Clinical experience, misunderstood concepts and frequently asked questions. Notes from many years of practice.
Among whitening options, supervised at-home bleaching beat strips across 20 randomised trials. Not every brown mark is a stain, and the difference decides the treatment: a mark that resists cleaning needs assessment.
Dental retainers are replaced by type: clear ones every 6 to 12 months, Hawley retainers every 3 to 5 years, bonded wires only when they break or debond.
A tooth that needs extraction but is left in place keeps its disease active. Odontogenic infection accounted for 53.2% of known causes in a 185-case series of deep neck infection, and six months after loss the ridge shows 29% to 63% horizontal and 11% to 22% vertical bone loss.
Orthodontic treatment after 30 works on the same biology as at 15: teeth move while the gums are healthy, and fixed braces averaged 19.9 months.
The durability question has a measured answer: a meta-analysis of 29 clinical studies put ceramic laminate veneer survival at 96.13% for feldspathic, 93.70% for leucite-reinforced glass ceramic and 96.81% for lithium disilicate at a mean 10.4 years. What the transformation actually involves.
Surface stain or decay? The distinction matters because decay is the cause that cannot wait: untreated caries in permanent teeth affected 2.03 billion people worldwide in 2019. How to tell them apart and what each one needs.
A dead tooth is not a lost tooth. Pooled data from 63 longitudinal studies place the success of primary root canal treatment at 68% to 85% under strict radiographic criteria, and separate reviews report high tooth survival afterwards. Symptoms to watch for and the options that remain.
Rounded teeth do read as more feminine, but weakly: observers shown dentition photos identified sex correctly only 56.0% to 65.0% of the time.
A dental cyst grows quietly and is usually found on a routine radiograph. What causes one, how it is told apart from a granuloma, and how it is removed.
