What Is Icon Dental Treatment?

In an ideal world, teeth would be impervious to decay. Cavities would never happen, and you and your child would never require fillings or other dental services. However, decay does happen, but it is a process that occurs over time. If caught early, the dentist can correct it before it causes a cavity. 

At Cedar Walk Family and Cosmetic Dentistry, we use the Icon dental treatment as part of our family treatments to help you or your child avoid the need for cavities.

What Is Icon Dental Treatment?

The Icon system is an innovative way to approach dental caries by stopping the process. To understand how this treatment works, you must first know how cavities form and why Icon stops the process.

How Cavities Form

Bacteria naturally live in your mouth. When you brush and floss your teeth, you remove sugars and food that the bacteria can feed on and grow. However, when the bacteria have food available, it consumes it and releases acids as a byproduct. You won’t notice the process, but the acid released around your teeth leaches minerals, causing microscopic holes in the enamel.

Cavities have various stages of formation based on the depth of decay in the tooth. At the very earliest stages, the tooth has very little damage done to it. During these stages, fluoride treatment might help.

When the holes breach through the enamel, fluoride treatment might not work. In the past, dentists suggest waiting until the problem worsens to use a traditional filling after it reaches the second third of the dentin.

After a cavity reaches the second or third part of the dentin, a filling is the only option for correcting the problem.

How Icon Stops Cavity Formation

The dentist does not have to wait for the cavity to deepen with Icon treatment. They can use the micro-invasive infiltrant system to plug the pores in the tooth. This process stops the process of decay and helps the patient avoid fillings.

Reducing the number of fillings helps keep teeth strong and healthy without the worry of dislodging a filling.

Why Early Intervention with Icon Treatment Is Important

Regular dental exams are crucial for you and your child. Only by looking over the appearance and health of the teeth frequently can the dentist spot signs of wear and decay that the Icon treatment method can correct. You may not be able to see the areas of decay yourself, especially if they occur in the back of the mouth, but your dentist can see them during dental exams.

Benefits of the Icon Dental Process

The Icon process does not require drilling into the tooth as a filling does. Nor do you need anesthesia when getting this treatment. In fact, it only takes a single dental visit to treat decay on your teeth and stop the process of wear.

The process of filling a cavity or getting a root canal requires drilling into even the healthy parts of the tooth. With the Icon process, you don’t lose healthy tooth material, which helps your tooth to stay strong.

Cavities are not inevitable once decay on a tooth begins. However, you need to make sure to care for your teeth after you receive the Icon process to avoid future decay.

Why Children Need to Avoid Dental Decay and Cavities

Your child’s dental health is essential for their lifelong well-being. Milk teeth, or baby teeth, may fall out as the adult teeth emerge, but they should stay in place until then for several reasons.

First, the milk teeth help your child to eat healthy foods. They may not tell you that a tooth hurts if they develop cavities in their milk teeth. However, you may notice them becoming fussy at mealtimes because eating causes them pain. Being proactive with your child’s dental health can prevent them from experiencing pain.

Secondly, baby teeth are tiny, and the drilling required for filling a cavity can weaken the remaining tooth, increasing the chance that it could have another problem later. The same holds true for adult teeth, which can weaken after drilling and filling.

Finally, if you opt to have a baby tooth pulled instead of filled, your child may have trouble learning to speak correctly because they don’t have an adult tooth that quickly fills in the gap. In addition, the adult tooth does not have the milk tooth’s path in the mouth to follow and may emerge crooked.

Benefits of Avoiding Cavities for Adults

Adults should also avoid developing cavities. For those who wait too long after a cavity forms, a filling may no longer be possible. The only treatment options remaining are root canal treatment or extraction. Both of which require more dental visits and healing time than a filling.

Cavities can cause pain when eating or even speaking. Focusing on your personal or professional life becomes difficult when you have dental pain. Avoid cavity discomfort by keeping up with your regular dental exams so the dentist can find decay at the stage when you can get the Icon treatment in a single visit to correct it.

Is the Icon Dental Treatment Process for You or Your Child?

Whether the Icon process will help you or your child depends on the amount of decay in a tooth. While having white spots on teeth could indicate developing decay, they could also signal other issues. Schedule a visit with a family dentist who can determine if you have dental decay and can benefit from the Icon process or if you need another type of restorative treatment.

Schedule a Visit for Your Child at Cedar Walk Family and Cosmetic Dentistry

Get treatment for dental decay before requiring a filling. If you spot white areas on your child’s teeth or your own, contact us at Cedar Walk. With our dentists’ use of the Icon system, we can help stop the decay before it creates a hole in the tooth that needs a filling. Our high-tech solutions help families to have better dental health. Please make us your family’s dentist to see the difference.