Revitalizing Your Oral Health
Providing Periodontal Care Worth Smiling About
We offer advanced services that incorporate the latest dental technology to ensure precision and comfort during your visit at Providence Periodontics. Our team in Providence, RI, brings years of industry experience to provide patients with the highest standard of care. With a foundation built on integrity, we ensure that every patient receives the best possible dental care, guided by a dedication to their oral health and well-being. Whether you’re looking for routine maintenance, gum disease treatments, or specialized care, we look forward to partnering with you to achieve a healthier, more radiant smile.
Smile With Confidence
Our Treatment Methods
Dental Implants
Dental implants are surgical components placed in the jawbone to support dental crowns or bridges, and they can effectively replace single or multiple missing teeth. We can help restore your smile and confidence with implants specifically tailored to your mouth’s needs.
Bone Regeneration
This procedure is a specialized technique aimed at restoring lost jawbone density, often necessary for patients seeking dental implants or other restorative treatments after tooth loss or bone resorption. During the procedure, a dental professional may utilize bone grafts from the patient, donors, or synthetic materials to promote new bone growth in the affected area.
This process helps create a stable foundation for implants, enhances oral function, and improves aesthetics, ultimately contributing to a successful dental restoration. Additionally, advancements in techniques and materials, such as guided bone regeneration, support more efficient healing and regeneration.
Connective Tissue Grafts
Connective tissue, or gum, grafting is a fairly quick procedure that involves transferring healthy tissue from the roof of the mouth to areas with receded gums. This treatment restores vitality to your smile by creating a healthy gum line that complements your teeth.
Esthetic Crown Lengthening
Genetics significantly influence the appearance of our teeth, but certain procedures can help us achieve the smiles we desire. For those with a “gummy smile,” esthetic crown lengthening can reshape the gum line to reveal more of the tooth crowns, enhancing its overall appearance.
Sinus Lift
A sinus lift procedure can address the issue of bone loss, typical after you lose a tooth, by adding bone tissue to the upper jaw. This is achieved by lifting a membrane in the upper jaw and using a bone graft to fill the sinus area.
We offer both types of sinus lifts, ensuring that the area becomes strong enough to support dental implants for replacement teeth. The choice of procedure depends on the remaining bone, and while few periodontists still offer sinus lifts, our skilled team is fully equipped and ready to perform them.
Osteotome Sinus Lifts
An osteotome lift is preferred when there is at least 6mm of remaining bone height, making it suitable for patients with minimal bone loss.
Lateral Wall Sinus Lifts
For patients with less than 6mm of bone height, a lateral wall sinus lift may be performed, often requiring a CBCT scan to assess bone structure.
Non-Surgical Periodontal Treatment
Scaling & Root Planning
While gums are sealed to teeth similar to the seal between your skin and fingernail, daily plaque and tartar buildup can eventually infect the area. If left untreated, bacteria can break down the seal, creating a deep, infected pocket that is difficult to clean even with great home care and regular dental cleanings.
To control gum disease, we may recommend a series of scaling and root planing appointments, or deep cleanings, to remove plaque and tartar below the gum tissue. These procedures, typically done in 1-4 visits, don’t require surgery and will help determine how often you need dental cleanings as well as any potential need for pocket reduction surgery.
Pocket Reduction
Pocket reduction addresses severe periodontal disease by treating deep gum pockets, created when gums pull away from your teeth, that are difficult to clean and harbor bacteria. This treatment involves carefully cleaning and sealing the infected area to slow disease progression, allowing gums to reattach in a healthy way and reducing the pockets.
Good hygiene practices, such as regular brushing and flossing, are taught to prevent further bacterial growth and promote healthy gums. Follow-up visits are also recommended to monitor gum pocket depth and overall oral health.
Teeth Whitening
If you’ve struggled with teeth whitening using store-bought products, you’re not alone; teeth naturally stain over time, especially as we age. Fortunately, achieving a bright smile is easy with modern cosmetic dental procedures.
We offer Zoom! Teeth Whitening, which outperforms many other treatments because it uses a light-activated gel that enhances the whitening process. Light is placed over the teeth after the gel has been put on, which activates the whitening agent faster than only letting the gel sit on the teeth.
Clenching & Grinding
Clenching or grinding teeth is a common, often unconscious, habit that can lead to various side effects. Common symptoms include loose teeth, headaches, tooth wear, jaw stiffness and pain, sleep troubles, ear pain, and even broken teeth or fillings. Many patients are unaware of their habit until they experience these symptoms, and it’s often a partner or family member who notices the problem first. If you’re waking up with any of these issues, it may be a sign of nighttime grinding or clenching.
TMJ Pain
The temporomandibular joint (TMJ) connects your lower jaw bone to your skull, and is used throughout the day for eating and speaking. Clenching and grinding can strain this joint, leading to debilitating symptoms such as facial pain, joint locking, headaches, muscle spasms, and pain or popping noises when chewing. Treatment for clenching and grinding can help alleviate these symptoms.
Essix Appliance
Clenching your teeth can cause them to shift, undoing the results of orthodontic treatment like braces or Invisalign®. An Essix appliance, similar to a retainer, can prevent unwanted movement and protect your teeth from damage by keeping them in position, even when you clench. Custom-fitted to your teeth, it’s like a night guard that ensures your smile remains straight and healthy.
Acrylic Night Guard
If grinding is an issue, we’ll create a custom night guard to protect and preserve your teeth. Grinding can be damaging, so taking proactive steps is crucial. A night guard may take some getting used to, but its benefits will outweigh the adjustment period, helping you avoid costly restorative procedures and preserving your teeth for years to come.
Teeth Extractions
Wisdom Teeth
Wisdom teeth, the third molars located at the back of the mouth, typically emerge later in life and can be problematic for some. They can be classified as fully or partially bony impacted, depending on the severity of their eruption.
“Bony” describes a tooth primarily located within the jawbone. A partially bony impacted tooth has emerged more than a fully impacted one. The pain from impacted wisdom teeth arises from them pressing against existing teeth, causing crowding and often necessitating their removal.
Frenectomy
A frenectomy is a dental procedure that involves the surgical removal or alteration of the frenulum, a small fold of tissue that connects the lips, cheeks, or tongue to the underlying bone.
This procedure is often performed to address issues such as tongue-tie or lip-tie, which can interfere with speech, oral hygiene, and feeding in infants. By releasing the frenulum, a frenectomy can enhance mobility, improve oral function, and facilitate better alignment of teeth, all of which contribute to overall dental health and comfort.
Local Delivery of Antibiotic
We offer advanced treatment for gum and other infections by delivering antibiotics directly to infected areas using innovative systems such as microspheres, oral rinses, gels, and dissolvable fibers. This targeted approach ensures effective medication delivery, promoting faster healing and improved oral health.
Oral Pathology & Biopsies
We are committed to preventing and treating oral diseases, aiming to improve patient health by detecting potential issues. Tissue samples, or biopsies, provide crucial insights into oral health and can aid in the early detection of oral cancer, which is more treatable in its initial stages.
Symptoms like lumps, white or red patches, pain, or loose teeth may prompt us to recommend a biopsy, ensuring patients have the best chances for effective treatment and a healthy life post-diagnosis.
Protect your smile and overall health with our periodontal services! Call 401-421-1717 or email info@providenceperiodontics.com to contact our office today.