New Drilling Technology: Air Abrasion

This is the tooth before any work was done.

Many people have a fear of the dentist, the thought of going to the dentist evokes the whining sound of the dreaded drill, or needles being poked into your mouth. Dental air abrasion changes all of this.

Yesterday, I had a patient who was fourteen years old and wasn't too keen on drilling her tooth. So I proposed to use air abrasion to fix up her tooth after her cleaning.

Tooth with the first layer of plaque and enamel removed.

Without any "needles" I got access to the decay that located on her cracks of the tooth. Air abrasion is silent, fast and pain free. It produces no “burning” odors, no hand piece whine, no vibration, no pressure and no heat.

Few minutes later I have gotten out all of the decay and I was ready to do the filling. All soft decay was removed and now we can see yellow healthy dentin.

In this case I like that my preparation saved the intact tooth structures, that's hard to achieve with rotary "drilling" instruments. Air abrasion technique also reduces the risk of micro-fracturing, a problem sometimes caused by drilling.

This is the tooth finished with the filling. The patient was very happy because there was no drilling, no anesthesia, and no pain. She now had a beautiful and healthy smile before new school year.

Air abrasion, has opened up a whole new method of treatment for patients that preserves far more tooth structure than was ever previously possible, with greater patient comfort and superior aesthetics.