Tel: 01738 625027

FAQ’s

Below you will find some FAQ’s relating to our services and treatments.

If you don’t like your smile, it can affect your confidence. Here at Balhousie Dental we can give you a variety of options to improve or transform your smile. Ask your Dentist at your next appointment and they will be happy to chat this through with you.

Whitening

Whitening can give you an improvement very easily and can be done on its own or prior to other cosmetic treatments.

White fillings

White fillings can drastically change the look of your mouth so that when you laugh no unsightly grey is shown.

Veneers, Crowns, Inlays

Veneers, Crowns, Inlays are laboratory made restorations that partially or completely cover the tooth. These can reshape, improve the colour and enhance your smile.

Bridges

Bridges are laboratory made and help restoratively fill a missing tooth.

Implants

Implants get placed into the bone to recreate an actual tooth. Cosmetically they can they have a lot of scope at improving small to large spaces in your mouth, or where you have no teeth at all.

Tooth Straightening

Orthodontics is where we straighten your teeth. For this, we refer you to a specialist. This is an option which can be done at any time in your life.

If our oral hygiene is not up to scratch, a layer of bacteria forms on our teeth. This over time gets thicker and thicker and we call this plaque. Plaque feeds off sugars in our diet, in foods and drinks. As the bacteria within the plaque digests the sugar it forms an acid as a byproduct and it is this acid that damages our teeth.

The acid demineralises the tooth surface, where the plaque sits. This is where you have missed during cleaning, and the most common sites are around the gum line, in the fissures of the biting surfaces of your molar teeth and between your teeth.

If the plaque isn’t removed then the acid continues to demineralise your tooth until a cavity appears. This then collects more plaque and food, speeding up the decay process. Once the decay is through the enamel, which is the thin, white, hard outer layer of our teeth, then we will need a filling. If the decay remains within the enamel, we can apply prevention such as fluoride application, better tooth brushing and a healthier diet. This arrests the process and the decay will not progress.

There are two different types of gum disease:

Gingivitis –

This is where the gums are inflammed as not all the plaque is being removed by cleaning. It is a reversible problem, solved by increasing the cleaning such as using an electric toothbrush twice a day for 2 minutes and flossing or using brushes between your teeth daily.

Periodontitis –

This is where the gum pockets are bigger than 3mm. We measure this at every visit. Over 3mm, bacteria can live in your gums which causes the bone support of your teeth to reduce. Periodontitis can occur if your oral hygiene is poor, if you smoke or if you have a genetic predisposition. What this means is if your mother or father had the disease you are more likely to get it too. The amount of tooth brushing and interdental cleaning (cleaning between your teeth) is unique to you. I.e. Some people get little or no disease when they have poor oral hygiene and respectively others with excellent cleanliness can have severe disease. It’s finding the correct level of cleaning for you as over time periodontal disease can get worse if cleaning doesn’t improve, if smoking doesn’t cease, and if you don’t visit our hygienist every 3 months.

We will tailor a cleaning regime for you and advise you on the correct equipment to use. This will ensure that you can remove all the plaque, which is what keeps the disease active.

Where a tooth cannot be restored or is required to be removed as part of a bigger treatment plan we will extract it. This involves a local anaesthetic. Do eat as normal prior to treatment. After the extraction there are some do’s and don’ts to look after the socket to aid healing:

Take some pain relief after a few hours after treatment. This means the analgesics will take affect after the numbness wears off.

Don’t have anything too hot or too cold whilst you are numb

Do not consume alcohol or smoke for 24 hours after treatment.

We will stop the bleeding. Your saliva will mix with the blood to look red-pink which is ok. If the socket oozes or dribbles blood then we will provide gauze for you to bite on. Do this for 30 minutes. If it continues to bleed please return to BDP or A&E if out of hours. This is rare but important.

Please do not rinse the socket or spit out on the day of treatment. This would dislodge the clot which needs to stay in place. However the day after, place a teaspoon of salt in warm water and use as a mouthwash. The socket is a hole which can collect food and this is the best way to keep the area clean. Use this rinse after every meal and before bed for a week.

Take it easy after treatment, no exercise or heavy lifting.

A root treatment is necessary where the nerve and blood vessels within a tooth have died. This occurs due to trauma, decay or when a tooth has a deep filling. To save the tooth we would clean out the necrotic (damaged) tissue within it using special files. As you are numb this does not hurt at all. As we are cleaning microbes out of your tooth, occasionally not all can be removed or some bacteria are particularly resistant. Therefore, root treatments are not 100% successful.

After the root treatment has been carried out, we would then want an adhesive filling or a crown to finish it off to prevent reinfection from the mouth. This increases the chance of success longterm.

Lower wisdom tooth extractions are often tricky and we may refer you to have this carried out. This is especially true if they aren’t fully through.

This would mean a larger X-ray is needed to gather more information about the underlying nerves. Occasionally the roots of the wisdom tooth are in close proximity to the Inferior Dental Alveolar Nerve. 1% of patients who have surgical extractions on their wisdom teeth which are buried in the jaw, will have numbness after the treatment. This is usually in their lip. Less than 1% of these cases will be permanent.

Even though the risk of long term numbness is very very small, we ensure the risk is minimal by referring you to a specialist for planning and treatment.

As soon as the first tooth has come through the gum (around 6 months old on average), it is important to brush your child’s teeth twice a day with an age appropriate fluoride toothpaste. At this age, and until the age of two, this should be a smear of toothpaste. By the age of 6, you could switch to an adult’s toothpaste with 1450ppm fluoride.

It is important for an adult to brush their teeth until at least 8 years of age. This is because adult teeth and baby teeth will be both present, which make it hard to clean effectively.

We advise you get your child to spit out after brushing but not to rinse, as this rinses off all the goodness from the toothpaste.
It can be difficult to brush children’s teeth but persevere and eventually they will get used to the routine. Ideally we recommend 2 minutes but you can only do your best.

Another important factor in looking after your child’s teeth is diet. This includes foods and drinks. These can be sugary, which can cause decay, and/or erosive, which is where acid in the diet dissolves the teeth away. It is vital to think of both when deciding what your child eats and drinks.

Water and milk are the best drinks, and foods low in sugar mean your child is at less risk of developing decay. Also think about hidden sugars, such as, in Tomato Ketchup, stir-in cooking sauces, some yoghurts, breakfast cereals, cereal bars etc. Dried fruits, such as, raisins etc are also high in sugar.

Erosive foods and drinks have a low pH and are therefore acidic. These can include orange juice and other fresh juices, some fruits, full fat and diet fizzy drinks etc

It is important to visit your dentist every 6 months. Bringing your child as early as possible, helps them get used to our surroundings and gets them familiar with our staff. Please register them as a NHS patient as soon as possible.

The General Dental Council set and maintain standards in UK dentistry. All of our clinical staff are registered with, or are training to be, the GDC.

Balhousie Dental is committed to high quality dentistry, based in Perth city centre, with a great team consisting of dentists, nurses, hygienists and front of house staff. We are keen to hear from you about your experiences.

If you would like to leave a compliment or comment, it will be helpful if you can provide us with as much detail as possible. You can contact us in writing, by telephone, by email or face to face.

Where possible, it would be helpful if you can tell us:

  • Are you the patient (yes or no).  If no, please give your name and relationship to the patient
  • Patient’s name and date of birth
  • Your contact details (a postal address, email or telephone number)
  • Brief description of compliment
  • Date

Thank you.

Feedback and Complaints Officer:Willma Bruce
Balhousie Dental
10 Balhousie Street
Perth
PH1 5HJ
Telephone: 01738 625027
Email: reception@balhousiedental.co.uk

Balhousie Dental Complaints Policy

We consider all feedback, comments, concerns and complaints as a way of looking at what we do and making changes to improve our service to patients. A written copy of our complaints policy is available on request.

We always try to resolve your complaint at the most appropriate level. If you can, first talk to a member of staff involved with your care. We will try to sort out the complaint at that time.

If you are unable to talk to the member of staff involved with your care, ask to speak to Kerry Fraser, our Feedback and Complaints Officer.

We aim to try to resolve your complaint at the time it is made –  this can be in person, in writing, or by email. However, if we can’t resolve your concern at the time then we will write to you within 3 days explaining our processes.

All views will be taken seriously and our procedures will provide a full written response within 20 days following our investigation.

In the unlikely event that we can’t resolve your complaint then there are further options available to you:

Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO)
4 Melville Street
Edinburgh
EH3 7NS
Tel.: 0800 377 7330
www.spso.org.uk
Freepost EH641, Edinburgh EH3 0BR
Open from 9.00am – 5.00pm (Mon – Fri), from 10.00am – 5.00pm (Tues)

General Dental Services (for complaints about private treatment)
Dental Complaints Service
Stephenson House
2 Cherry Orchard Road
Croydon
CRO 6BA
Tel.: 08456 120 540 at local rate (Mon-Fri, 9.00am – 5.00pm)
info@dentalcomplaints.org.uk
www.dentalcomplaints.org.uk