I am convinced ensures the best oral health available to our patients. Our Dentistry for Total Health page, outlines the important reasons to treat periodontal disease.
We are going to try something new in Northern Virginia, utilizing new and commonly owned technologies. If you have a digital camera, a computer, and an internet connection, you are all set. You can take a few pictures of your smile and email it to me. I can then give you an idea of what might be possible.
Here is what you will need to do. Get your digital camera and set it in Program Mode. Turn your Flash off. This is the Lightening bolt symbol with a slash through it. If you can, boost the ISO as high as it will go, usually 800 or “High”. You will need a helper to take the picture. It is too hard to take it yourself. Have the shooter stand about a foot away and zoom in to the corners of the mouth. Take a straight-on smile and one at each side. Make sure the camera is in focus.
Wash your hands and use your index and middle fingers on each side of your mouth to retract your lips out of the way. Take two pictures here. One biting together and one slightly open so the bottom teeth show.
Email your photos to admin@cosmeticdentistfairfax. Your email will be forwarded to me to evaluate the possibilities that cosmetic dentistry can offer. I will send you a return email when that evaluation is complete.
I have just returned from another trip to the Las Vegas Institute for Advanced Dental Studies (LVI). The topic of this meeting was Scan Interpretation and Diagnosis (Occlusion IV). I was invited to present my most recent cases of life-changing dentistry. Scan interpretation and diagnosis is the use of complex bio-instrumentation techniques for diagnosis of bite problems and bite adjustment in the practice of Neuromuscular Dentistry (NM). I continue to be excited about the range of possibilities the practice of NM affords my patients and will continue my association with LVI to ensure that we are on the leading edge of this important dental technology. If you would like to know more about NM, review our NM page at www.ryesmilesforlife.com/html/tmj-tmd-treatment.
We are thrilled to be able to welcome you to our new website, which is brimming with information about all the benefits that exceptional dentistry has to offer. Climb aboard. Enjoy the site. Welcome!
