Dental Blog - Harley Street Dental Clinic

Cradling your smile

Everyone has a smile of their own, which is why they are so precious to us. At the same time, it’s easy to take your teeth for granted until a problem comes along and disrupts your smile. Maintaining a healthy dental routine is an essential part of long-lasting oral health, which is why it is always helpful to get the advice you need to contribute to your grin.

If you are looking for a dental clinic in W1 that gives you just that, we at Harley Street Dental Clinic want to welcome you into a friendly and sympathetic environment. A problem like a chipped or broken tooth does enough damage to your smile, so you shouldn’t have to fear a trip to the dentist too.

Your teeth, your choice

Whatever it is that might be affecting your smile, we think it is important that you feel comfortable enough to discuss it with one of our kind and experienced dentists. By arranging routine check-ups at our dental clinic in W1, you will know that your teeth will be thoroughly examined in a familiar environment.

At our dental clinic in W1, we provide a variety of treatments that help to improve oral health and enhance the look of a smile. By looking at your teeth during a check-up appointment, a dentist at Harley Street Dental Clinic will tell you to carry on as you are or recommend a particular treatment if they spot a problem. The useful thing about check-ups is that certain problems can be spotted early before they progress, and that means preventing an issue before it has to be treated.

The treatments we offer

If a particular flaw in your teeth is making you feel self-conscious when you smile, we can concentrate on the aesthetics. Discolouration might have occurred over time, as drinks like red wine and coffee do take their toll. This is why we provide teeth whitening treatments, to whiten and brighten smiles.

Certain problems can go unseen by you, such as the excessive build-up of plaque between the teeth. This is when a dentist might give your teeth a scale and polish, to eliminate complications like gum disease or tooth decay.

Frowns and fear are a thing of the past

Going to the dentist has its pros and cons for most people. If you always imagine a dental clinic to be a dull, dark and dingy place, then perhaps you’re thinking way back into 20^th century dentistry. The fear of drills can overpower the reality of a visit to the dentist, which in actual fact can be a pleasant experience.

At Harley Dental Street Clinic, we understand that people who are looking for a dentist in Harley Street want to be welcomed into a friendly and sympathetic environment. Whatever treatment you may or may not require, our friendly dentists aim to get to know you and the image of your ideal smile. In amongst the hustle and bustle of London, every patient is unique and should always take the time to look after their teeth.

A cosmetic dentist to enhance your smile

Your dental needs may stem further than the realms of oral health. Maintaining a healthy dental regime and brushing morning and night is a must, but what about when you want to enhance the beauty of your smile? Sometimes the discolouration and chipping of teeth cannot be helped, which is why we provide cosmetic treatments to focus on the aesthetics of your smile. This includes treatments like teeth whitening, porcelain veneers and gum lifts.

Smile makeovers concentrate on the appearance of your smile as a whole, serving to fix any minor flaws that might chip away at your confidence. You will firstly visit our cosmetic dentist so that they can thoroughly examine your teeth, also giving you the chance to discuss the ways in which you would like to improve your smile. From then on, they can begin to create a treatment plan unique to you. This might even include a 3D image of your future smile.

A dentist in Harley street to be proud of

We are a dentist in Harley Street that looks out for the grins and oral health of our patients, and your comfort is always put first. Whatever worries your teeth may be giving you, we want to restore your comfort and confidence and give you a smile to be delighted with.

Beyond the need for being cool

Maybe in a parallel universe, the height of cool is wearing great chunks of complicated metal brackets and wires on the teeth, but it isn’t here, not even at a Steampunk convention. Braces are forever associated with being a pre-pubescent nerdy kid who knows all the answers in class and but lacks friends and certainly romantic admirers. It’s not good, but there you have it. Braces are not cool, unless they are invisible braces in Harley Street. Actually, they are probably not all that cool either, but as they are invisible, the arbiters of cool don’t get a say.

For image-conscious adults and self-conscious teens having invisible braces can be a godsend. Wonky teeth aren’t attractive, but somehow, they are less fascinating to strangers than braces. With invisible braces in Harley Street, our patients get the straightening without the staring.

The term ‘invisible braces’ in Harley Street, covers several devices. Some are more invisible than others.

For complex issues

Incognito and WINTM are the two leading brands of lingual braces, which we use here at Harley Street Dental Clinic. These braces are hidden away on the tongue side of the teeth, making them really invisible. These are the invisible braces for complex alignment issues, using tried and trusted bracket and wire technology, with each bracket custom-made for each one of your teeth. They take a bit of getting used to but they really do the job.

For less complex issues

Invisalign in the brand name for the original clear aligners. These are based on the idea of the mouth guard, fitting over the entire arch of teeth. Made of very thin transparent plastic, they all but disappear from view once they are in place. Invisalign treats mild to moderate and some complex issues very well. The aligners are removable for eating and cleaning.

We also have clear braces, which are bracket and wire braces, but made with clear ceramic brackets and tooth-coloured wires, to blend in with the teeth.

Come and see Dr Emma Laing

She will be able to advise you as to which treatment is going to work best for your case, while also taking into account your lifestyle and any budgetary constraints.

Lost something?

Losing your teeth can be a distressing experience. You might find yourself having to hold back when you want to smile and laugh with your friends and family. Or it might be that you find it hard to look at your teeth in the same way. Tooth loss changes the dynamics of a smile because something is missing, but that something doesn’t have to be lost forever.

Dental Implants Harley Street At Harley Street Dental Clinic, we want to help you find the happiness in the smile that you know and love. Losing a tooth isn’t quite like losing a priceless possession when dental implants in Harley Street are on the scene. This is a treatment that encourages you to forget about the teeth lost and helps you move on to natural-looking replacements.

How dental implants in Harley Street work

Dental implants imitate the work of natural tooth roots. As small titanium screws, they are placed into the jawbone of the missing tooth. They are given time to heal and fuse with the jawbone and before long, a replacement tooth will be secured onto the implant. These replacements are crafted especially for you by experienced dental technicians, who make sure they match the colour and shape of your remaining teeth.

The cons of losing teeth and the pros of replacing them

In Harley Street, dental implants are tackling tooth loss and all of the irritating issues that come with it. Losing your teeth can affect how you bite and chew from the point of loss, tending to cause discomfort or limiting you to the simplicities of soft food. In that sense, tooth loss interrupts both your smile and your lifestyle, making it hard to ignore.

The idea of dental implants in Harley Street is that they replace your teeth and restore your oral health, as well as your smile. This treatment steals you away from the possibility of the sunken look acquired after bone loss. By stimulating the remaining bone to grow and mesh around the metal, dental implants save you from the disturbance of bone loss and intend to help you forget that your tooth was ever lost in the first place.

Healthy teeth for life

Every parent wants their children to be happy and healthy throughout their lives. Parents work tirelessly to make sure their children get the right opportunities to create good lives in adulthood. An important part of a good, healthy life is having healthy teeth and gums and the way to make sure your children have them for life is to get them comfortable with coming to the dentist from an early age.

Paediatric Dentistry Harley Street At Harley Street Dental Clinic, we see paediatric dentistry in Harley Street as about far more than check-ups and cleanings. We see it as a team effort between us and you to help your children create lifelong habits of good oral hygiene.

People can build up a fear around going to the dentist if something scares them when they are young, or if their parents don’t seem all that happy with going to the dentist. We suggest the best way to get your children into a positive frame of mind is to bring them along to your own appointments or those of their siblings from the get-go. Then, when your little one’s first tooth comes through, you can bring them to their first check-up.

We have great dentists here in our Harley Street clinic who have trained in dentistry for children. We also have really great hygienists, who can make learning how to brush teeth fun for youngsters.

On top of that we also have treatments that can help protect your kids against tooth decay, which is far more prevalent among children than adults. This is because kids are still mastering the skills of tooth brushing and because they consume more sugary drinks and snacks than adults.

Fluoride treatments

We can paint extra fluoride onto the teeth to mineralise them and this will help protect them against the acids that cause decay.

Fissure sealants

We paint the chewing surfaces of the back teeth with a protective coating to stop acids from coming into contact with the teeth.

Braces

We also suggest bringing your children in for a braces assessment when their first adult teeth have come through. We can predict if they will be misaligned and treat them while they are coming through rather than waiting until they are already descended.

How is your jaw doing?

It’s all well and good being at the top of your game as a business person in London. You earn great money, you have a lovely house, the kids love their school and all the parties and you all love those holidays. But how do you sleep at night? If you are waking up with a sore jaw, sore teeth or headaches, you need to get yourself to the dentist in W1.

Dentist in W1 One of the downsides of being busy and successful is the stress and for many of us this can show up as temporomandibular joint disorder, or TMJ disorder for short. This is a disorder of the jaw joint and nearly always comes from clenching or grinding your teeth at night. It’s one of the body’s ways of dealing with stress and night-time grinding can wear away your back teeth, causing them to eventually split or crumble.

Here at Harley Street Dental Clinic, your dentist in W1, we see quite a few patients coming in with TMJ issues, which can also be caused by the top and bottom teeth not fitting together properly.

Here are some more symptoms indicative of TMJ disorder:

Clicking in the jaw
Facial pain
Neck and should pain.

Night-time bite guards

The first thing to do is protect your teeth from damage. The bite guard is made from hard plastic and is made to measure. The idea is that when you wear it at night, it will keep your teeth in a position that relaxes your jaw muscles.

Cerezen

Cerezen is the brand name of a tiny appliance that fits inside your ear canal. They are custom-made, 3D-printed hollow inserts that fit inside your ear. They are tiny and discreet, which means you can wear them all day, which is harder to do with a mouth guard. They are a bit uncomfortable if you try to clench your jaw, so when you do, you’ll soon relax it again.

The inserts can’t get lost inside your ear and have a tiny tab on them so you can easily pull them out.

Come and see your dentist in W1 and let us help you get rid of those headaches.

Head straight for smiles

Even thinking about teeth-straightening treatment seems pointless if you are convinced that traditional metal braces are the only option. Although these sorts of braces are designed to solve crooked teeth or cross-bites, certain patients may not be able to even consider wearing metal braces as an adult. This is why orthodontics in Harley Street comes with different treatments to suit individual patients.

Orthodontics in Harley Street In Harley Street, orthodontics is dedicated to straightening teeth and relieving you of the struggles and discomforts that can come with crooked teeth and cross-bites. It is important to know that straighter teeth are healthier teeth and at Harley Street Dental Clinic, we want to give you the healthy smile that everyone deserves to flaunt. If the gaps between your teeth are closed in, it means there is fewer places for plaque to build up and cause further complications. If you once had trouble biting and chewing on your favourite foods, teeth-straightening treatments work to align your bite.

Orthodontics in Harley Street

We have a range of treatments at Harley Street Clinic and there is at least one for the severity of your case and your lifestyle needs. If discretion is what you are looking for in a teeth-straightening treatment then you might like the sound of lingual braces and Invisalign.

Firstly, lingual braces are fairly similar to traditional braces. Brackets are placed onto each tooth and wire runs through them, serving to gradually shift the teeth to their correct positions at the end of treatment. They sound like metal braces, with the only difference being their invisibility. They are different because they are placed on the back of your teeth, making it almost impossible for anyone, including you, to see them.

As for Invisalign, this a treatment that is both clear and flexible. This is a series of clear aligners, given to you to switch over every 7-10 days. With every set, your teeth are gently being shifted until they reach their desired positions. The aligners are not fixed so you can remove them when you brush and floss your teeth.

The journey towards a straighter and enhanced smile should be exciting and the discreet options of orthodontics in Harley Street make it all the more appealing.

Get a second opinion

If your dentist has told you that you don’t have enough bone left in your jaw for dental implants, in Harley Street you may well find that there are ways to solve this problem and give you the implants you want. Here at Harley Street Dental Clinic, we have methods to restore the bone in the jaw that can be used before dental implant surgery.

What’s so important about the jawbone?

It might seem a bit odd to get turned down for dental implants because of your jawbone; after all, for you it’s the teeth that are the issue, not the bone. But actually, what makes dental implants in Harley Street so effective is that they are anchored into the jawbone. Being firmly embedded into the jawbone is what makes them stable and secure enough to chew steaks and bite into apples.

What goes wrong with the jawbone

The trouble is that if you have been missing teeth for a while, or if you have had gum disease, your jawbone may well not be what it once was. The jawbone needs to be constantly stimulated by little tremors coming down through the tooth roots every time the teeth come together. These vibrations act as a signal to the bone cells to renew themselves as the bone is still in use. When there are no tremors, the bone cells not only stop renewing themselves, they actually start to dissolve, releasing the apparently no-longer-needed nutrients back into the bloodstream. The result for you is that your jawbone starts to shrink, and to lose its density. Trying to anchor a dental implant into a bone like that is like trying to anchor it into that green oasis stuff people use in flower arrangements. It crumbles at the smallest stress.

How we can fix your jawbone

We can prepare your jaw for dental implants in Harley Street either by giving you a bone graft, packing bone material into your jaw, or by giving you a sinus lift, putting new bone material into the enlarged sinus cavities on the upper jaw. It does add extra weeks to the implant process, but it’s worth it if you want restorations that act like natural teeth.

What to do about mouth ulcers

Here at Harley Street Dental Clinic, we are interested in everything that goes on inside your mouth, not just your teeth. When you come to this dental clinic in W1 for a check-up, we look at the health of your gums and other soft parts of your mouth, as well as your head and neck. One thing we come across is mouth ulcers, those annoying and sometimes painful patches that seem to appear out of nowhere, hang around and then, hopefully, with a bit of encouragement, go away again.

Where do mouth ulcers come from?

Mouth ulcers are red, white or yellow sore patches inside the mouth. There are two types of mouth ulcers.

The first is a reaction to some sort of trauma in the mouth; maybe you bit your lip or cheek when you were eating. You usually only get one at a time and they are next to the site of the damage. Once the source is removed, the mouth ulcer goes away. These are called traumatic ulcers.

Recurrent aphthous stomatitis, on the other hand, is the long name for the problem of the repeated appearance of clusters of little mouth ulcers in children and young people. No one knows what causes this condition, but the ulcers come in groups of about 4-6 and are tiny.

If any of the ulcers are still around after three weeks, it’s a good idea to get them checked out at the dental clinic in W1.

Other causes of mouth ulcers

There may be an infection, such as herpes simplex behind the ulcers, although these are different from cold sores, which appear on the lips or around the mouth. More rarely, other viruses or bacteria may be behind the ulcers, and anaemia and other skin diseases or blood disorders can also be to blame. A mouth ulcer that won’t go away could be the first sign of mouth cancer.

Let us have a look

With so many possible causes for mouth ulcers, don’t ignore them. If you have had one for more than three weeks, make an appointment at our dental clinic in W1 so we can examine it.

Catch it early

How long would you like to have your own teeth for? Til you are 30? 40? That doesn’t sound too unreasonable for modern dentistry. Do you expect to start losing your teeth in your 40s? Maybe you think they will be pretty much all gone by the time you are 70? Certainly, you will be all gums and toothless grins by the time you reach 80?

Well no, that’s not how we see it at Harley Street Dental Clinic. At this dentist in Harley Street, in the heart of London’s private medical district, we believe that, as long as we work as a team with you to practise preventive dentistry, there’s no reason why you should not hang onto most, if not all, of your teeth for life.

And even less reason why your kids should ever have to lose their teeth.

Preventive dentistry

Modern dentistry focuses on prevention rather than cure, and while we may not be able to prevent every single cavity, with your help, we can catch any issues with your teeth early enough to be able to solve them with very simple treatments, such as small fillings.

It’s all about the hygiene routine

Preventive dentistry is a combined effort between the patient and their dentist in Harley Street. Your part of the deal is to diligently practice a twice-daily oral hygiene routine. This means:

Brushing for two minutes with a soft or medium bristle brush
Cleaning between the teeth with floss or interdental brushes
Cleaning your tongue too
Maybe use a mouthwash
Come in to your dentist in Harley Street for bi-annual check-ups.

Our part of the deal is to check your mouth and teeth over for early signs of decay, gum disease and oral cancer. Also, to see if there are any other problems on the way, perhaps caused by erosion and attrition from brushing, or bruxism from night-time tooth grinding. Our hygienist (check-ups and hygienist sessions often come hand in hand) appointments are your chance to get any build-up of plaque and tartar removed.

If we both do our bit, you can have your own teeth for a very long time.

Enquiry Form

Contact Us