How important is your back tooth? :Dr.Debbie

 Hello everyone!

 Do you know that teeth are not only an important factor for you to have a great smile, but it is crucial to break down food and also to allow us to pronounce words properly? 

In fact, each group of teeth in your oral cavity serves a different function depending on its position! Your incisors (front teeth) are used to bite into food, canines are used to tear food apart while premolars and molars are used to crush and grind food!

    Mr. R , a patient of mine knows the importance of taking care of his teeth and came to Klinik Pergigian Fauziah for dental checkup.He complained that he has experienced discomfort on his upper right back tooth whenever he eats since a few days ago. 

       Upon examination, there was decay found surrounding the tooth colored restoration on his upper molar. I’ve proceeded to remove the old filling and there were caries noted not only surrounding the previous restoration, but on the adjacent tooth as shown! Thankfully, Mr.R experienced only minimal sensitivity during the tooth drilling process even though the cavity extended more than half of the molar tooth!

   I have advised Mr.R for crown placement on this molar , as a crown will provide better coverage and support to a tooth with a large filling when there isn’t a lot of original tooth structure left but for now, he would like to have the filling to be replaced first.

   After 45 minutes , both the adjacent and the molar teeth have been filled using multiple layers of tooth-colored restoration. This is how it looks like now!  Mr.R is happy that he made the right choice to visit the dentist and get the filling replaced before the decay progresses into the dental pulp region. Otherwise, root canal treatment might be needed on this molar tooth!  

      Remember to visit us, Klinik Pergigian Fauziah for your routine dental check-up so that we can keep track of your oral health and take preventive measures before it’s too late!