Hudsonville Dental

The best way to maintain a healthy smile is to schedule dental cleanings every 6 months. While brushing and flossing your teeth at home is good for your oral health, you’ll need the help of one of our dentists to remove hardened plaque (tartar).

Don’t ignore tooth pain. If you need emergency dental care, call our office as soon as possible. The sooner we treat you, the more likely we’ll be able to save your tooth. Our emergency dentists act quickly to give you the best chance of regaining oral health after injury or illness.

Brushing and flossing your teeth at home isn’t enough to maintain good oral health. We also recommend you schedule dental exams every 6 months so our dentists can check for tooth decay, gum disease, and other oral health issues.

Many patients are unaware they grind their teeth at night until it’s brought up by their dentist during a routine oral examination. Sometimes teeth grinding can be so loud that it wakes up your partner. If you suspect you’re grinding or clenching teeth at night, call our office as soon as possible.

Tooth decay is the most common chronic childhood disease in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. To protect your child’s smile, our dentists may recommend dental sealants. Like the name suggests, dental sealants cover the crevices of your child’s molars (back teeth).

Dental bonding repairs a chipped tooth in one appointment. Our dentists use a composite resin (tooth-colored putty) to restore the strength and appearance of your tooth. Unlike veneers, you don’t have to wait weeks for your tooth restoration to be made in an off-site lab.

Small cosmetic issues can be fixed with teeth reshaping. For example, our dentists may recommend cosmetic contouring if you have a slightly misshapen tooth that shows when you smile and talk. We may also recommend cosmetic contouring if we notice one tooth is slightly longer.

White fillings made from composite resin match the color of your teeth. If our dentists detect a cavity during your routine teeth cleaning or dental exam, they may recommend a cavity filling. As the name suggests, a filling fills the hole left after our dentist drills out tooth decay.

Veneers are wafer-thin slices of porcelain bonded to the fronts of your teeth that show when you smile and talk. If you have ever felt self-conscious about your smile, you owe it to yourself to schedule a consultation with one of our dentists.

Wish you could straighten teeth without braces? Ask your dentist if Invisalign® is right for you. Like the name suggests, Invisalign is a nearly invisible aligner that straightens teeth little by little into a beautiful smile. If you’ve ever felt self-conscious about crooked teeth, you owe it to yourself to schedule a consultation with one of our Invisalign dentists.

Our dentists can whiten your teeth by several shades so you can smile with confidence. We offer two options for our patients so they can whiten teeth in our office or in the comfort of their own homes. During your consultation, our dentists will be able to discuss what types of professional teeth whitening are right for your smile.

A dental crown (sometimes called a “tooth cap” by our patients) covers the entire visible portion of your tooth above the gum line. Our dentists may recommend porcelain crowns for teeth that are fragile, broken, or discolored. During your first appointment, our dentist will remove enough enamel so the dental crown will fit over the tooth. Next, our dentist will take impressions of your teeth to send to the lab. Since it takes a few weeks for your porcelain crown to be made, your dentist will place a temporary crown in its place. That way, your teeth and gums will be protected while you wait for the lab.

If you’ve recently lost a tooth, our dentists may suggest a dental bridge to repair your smile. To be a candidate, you must have healthy natural teeth or dental implants on both sides of the empty socket. A dental bridge is comprised of an artificial tooth secured by crowns on adjacent teeth. As the name suggests, a dental bridge “bridges” the gap left by a missing tooth. A dental bridge can: repair your smile after losing a tooth, prevent further tooth loss, maintain your face shape, improve chewing, and improve speech.

A dental implant is a metal post (usually titanium) that acts like a natural tooth root would to support a crown. If you have missing teeth, you owe it to yourself to schedule a consultation with one of our dental implant dentists. Dental implants not only restore your smile, but improve speech, chewing, and self-esteem.

Dentures are removable false teeth you wear during the day to eat and talk. Our dentists can help you determine whether you need full or partial dentures based on your oral health. For example, you may only need a partial denture to replace a few upper teeth.

Our dentists do everything in their power to save a tooth. However, sometimes a tooth extraction is necessary to protect oral health. The sooner you see our emergency dentists for tooth pain, the more likely we’ll be able to avoid dental extraction. Otherwise, we may end up needing to do an emergency tooth extraction as a last resort. How we extract your tooth will depend on whether it has erupted through the gum line. For example, you’ll need surgery for impacted wisdom teeth stuck beneath your gums. If the tooth is visible, our dentist will use a special tool called an elevator to loosen your tooth.

Interested in a smile makeover? During your consultation, one of our dentists will be able to walk you through the process of what it would take to restore your teeth, gums, and jaws. Our dentists focus on the entire mouth to improve your oral health and quality of life. Full mouth restorations are as much an art as they are a science. By examining your smile, as well as taking dental x-rays and impressions, we’ll be able to determine what restorative dentistry will work best for you. Cosmetic dentistry also plays a role in improving the aesthetic of your smile. Full mouth restorations focus on: replacing missing teeth, restoring damaged teeth, fixing jaw and teeth alignment, repairing gums and replacing worn-out tooth restorations.

Approximately 47.2% of Americans age 30 and older have periodontal disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Gum disease is caused by untreated plaque buildup. If our dentists detect gum disease during your routine oral examination, they may recommend scaling and root planing or other gum disease treatments. Early gum disease (gingivitis) can be reversed by practicing good oral hygiene and seeing your dentist every 6 months for a teeth cleaning and dental exam. Since it’s easy to overlook gum disease symptoms until it’s too late, it’s important that you see your dentist as recommended. Gum disease symptoms include: red, swollen, or sore gums, bleeding gums (especially when brushing or flossing), loose teeth, bad breath, change in how your dentures fit, and change in bite alignment.

Our dentists offer oral surgery so you can maintain healthy teeth, gums, and jaws. Depending on what you need, our dentists may handle your oral surgery or refer you to the appropriate specialist.

Don’t ignore tooth pain. If you suspect you have an abscess tooth, you’ll need to call our office as soon as possible to schedule emergency dental care. Once a cavity is deep enough to breach the living tissue inside your tooth, you’ll need to schedule a root canal. Our root canal dentists will do everything they can to save your tooth from extraction.

If you have periodontal disease, our Hudsonville dentists will recommend scaling and root planing. People with periodontal disease often have deep gum pockets around their teeth that collect food particles and plaque. During a deep gum cleaning, our dentist will clean above and below the gum line to prevent further oral health issues.

The temporomandibular joint (TMJ) is the hinge that connects your jawbone to your skull. If you have persistent jaw pain, this may be a sign that there’s something wrong with the TMJ. Our dentists will be able to help you find TMJ relief to improve your quality of life and avoid complications to oral health.

Wisdom teeth are given their name because they erupt through the gum line between the ages of 17 and 25. Most people simply don’t have the space in their jaws to accommodate these extra teeth, which is why they call our dentists. Since wisdom teeth form around age 10, our dentists are able to take x-rays to determine how they’ll erupt. That way, impacted wisdom teeth can be extracted before they reverse orthodontic progress or crowd teeth.

Over 50,000 Americans will get oral or throat cancer this year, according to the American Cancer Society. Fortunately, our dentists provide oral cancer screenings so cancer is detected in its early stages. Detecting oral cancer in its early stages gives you the best chance of survival. Oral cancer symptoms include: red or white patches in mouth, sores in mouth, loose teeth, change in how dentures fit, difficulty or painful eating, and sore throat.