Patient Consultation:
If you have a question, or would just like to meet Dr. Young before making any commitments, we offer a waved-fee consultation. The way this works is:
- You commit to coming at a particular time.
- Dr. Young meets you and answers your questions.
Should you have to cancel due to a true unavoidable emergency, we will certainly reschedule, but here is what we are trying to avoid. It is too expensive to hold time for repeat consultation visits for the same individual. Thank you for your understanding.
Comprehensive Periodontal Examination:
If you know you are proceeding with treatment and the next step is for Dr. Young to accomplish the comprehensive periodontal examination, it is not necessary to schedule you for a brief get-acquainted appointment. Instead you may be scheduled into a one-hour or longer comprehensive work-up.
But what if my dentist has already accomplished a periodontal examination? It is useful for Dr. Young to see these findings, but it is also important that he accomplish his own examination. When you think about it, this is an important therapeutic safety measure you should really wish to have.
Scaling and Root Planing:
This is a non-surgical procedure intended to treat the root surfaces in areas of moderate to deep pocketing. If you have never had this treatment before, Dr. Young will numb the gums. This enables him to be thorough and increases the possibility that less to no periodontal surgical measures will be necessary later. Please know that most people do not require pain medication after wards. If they do, it’s usually a couple tablets of ibuprofen or Tylenol. Should your conditions be advanced enough, Dr. Young may recommend bypassing this step and proceeding directly to root access periodontal surgery.
Periodontal Surgery:
Before you would need a surgical procedure, you should be informed as to the risks, benefits and all reasonable alternatives. Surgery basically falls into to categories: Soft Tissue Procedures and Hard Tissue Procedures.
Soft Tissue Procedures are useful for improving the chewing strength of the gums around teeth or covering exposed roots to improve aesthetics.
Hard Tissue Procedures involve the shaping of bone or the regeneration of bone within specific bone defects.
Tooth Extractions and Grafting Procedures:
Grafting extraction sockets is not always covered by dental insurance, however it is a proven way to lower post extraction pain and assure a better bone-level result. This is important where dental implants are planned as the replacement of teeth. Even where implants may not be planned, it is still physiologically beneficial to attempt to keep the jaw bones as strong and healthy as possible. Without grafting, loss of bone volume is often the result.
Dental Implants:
Dental implants are simply man-made tooth roots to replace real teeth. Attachments to the man-made roots can be single crowns, bridges or other devices. By using multiple implants together, it is possible to restore a full arch of teeth without needing one implant per tooth restored.
Services with your general dentist on your behalf:
Dr. Young works with your general dentist and his or her dental hygienists to assure that you have the appropriate long-term supportive care necessary in order to reduce the risk of recurrent active periodontal disease. To do this, it is often beneficial to you, the patient, that he goes to these offices and works with their team. Periodically, Dr. Young will actually perform specific periodontal procedures within the general dentist’s office.