Introducing Dr Saul Konviser

Zoom Whitening is a popular treatment option conducted in the dental practice for patients wishing to whiten natural teeth in a shorter time frame. Along with Home Whitening, it is the least invasive method of improving the appearance of discoloured teeth.

For Zoom Whitening, you will still require a Home Whitening kit with whitening trays and gels as you will need to ensure stabilisation of the new shade otherwise relapse to your original shade can occur quite quickly.

Zoom Whitening is a procedure designed to lighten the colour of your teeth using a combination of 6% Hydrogen Peroxide gel and a specially designed visible LED light lamp. The Zoom Whitening treatment aims to produce maximum whitening results in the shortest possible time.

All patients will still require a dental check up before Home or Zoom Whitening to ensure they are dentally fit and suitable for the process.

Home whitening is a popular, safe and effective treatment for whitening natural teeth. It is the least invasive and least costly way to improve the appearance of stained natural teeth. You can read more at our tooth whitening blog here

You will be prescribed 6% Hydrogen Peroxide, 10% or 16% Carbamide Peroxide whitening gels or a combination , based on the outcome of your dental consultation.

The degree of whitening varies from person to person and so patient must have a dental consultation before any whitening. Patients usually notice a tooth colour change after using the gel for around 5 days and most patients tend to do the whitening process for a period of 10 days to 2 weeks.

For the best tooth whitening results, avoid pigmented food and drinks, such as tea, coffee, red wine, beetroot, or things like turmeric during and after treatment for up to 2 hours if possible. I always recommended to avoid smoking during the course of whitening, and for 1 week afterwards. Ideally, you should quit smoking all together!

A denture is a removable appliance that has been carefully designed to replace some or all of the missing teeth in both an upper and lower jaw. There are a number of types of dentures and your dentist will be able to talk you through the most appropriate for you.

A dental extraction is the removal of the whole tooth or even broken roots from the mouth. This is carried out under local anaesthetic although if needed, we can arrange services for sedation if more appropriate. The need to remove the tooth usually is most commonly a result of there being unrestorable decay, broken teeth or roots, infection or severe gum disease, rendering the tooth unrestorable.

A root canal treatment is necessary when the nerve inside the tooth has been irreversibly damaged. This may be a result of dental decay, a cracked tooth, a failing filling or restoration like a dental crown or even following dental trauma.

The root canal treatment is designed to help keep a tooth that may otherwise need to be extracted, and may be completed in a single or possibly multiple appointments. During the root canal procedure, the damaged or infected nerve tissues are removed, the root system cleaned out and replaced with a special filling material which helps maintain the remaining tooth structure.

Gum disease (periodontitis) is caused by the presence of bacteria around the teeth and gum. The bacteria can be found in dental plaque and are responsible for causing damage to our gums and underlying supporting bone that helps hold our teeth in place.

If plaque is allowed to build up around our gums, it can cause them to become very inflamed and start to bleed. This early stage is called gingivitis and is a reversible disease process. If, however it is allowed to continue untreated, it can lead to gum disease (periodontitis) which can cause serious damage to the supporting structures, resulting in your tooth becoming sensitive, mobile, infected and in extreme cases needing to extracted.

The more common symptoms to be aware of usually include bleeding gums either when brushing teeth, flossing teeth, eating foods or even spontaneously. You may also notice recession of
gum tissues so your teeth looking ‘longer’ or even loosening of your teeth with spaces developing between them. Some patients also begin to notice bad breath or tastes in their mouth and in more severe cases, swellings with pain can develop.

Crowns and onlay restorations both cover the biting surface of the tooth, and reduce the likelihood of the remaining tooth structure from fracturing.

A crown encompasses the entire tooth with the margins of restoration being placed at or just beneath the gum. An onlay restoration may requires a more superficial preparation as the margins of this type of restoration extend only half way down the tooth. The onlay preparation therefore conserves more tooth tissue and is more ‘tooth friendly’ compared to a crown preparation, although this may result in a more noticeable junction between the onlay margin and the adjacent tooth structure.

We recommend onlay restorations for molar teeth where aesthetics are not of prime concern to the patient

As each of the adult molars (back teeth) erupts in a child’s mouth (usually from the age of 6 years old), and if the tooth is free from decay, a ‘fissure sealant’ can be used to protect the tooth. The sealant is a plastic coating that fills all the little crevices in the tooth surface, creating a flat surface that is easier to clean. Adults can also have this treatment if the teeth are free from decay. Your dental team will discuss whether this is right for you. Children can also have fluoride varnishes painted onto their teeth twice a year which will help to reduce the chances of decay.

I work at Montagu Dental, 47 Montagu Mansions, Marylebone which is a general dental practice just a few minutes’ walk from Baker Street Station. You can contact me directly to find out more about how to find us and to book an appointment here

I generally recommend that most patients should attend for a dental check-up and dental hygiene appointment at least every 6 months. Some patients may need more regular appointments if there are concerns about their dental health.

Tooth cecay happens when sugars in food and drinks react with the bacteria in plaque, forming acids. Every time you eat or drink anything containing sugars, these acids attack the teeth and start to soften and dissolve the enamel. The attacks can last for an hour after eating or drinking, before the natural salts in your saliva cause the enamel to ‘remineralise’ and harden again. It’s not just sugars that are harmful: other types of carbohydrate foods and drinks react with plaque and form acids. (These are the ‘fermentable’ carbohydrates: for example ‘hidden sugars’ in processed food, natural sugars like those in fruit and cooked starches).

Always check the ingredients. Generally anything with ‘ose’ in the name is a sugar, for example: sucrose, maltose and so on.

If the decay is not too serious, we can usually remove all the decay and repair the tooth with a small composite bonded filling. Sometimes the nerve in the middle of the tooth can be damaged. If so, the dentist will need to carry out a root canal treatment by removing the nerve and then repairing the tooth with a large filling or a dental crown. If the tooth is so badly decayed that it cannot be repaired, the dentist may have to take the tooth out.