Our Services

Dr. Johnson and his staff create a warm, relaxed, and welcoming atmosphere where you feel comfortable and at home. We offer you and your family a full range of dental services. Including:

Cleaning

Patients often confuse plaque and tarter and how they are related to each other.

Plaque is a sticky, colorless deposit of bacteria that is constantly forming on teeth. Saliva, food and fluids combine to produce these deposits that collect on teeth and where teeth and gums meet.

Plaque begins forming on teeth 4 to 12 hours after brushing which is why it is so important to brush at least twice a day and floss daily.

Plaque which is not removed by regular brushing and flossing, can harden into unsightly tarter (also called calculus). This crusty deposit creates a cohesive bond that can only be removed by a dentist. Tarter formation may also make it more difficult for you to remove new plaque and bacteria. The prevention of tarter buildup above the gumline has not been shown to have a therapeutic effect on gum disease.

Crowns and Bridges

Crowns: When a tooth is fractured, has a large, old filling, or is severely damaged by decay, your dentist may recommend the placement of a crown, or cap. Crowns strengthen and protect the remaining tooth structure and can improve the appearance of your smile.

Bridges: Few incidents have greater impact on dental health and personal appearance than tooth loss. When one or more teeth are missing, the remaining teeth can drift out of position, which can lead to a change in the bite, the loss of additional teeth, decay and gum disease. When tooth loss occurs, Dr. Johnson may recommend the placement of a bridge. A bridge is one or more replacement teeth anchored by one or more crowns on each side.

Cosmetic Dentistry

Thanks to advances in modern dental materials and techniques, doctor can help you attain the smile you've always wanted. The contour, color and alignment of your teeth can be changed by such cosmetic techniques as bleaching, bonding, veneers, and inlays.

Bleaching lightens stains or discoloration and can be performed on living teeth or teeth that have undergone root canal treatment.

Bonding restores chipped, cracked, miscolored or misaligned teeth by rebuilding the surface with a plastic or porcelain material.

Porcelain laminate veneers bond custom-made tooth-shaped shells to correct or camouflage discoloration, damage or misalignment.

Inlays and Onlays are tooth-colored restorations that are used in place of silver fillings.

Orthodontics

Orthodontics correct crowded teeth, misaligned teeth and bite problems in children and adults.

Root Canal

If your tooth's nerve chamber becomes infected by decay, root canal treatment is often the only way to save your tooth. Inside your tooth's hard outer shell is a nourishing pulp of blood vessels, lymph vessels and nerves. The root canals, which contain the pulp, extend to the bone. Deep tooth decay, or an injury, can cause serious damage and infection to the pulp's nerves and vessels. Root canal, or endodontic, treatment cleans out the infected pulp chamber and repairs the damage.

Some indications of the need for root canal treatment may be:

• Spontaneous pain or throbbing while biting.
• Sensitivity to hot and cold foods.
• Severe decay or an injury that creates an abscess (infection) in the bone.

Sedation Dentistry

Conscious Sedation is a minimally depressed level of consciousness where by the patient maintains his or her own airway, reflexes and responds to verbal stmulus as in answering questions. (This is much different than deep sedation or general anesthesia where patients cannot maintain airway, reflexes or respond to physical or verbal stimuli.)

Conscious sedation is accomplished through the use of very safe pre-medications, which produce this desired result, and additionally patients have little or no memory of the appointment. The goal is to create a very relaxed comfortable environment with little or no anxiety, not sleep.

The "Why" behind this increasing trend is quite simply anxiety. Research suggests that some where between 30-50% of the population avoids going to the dentist due to fear. This crosses all parameters of age, sex and race. Thus a very large segment of our population, much in need of dental care avoids treatment due to fear. Conscious sedation has opened the door to so may people who find fear or anxiety to great of a hurdleto overcome. It provides those of us in the dental profession another means to provide compassionate care to our patients. However conscious sedation is intended for adult patients and not recommended for children where physiologic responses are very unpredictable.

Wisdom Teeth

Wisdom teeth, or third molars, are the final teeth to develop. Most of us have four wisdom teeth, one in each corner of the mouth. They usually emerge during our late teens or early twenties. Oftentimes, wisdom teeth become trapped or impacted, in the jawbone and cause crowding, displacement, decay, infection or gum disease. Impacted wisdom teeth can grown in many different directions-horizontally, verticall, or at an angle. Wisdom teeth surgery is performed, usually under local anesthesia, in our office.