Dental Sealants Raleigh

Cavity Prevention

What if you could prevent cavities in hard-to-clean spaces? With dental sealants you can. These thin, protective coatings safeguard the deep grooves and pits in the chewing-surfaces of molars (back teeth.) Although they’re usually placed on children whose adult molars are erupting, adults can request sealants too. Help protect you and/or your little ones molars from cavities with dental sealants in Raleigh.

What Is A Sealant?

Dental sealants are not the same thing as a filling. The goal is to place a sealant soon after a molar erupts and before decay ever has a chance to take foothold. As a preventative service it also makes those areas easier to clean with a toothbrush, significantly improving oral hygiene.

Sealants are not permanent. Although they bond closely to the tooth, sticky foods such as caramel or taffy can potentially pull them off of your enamel. Ideally you want to avoid tacky-textured foods so that the sealant can last as long as possible.

How Dental Sealants Are Placed

Getting dental sealants is a relatively short procedure. Most teeth only take a few minutes to seal and you have the option of sealing several at a time. Typically, we can add sealant placement onto your routine dental cleaning & check-up appointment.

During sealant application your tooth is left intact, but slightly etched to gently roughen up the outermost layer. A white or transparent material is then applied to the grooves and allowed to flow into the deep pits on the tooth. Once all of the fissure areas are covered, a bright light is applied to cure the sealant. It only takes a matter of seconds for the sealant to solidify.

In order for sealants to successfully “take”, the tooth must be completely dry. Cotton or similar isolating material will be used to prevent saliva from interfering with the sealant placement.

What Sealants Cannot Do

Although sealants are extremely effective on chewing surfaces, they cannot protect at-risk spaces between your teeth. Flossing is still required to prevent new areas of decay from forming where teeth touch side-by-side. It’s also important to note that sealants are not permanent; eating sticky foods can potentially pull them off of your tooth.

Do Sealants Hurt?

Absolutely not! No numbing or drilling is needed to place a dental sealant. You might notice the tooth feeling slightly higher than normal for the first day or two, but the more you chew on it this mild sensation will improve.

The majority of our Raleigh dental sealants are placed on children, since permanent molars typically erupt around the ages of 6 and 12. If your little one is a bit too wiggly to sit still for a few minutes, we may want to schedule them to have the short procedure completed with nitrous oxide (laughing gas).