Children’s Dentistry: How to Introduce your Child to the Dentist

Positive dental experiences at an early age are part of what sets the stage for better health through the course of patients’ lifetimes. Children who practice good oral health habits at home and keep up with routine dental visits are less likely to encounter serious dental issues caused by lack of preventive attention as they grow into adulthood.

At West Houston Dental, we take care to treat children in a way that allows them to learn about the dentist and become confident visiting our office for treatment. When families bring in young children for first appointments, or during their own visits, we typically take the following steps:

Meeting the Team and Getting to Know the Office

As a child, coming into an unfamiliar situation with people who are new to you can be intimidating. We understand that fear of the unknown is powerful, which is why we give children the opportunity to get to know us and familiarize themselves with our staff and our office. Children can meet members of our team and take a tour around the office so there is never a point where they feel they are walking into a situation that is scary.

Sitting in Treatment Chairs

When they are feeling confident, children can take a seat in one of the dental chairs to get an idea for what teeth cleaning or other treatments are like. As a part of our efforts to familiarize children with the setting of a dental office, gradual introduction to sitting in the chair can help set the right expectations for treatment and minimize anxiety.

Seeing Dental Tools in Action

For patients who grow up with dental anxiety, the sights and sounds of certain dental tools can be something that triggers fear. However, patients who grow up with positive experiences understand that these tools are part of what keeps your teeth healthy and allows your dentist to care for your smile. While children are sitting in the dental chair, we can turn on the suction so they know what certain tools sound like and can show or answer any questions about what other equipment does to help clean their teeth.

Setting an Example

If children come in with their older siblings or their parents, we welcome them to come back into operatories with their family members to see what actual treatment is like. Children can watch their parent’s teeth get cleaned to help gain an understanding about what it’s like to complete a routine dental visit.

Dr. Nguyen welcomes children for preventive dental care. For more information on dentistry for kids in Houston, contact our office to speak to a member of our team.

How Digital Dentistry Improves the Patient Experience

Tools like dental picks, suction, and drills have long been standard parts of the treatment process at a dental office, depending on your needs. However, some of these tools can make patients feel anxious about care. Modern digital dentistry has provided dentists with new and effective ways to preserve patient comfort and improve treatment results. At West Houston Dental, we’re proud to incorporate many of these cutting-edge technologies into our processes for care, so patents can access worry-free dentistry.

With digital dental technology, we are able to offer:

Prosthetics that Fit Just Right – Prosthetics, such as bridges, crowns, and veneers that are created by lab technicians based off of impression molds can be hit-or-miss. The quality of the mold, a patient’s comfort with having impressions taken, and the skill of the technician in interpreting impressions all play a hand in the final quality of restorative dental prosthetics. With digital work flows and digital impressions, however, patient information is captured with improved precision and greatly reduces margin of error. Our dental lab technicians work off of digital workflows, so our patients can enjoy restorations that are made to fit more comfortably and provide improved aesthetics.

Precise Surgical Care – Certain complex procedures, like dental implant placement, require positioning prosthetics in just the right spot, to ensure lasting results. Our 3D guided implant surgery treatments allow Dr. Nguyen to locate the best position and angle for placing your implant, helping to ensure that your implants integrate successfully with surrounding bone. While many dentists use educated guesses in placing implants, our implant surgical processes are precise and guided by detailed images of oral structures.

Better Treatment Outcomes – When it comes to treating infected teeth with root canal therapy, cleaning out all root systems and ensuring that there is no infected dentin left behind is an important component in successful care. When providing root canal therapy for patients with severely damaged teeth, our advanced endodontic tools allow us to thoroughly target inner systems of teeth. Patients enjoy faster, more efficient and gentle care with these treatment aids.

Comfortable Procedures – Laser dentistry offers an improved way to treat soft tissue while maximizing patient comfort and promoting faster healing times. For procedures that once required incisions and stiches, laser dentistry allows cosmetic gum re-contouring and frenectomies to be completed with the pass of a laser beam, which treats and seals simultaneously. Patients find their laser soft tissue procedures to be pain-free and efficient.

Questions about Digital Dentistry?

We can make digital dental tools part of your next treatment. For more information about comfortable care with advanced treatment aids, contact our Houston dental office.