Restorative Services

When you are missing one or more teeth, your ability to chew and speak is affected. Your other teeth begin to move to fill in the space, which can cause pain and discomfort. Dental implants offer a permanent solution and can restore your smile’s function and beauty. Dental implants are expertly placed by a trusted specialist of Sheppard Family Dental Care. Drs. Ernie, Cindy or Scott Sheppard will coordinate closely with the implant specialist regarding your care.

Dental implants use surgical grade titanium fixtures, which are placed in the area of the missing tooth. After a period of healing, your new dental implant becomes a stable base for a custom crown. Dental implants are often used as an alternative to bridges, helping to maintain the original tooth structure of the healthy teeth on either side of a missing tooth.

A perfect fit and a lifelike smile – those are two of the primary goals that our Doctors will achieve if you need dentures to restore your smile. A proper fitting set of dentures is very important, as a good fit ensures that your dentures will allow you to retain much of your mouth’s function. This is vitally important for maintaining natural muscle tone in your face and jaw. Dentures will keep you looking and feeling healthy while helping you to retain a natural lifestyle.

A partial denture will provide you with a natural-looking way to restore your smile to its original brilliance. Your new partial dentures will restore the gaps in your smile due to missing teeth that cannot be corrected by a bridge. Partial dentures are removable and are made from a synthetic material supported by lightweight metal that mimics your gum tissue and teeth in order to give you a beautiful, new smile. The partial denture will preserve your bone structure, as well as the integrity of your existing teeth, by preventing them from shifting and tilting into the gaps created by your missing teeth.

Your teeth undergo a tremendous amount of wear and tear during your lifetime. Teeth may show this wear in a variety of ways, including discoloration, chipping, and cracking. Crowns restore your teeth and your smile to brilliancy once again. After some tooth preparation, crowns are specially fitted to restore the look and functionality of your smile. If you have pain when chewing or temperature sensitivity, ask your Sheppard Family Dental Care team if crowns are right for you.

Sometimes gum disease, injury, decay, or simply wear and tear result in the loss of a tooth. A large gap in your smile can create significant problems for your dental health if not corrected. Over time your biting pressure may shift to other parts of your mouth to compensate for an inability to efficiently chew in the area of the missing tooth. Neighboring teeth may begin to shift and move into the gap, resulting in discomfort, pain, and more problems down the road.

Bridges literally “bridge the gap” in your smile. Drs. Ernie, Cindy or Scott Sheppard create life-like, functional bridges to correct your smile, to restore your bite, and to alleviate your discomfort. After some preparation of the two neighboring teeth, crowns are created for them. A prosthetic tooth, or pontic, is fused between the crowns to fill the gap. A bridge can only be removed by a dentist. Therefore, you can rest assured that your porcelain bridge will be a lasting restoration to your oral health.

Sometimes removing tooth decay requires the removing a portion of your tooth. This portion is replaced with a porcelain inlay or onlay, depending on the location of decay. Drs. Ernie, Cindy or Scott Sheppard will customize an inlay or onlay to fill the space left behind when part of your tooth is removed. Inlays and onlays were traditionally made out of metal. Today, porcelain inlays and onlays are virtually indistinguishable from your natural teeth. They can provide relief from chewing pain, cavity pain, and tooth degeneration.