Preventive Dentistry – Tallahassee, FL
Keeping Healthy Smiles for a Lifetime
At Boyd & Walther Dental Associates, our team strongly believes that ongoing prevention is the key to enjoying a functional, confident smile long-term. By avoiding common dental problems and treating decay and disease in the earliest stages, your oral health can serve you well for many years to come –even for life! Dr. Ransey Boyd and Dr. Kirstin Walther hope to be given the opportunity to support you with preventive dentistry checkups, cleanings, and other valuable preventive services. Please contact our Tallahassee, FL dental office today if you have any questions, or if you’re ready to schedule your first appointment.
Dental Checkups & Teeth Cleanings
Dental problems can develop in ways that go unnoticed by untrained eyes, even for patients who brush and floss diligently. That’s why routine dental checkups and teeth cleanings twice a year from your family dentist are so essential for your ongoing oral health and quality of life. Our doctors and team will spend plenty of quality time with you during these visits, working hard to understand your unique needs and how we can address them.
Nightguards for Bruxism
Are any of the following symptoms familiar to you?
- Fractured, chipped, or otherwise damaged teeth with no understandable cause
- Chronic jaw/facial pain or soreness
- Excessively tight jaw muscles
- Constant headaches
- Damage on the inside of the cheek
If so, it’s likely that you’re experiencing bruxism (teeth grinding/clenching), which is a common condition among adults. Bruxism is most likely to occur while you’re sleeping, which makes self-diagnosis more difficult. Thankfully, our doctors can provide valuable assistance with a customized oral appliance (“nightguard”) that protects the teeth from chronic wear-and-tear as patients rest easy.
Oral Cancer Screenings
You’ve probably heard plenty about cavities and gum disease in the doctor’s office – but what about oral cancer? On average, this dangerous disease claims the life of one person every hour, and many cases aren’t even correctly identified until they’ve already reached advanced, destructive stages. At Boyd & Walther Dental Associates, our team takes this threat to your wellbeing extremely seriously, and we’ve integrated oral cancer screenings into your routine checkups. During the screening, we perform an in-depth visual check of your mouth and oral tissues, paying close attention to suspicious sores, discoloration or other symptoms that may point towards cancerous cells.
Fluoride Treatment
Fluoride is a natural mineral that’s regularly added to municipal water supplies because of its highly researched benefits regarding oral health. Countless studies have shown that people who grow up drinking fluoridated water on a regular basis have stronger, less cavity-prone teeth than their counterparts. Unfortunately, the rise in popularity of bottled water has led to a fluoride deficiency in many patients. During regular checkups, our doctors may recommend a professional fluoride treatment as an effective and simple preventive measure that can greatly benefit your smile.
Electric Toothbrushes
Dr. Boyd and Dr. Walther always emphasize the importance of comprehensive examinations and cleanings, but maintaining an excellent at-home oral hygiene routine is just as crucial for the ongoing health and happiness of your smile. That’s why our team is happy to recommend quality oral hygiene products for patients upon request, including high-quality electric toothbrushes. Studies have shown that electric toothbrushes do a much better job of cleaning the mouth and removing plaque than manual brushes, and they have a built-in timer that lets you know when you’ve brushed for the proper length of time.
Nitrous Oxide Dental Sedation
Do you regularly become anxious or even frightened when a dental appointment is growing closer and closer on the calendar? Here in Tallahassee, we make it a point to prioritize our patients’ comfort, which is why we offer nitrous oxide sedation as a helpful aid that can create a more relaxing environment for your dental procedure. Also known as “laughing gas,” nitrous oxide is breathed in through a nasal mask, and the effects both begin and wear off within minutes of exposure. This means that patients recover very quickly and are even able to drive themselves home following a visit.
Intraoral Cameras
During checkups, it can be frustrating to not be able to see and understand what your dentist is seeing as they peer inside your mouth. That’s why we regularly use advanced intraoral cameras as a helpful educational tool here at Boyd & Walther Dental Associates! A camera-tipped wand transmits high-resolution images to a convenient monitor in the exam room, providing a visual aid that helps our team point out specific areas of damage, more clearly explain the effects of certain treatment options and more.
Digital X-Rays
In the not-so-distant past, traditional X-rays were heavily relied on for the valuable information they could provide regarding dental problems that existed beyond the surface of the smile – but they came with several pitfalls as well, including long darkroom development times and potentially harmful radiation exposure. Today, we’re proud to feature state-of-the-art digital radiography in our modern dental office as a much-improved alternative. Now, your X-rays are immediately available for viewing after capture, and they can be easily color-coded or magnified for extra clarification. Radiation exposure is also reduced by up to 80%, which makes them much safer for our patients.
Children’s Dentistry
Our team believes that prevention is the key to avoiding dental problems, and that’s especially true for young smiles. Whether your little one is just getting their first tooth or they’re learning to drive, we’re more than happy to take care of their smile to make sure it grows up happy and healthy.