Week 7 - Dentistry Basics: Treatment Options

This week, we talk about some of the common treatments we do in Dentistry, when and why we
do it and how you can engage in conversations about people asking about said treatments

1. Treatments

Dentistry is a multifaceted field which deals with different types of problems that occur in
patients’ mouths. Often times, in a regular person’s perspective, we are reduced to doctors only
doing cleaning and extraction of teeth, but Dentistry is more than that and there are several
treatment options one can choose from that are sometimes overlooked because of these
presumptions

Pain is the #1 reason a patient visits his or her Dentist, and most of the time they already have
the preconceived notion that they are to get extractions, but that isn’t always the case. In our
practice pain is handled depending on its severity, duration and cause stemming different
treatment approaches for each condition.

One of the most basic treatments we do, specially when pain is not that strong, is Dental Fillings
or Dental Restorations, where we drill to remove infected cavities and apply tooth-colored
fillings or “pasta” to cover the hole

When the situation is worse, and conventional “pasta” or dental fillings isn’t advised, one
approach that can be done is Root Canal Treatment. This cleans the inside of the tooth and
removes the bacteria deep within the tooth that is causing the pain.
Root Canal Treatment, although effective, is realistically expensive, and when a patient finds it
difficult to shell out for the cost of a Root Canal Treatment, the next and final option to a painful
tooth is Extraction or “bunot”

Another reason a patient visits their Dentist is when they find it difficult to eat or talk because of
missing teeth and this type of problem is handled by how much tooth is missing

When a patient has a badly damaged tooth enamel, the ideal treatment for that are Crowns or
Jackets where a ceramic covering, which mimics a tooth, is placed to protect or replace the
broken part

When a tooth is missing, a patient can either decide to have a cemented Bridge or a removable
denture/ “postiso” to replace them. A Bridge is a series of connected Crowns which replace the
missing tooth in the middle

While a Removable Denture or “postiso” is a wide acrylic replacement of several teeth

(sometimes all of the teeth) that covers the gums, aswell. This is ideal for patients who have
many missing teeth

These are just some of the basic treatments you often hear in Dentistry and it’s good to have
basic knowledge about them since people would start to engage conversations about these
treatments after knowing you study Dentistry. Further structured concepts about each treatment
will be discussed on future classes as you advance up the College