Dental sealants are an excellent remedy to prevent cavities on your molars whenever they develop, resulting from food particles and dental plaque causing enamel erosion. Your molars are increasingly susceptible to cavities because they have deep depressions and grooves where you might find it challenging to clean your teeth.
Microorganisms feeding on the food particles trapped on your molars deposit acids on them to erode tooth enamel and cause cavities and permanent damage requiring restorations from dentists with dental fillings. Dental sealants do not heal or restore your molars. Instead, they prevent your mouth bacteria from creating cavities by forming a preventive barrier over the molars to help you clean them appropriately.
What Exactly Are Dental Sealants?
Thin and slimy but durable plastic surfaces represent dental sealants painted on the molars by the dentist in Pinellas Park, FL, which is a preventive measure against developing cavities. The sealants create a smoother surface on the molars by filling the deep depressions and grooves, making it convenient for you to clean your back teeth and remove food particles trapped on them.
Dental sealants are generally recommended for children who develop their molars at six and 12. Children favor having sticky and starchy foods while remaining negligent with their dental hygiene routine to become susceptible to infections needing treatments such as fillings, root canals, and crowns. Sealants help avoid these issues in children by creating a barrier on the teeth to prevent mouth bacteria from creating unnecessary problems.
How Do Sealants Benefit Teeth?
Besides creating a smoother surface on the back teeth as a preventive measure against cavities, dental sealants near me act as a preventive barrier against 80 per cent of holes for two years after applying them. The protection remains ongoing against 50 per cent of cavities for another four, and the sealants stay on the teeth for approximately nine years. However, they require monitoring frequently during routine exams and cleanings because they are prone to chipping. Therefore if your child gets dental sealants on their teeth, they are three times less likely to develop cavities than children without sealants.
If you are concerned with cavities on your teeth, you can also inquire about dental sealants for adults with the Pinellas dentist. These bonds were not created exclusively for children, making adults candidates to have them. However, you can consider sealants on your molars if you don’t have any restorations and want the bonds as a preventive measure against cavities.
Applying Dental Sealants
Applying dental sealants is a comfortable and painless process completed by the dentist in a few minutes. However, you or your child must sit in the dentist’s chair with your mouth open for a few minutes while the dentist prepares your teeth for the application.
First of all, the dentist cleans your molars and dries them with cotton or absorbent material. After that, they apply an etching solution over the targeted tooth to help the sealant adhere to it.
Next, the targeted teeth are again cleaned and dried with absorbent material before finally painting the dental sealant a tooth-colored material over the teeth to provide protection. The sealant hardens instantly without making you or your kid wait. The dentist also helps fortify the material using ultraviolet light to complete the treatment faster.
After receiving dental sealants over your teeth, you and your kid can eat anything you want immediately after the treatment because there is no downtime, and you don’t confront any challenges with eating or drinking.
The CDC promotes dental sealants as an effective measure to prevent cavities in the molars of children. Children from low-income households without sealants complain about lost school time because of tooth pain from cavities and need frequent treatments from dentists providing restorations to repair permanent damage to teeth.
Although dental sealants are indeed effective in preventing cavities, they haven’t gained traction because of misconceptions in people’s minds about dental sealants containing high BPA levels, which some claim are harmful to humans. Fortunately, they have failed to produce any evidence to link dental sealants with toxic BPA levels giving credence to this effective treatment as a practical method for cavity prevention.
Getting dental sealant on your or your kid’s teeth doesn’t prevent the need to continue brushing twice daily, flossing once and scheduling six monthly dental appointments for exams and cleanings. Instead, sealants are merely additional prevention on the molars that help avoid cavities that create permanent damage and need expensive treatments.
If you are worried about cavities on your teeth or your kid’s teeth, Confident Smile Dentistry provides dental sealants in Pinellas Park as a preventive measure. Kindly seek this excellent and cost-effective treatment to prevent tooth decay from this practice today and prevent unnecessary expenditure.