Why Wear a Night Guard?

A properly constructed occlusal night guard serve multiple functions. It protects teeth from wear and tear at night, by keeping the wearer from damaging their teeth during grinding or bruxism. If properly designed it changes the occlusion by both opening the bite by approximately 3 mm and by eliminating the inclines of the posterior teeth that can be used for bruxing the teeth. It is hard to use your front teeth to brux. Opening the bite tends to allow the muscles of the face to relax, since the more closed the mouth is the more the masseter muscle can 'flex'.
Night guards act as night retainers and do not allow shifting of teeth and I have noted that patients wearing their guards seem to experience less 'chipping' of their teeth.

Why do root canal treatments fail?

There are many reasons why root canal treatments fail, but all of them involve bacterial growth inside the tooth. If any spaces are left near the apices's (the opening at the end of the root), teeth can become contaminated with bacteria and become infected. Most dentists use gutta percha to obturate (fill)most of the root canal system and in addition use a thin coat of sealer to coat the gutta percha as it meets the walls of the root canal system. Although there are different types of sealers , most of the sealers,with the exception of one that is an epoxy type(AH26), will eventually wash out and leave a tiny gap. If the gutta percha doesn't adequately obturate the end of the root, then the remaining space is either filled by sealer or worse is empty. In either case, if the apice of the tooth is not obturated adequately with gutta percha,then endodontic failure can occur. (Sealer alone won't keep bacteria out of the rootcanal system, since, as mentioned earlier, sealers wash out over time).

Some roots have multiple canals with multiple exit points from the tooth and sometimes these extra canals can be difficult to predictably obturate and that too can lead to endodontic failures.

Cracks in the walls of the root can also be the cause failures, since these invariably become contaminated with bacteria and cause infections. Teeth that are cracked inside the bone are often hopeless and require extraction.

Another cause of endodontic failures are teeth that are not adequately restored. Perfectly adequately endodontically treated teeth can fail, if they loose a filling and get contaminated. Studies have shown that teeth left open, with out a proper restoration can require a re treatment of the root canal in as little as thirty days.

In addition, root canal therapies can fail for other reasons, including inadequate cleaning and shaping of the canal system, or a lack of aseptic techique. All failures involve a root canal system that becomes contaminated with bacteria.

What is Metrodentist.net and why did you create it?

After creating my dental office website, I noticed I got quite a bit of traffic from people not necessarily interested in being a patient in my practice, but instead were either looking for information or possibly another type of dental practice. My webmaster and I came up with the idea of www.Metrodetist.net, a resource for people and patients interested in dentistry. It includes articles on dentistry, a user forum, videos about dentistry,lists and information about various user recommended dentists, dentists accepting dental insurance plans and a unique discount dentistry option. In January 2008 we launched the upgraded version of the site that can currently viewed on the Internet. We hope that people will come to the site as a virtual meeting place about dentistry. To start we will be featuring recommended New York Dentists. Metrodentist provides an easy way for these dentists to increase their web presence and helps people find a good dentist in New York.

How do you use transillumination to find a cavity?

When a dentist shines a bright light on a tooth it is similar to candling an egg. The tooth is illuminated and if there is significant decay often the tooth looks grey in the area where the decay is. It is easier to do with front teeth because they are thinner, but it works reasonably well with back teeth also. If a dentist shines his bonding light directly on a molar, he often can detect occlusal decay as well as some intraproximal decay.