Past Procedure Care
Having dental work done is an investment! After all, you only get one set of adult teeth, so you want to take care of them. That’s why proper dental hygiene, as well as regular dental checkups, are so important. If you have had dental work done, you need to make sure you follow the instructions your dentist gave you to ensure your full recovery. Properly caring for past procedures will greatly increase the lifespan of your dental repairs.
Braces
The most important thing you can do after braces is wear your retainer. Your bones will want to try to put things back to the way they were. Wearing your retainer at night prevents your teeth from wandering back into their old positions. Beyond that, normal dental hygiene will keep your teeth looking beautiful and straight!
Dental implants
Dental implants involve surgery, and require very special care immediately after the procedure. You have to take antibiotics, use a special mouth rinse, drink lots of fluid, and eat soft food for a day or two. Physical activity should be avoided as well until everything has healed. Once it’s all healed up, you treat your dental implant as if it were a normal tooth. Proper dental care will ensure that your implant lasts a long time.
Root canals
After a root canal, it’s important to not eat anything until the numbness has worn off (lest you bite your cheek or tongue). Your new crown can be treated like an ordinary tooth once it’s all done. So brush and floss your teeth like usual after a root canal. You may experience sensitivity to pressure or extreme temperature at first, but that will fade as time goes on.
Cavity fills
Cavity fillings have the easiest post procedure care – treat it like a normal tooth. Like the root canal, you may have some pressure or temperature sensitivity immediately afterwards, but this will go away with time. Make sure you brush and floss to prevent more cavities from forming, and let your dentist know immediately if the filling falls out!
In many cases, dental procedures leave you with tooth repairs or replacements that can be treated just like normal teeth once the procedure is complete. Then you just have to take good care of your teeth! Your dental repairs should last for years under the right circumstances. Not sure what the post procedure care is for something not listed here? Give Dr. Chauvin’s office a call. We’ll tell you what you need to do.
