News

Invisalign Is the Clear Alternative

Are you considering having your teeth straightened? Maybe you’re wondering about your options and are stuck because you know you don’t want traditional braces.

Have you heard about Invisalign? In many cases, Invisalign is superior to traditional metal braces. With the availability of Invisalign, you have a better alternative, and there really is no good reason to go with braces over Invisalign.

Here are a few things you should know before you make your decision?

Is Invisalign Less Noticeable than Braces?

There’s no doubt that people will notice that you are wearing metal braces. You just can’t hide those conspicuous brackets and wires. Fortunately, Invisalign is nearly undetectable, and most people won’t even know that you are wearing the clear, plastic aligners.

How Easy is Invisalign to Wear?

With braces, each metal bracket has to be bonded directly to your teeth. This is an uncomfortable process that can take several hours. Invisalign aligners are easy to slip on an off. Once your custom fit aligners are created in the lab, you can put them on in just a few seconds and start straightening your teeth right away.

Are They Comfortable?

The metal on traditional braces can irritate the soft tissue inside your mouth, and the wires can sometimes poke. Often you will need to use dental wax to prevent irritation. Invisalign clear aligners eliminate the need for metal, wires, and wax!

The treatment process with Invisalign is more comfortable too. In order to achieve results, traditional braces need to be tightened every four to six weeks, which is not a pleasant feeling. After each tightening your teeth will feel sensitive and may even ache for a few days. With Invisalign, you get a new aligner every six weeks. It is custom fit for you to be as comfortable and pain-free as possible.

What about Eating with Invisalign?

When you’re wearing braces it can be hard to eat crunchy or chewy food, and food becomes stuck in the braces. Your Invisalign aligners can be easily removed for eating and drinking, and they are easy to put back in as soon as you’re finished.

How Complicated is Oral Hygiene?

It is not easy to floss with braces, so plaque can build up around the brackets, putting you at risk for tooth decay and gum disease. Since Invisalign aligners are removable, you can easily brush and floss like normal, with no additional risk for decay or disease.

Does it Take Years for Invisalign to Work?

Most patients have braces for 18 months, and some up to six years. Not only is it time consuming, but treatment that takes that long can end up being very expensive. We can usually complete Invisalign treatment in about one year – sometimes more time and sometimes less depending on the individual.

What Happens When Treatment is Finished?

With traditional braces, the brackets have to be removed (usually with pliers – ouch!) and then the glue/cement has to be filed off. Again, not a very pleasant experience, and also very time consuming. With Invisalign, once your teeth are properly straightened, the aligners can be removed immediately.

Article originally appeared at: https://www.drmatthewswilmington.com/ 

Author: Dr. Brian Matthews

Do not hesitate to contact our office for any questions about Invisalign. Helping you smile is what we love to do! ⁣

Our patient’s orthodontist was really thinking about the final outcome. Instead of closing all the spaces at the end of treatment, he allowed equal spaces to remain in front of and behind the lateral incisor teeth.

This allowed the smaller lateral incisors to be restored in correct proportion to the central incisors resulting in a well balanced smile.

The worn edges of the central incisors were restored with composite resin (bonding). The lateral incisors were restored conservatively with porcelain veneers.

It is always so rewarding to finish a case when the journey has been long. In this case it was the orthodontics that took the longest amount of time. However, the effort is well worth the reward of seeing our patient smile.

Our Dear Soho Dental Family,

As we continue to face the challenges of the pandemic, we wanted to wish and your loved ones the best of health and resilience during this difficult time. As a reminder, dentistry has been recognized as an essential service and we continue to see our patients for their dental needs, as we did during the last lock down declared by the provincial government.

Your health and safety remain our priority as we continue to stay vigilant and follow the strict safety protocols that have been recommended by Public Health of Ontario and the Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario. These measures have kept our patients and staff safe since we returned to work last June.

Please do not hesitate to ask if you have any questions or concerns regarding your dental care during this time.

Sincerely,

Dr.Haji and your Soho Dental Team

In the ‘before times,’ as people are now calling the period before COVID-19, dentists were already managing a highly demanding profession with significant mental health stressors. In fact, dentists have one of the highest rates of depression and suicide amongst health workers. The rate of suicide among dentists in the United States is twice that of the general population and three times higher than other healthcare professions.

Now, with COVID-19, dentists are largely forgotten in the panoply of health providers working during the pandemic. They’ve been forgotten as both business owners with a high overhead to maintain their practices and safeguard their staff, and as front-line workers, who do essential and potentially life-endangering work requiring personal protective equipment (PPE).

This has meant the stress of dentists is at an all time high.

If our dentists are stressed, it’s likely not good for our oral health. Research shows that patient care is directly related to practitioner health. So, what makes dentistry so stressful?

Research demonstrates that dentists can internalize their patients’ fears and anxieties related to dental care. They also commonly work in small teams and can feel isolated. With the scarcity of networks of colleagues and mentors who have a buffering effect through the support they provide in other professions, dentists might perceive themselves as working in a vacuum, which can be detrimental for their mental health.

Dentists are also usually self-employed business owners with responsibilities related to staffing and financial management. This can impede work-life balance and make taking time off to practice self-care or manage potential mental health challenges, particularly extended leaves of absence, difficult.

The COVID-19 pandemic and related closures have added to this complexity.

Like many other business owners, dentists were faced with additional pressures resulting from prolonged office closures and reduced patient flow, which led to staff layoffs and significant revenue losses. Dental offices that remained open during the pandemic restricted their treatment to emergency and urgent cases only and had to develop protocols for the increased burden of disinfection and sterilization practices.

Although they haven’t been considered frontline workers, many dentists also had to manage dental emergencies that, if left untreated, had the potential to develop into serious, life-threatening conditions. Working during a pandemic means worrying about contracting COVID yourself — and possibly bringing it home to your family.

Dentists from all across Canada expressed the need for direction and strong leadership from their regulatory bodies and associations to weather the storm and be able to practice dentistry in a manner that protects their patients, staff and themselves. At the beginning of the crisis, there was a call for enhanced PPE, which was hard to come by. PPE is also hard to work in and may add some discomfort imposed by the extra equipment.

Although months have passed since the “acute” phase of the pandemic has started, dentists are still concerned about securing adequate PPE, with some charging additional fees to cover their PPE expenditures.

There are initiatives that can help combat dentists’ stress.

Expanded peer mentorship and support programs in dental schools and the dental community would be a critical first step. These programs should be undertaken by dental educators and dental associations and employ proactive approaches that support mental health and wellbeing.

Organized peer support programs could build on existing, small-scale initiatives, such as the British Columbia Dental Association’s (BCDA) Dentist Wellness Program (DWP), where clinical counseling services are offered to dentists and their family members.

Governments should also help to facilitate the acquisition of adequate PPE supplies to dentists, as they have to physicians and nurses, now that dental care has resumed, and dentists are back to practicing.

It’s important that we safeguard our dentists’ mental health and well being as they work on the front lines to keep Canadians healthy. Let’s make sure they are no longer the forgotten health profession.

Authors: Tala Maragha and Mario Brondani

Article originally appeared at: https://quoimedia.com/

Our Dear Soho Dental Family,

We wanted to wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!
It is our hope that 2021 will be a better year for us all.

As you know the government of Ontario announced a Province-wide shutdown starting on December 26th, 2020. We want to assure you that dentistry continues to be an essential service.

We will remain open for all of your dental needs.

We continue to observe strict safety protocols to ensure your next visit is safe and comfortable. See below for details on our safety protocols.

Kind Regards,

Soho Dental Team

See Below for all that we are doing to keep you safe

• Enhanced Patient protection measures: All of our staff have upgraded their protective gear, this includes appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE). In between patients, we meticulously clean and disinfect rooms, as well as sterilize all instruments as we have always done.
• Tech-enabled screening: We digitally pre-screen patients in advance for COVID-19 symptoms and risk factors to ensure our clinic stays COVID-free. We also screen our staff every day.
• Air Filtration: We have invested in high-efficiency air filtration systems that continuously clean the air.
• Cashless Payment: In hopes to reduce infectious spread we will no longer take cash or cheque as payment. Should you have any concerns please give us a call and we can make arrangements on a case by case basis.