DENTAL SEALANTS

The first step in maintaining a healthy mouth is preventing tooth decay, and sealants can offer major protection against cavities.

Your teeth are covered with a sticky film of bacteria, called plaque. When you don’t clean your teeth after eating, plaque bacteria use sugar and starch in food as a source of energy. The bacteria convert the sugar or starch into harmful acids that attack tooth enamel for as long as twenty minutes or more. Repeated attacks may cause the enamel to break down, resulting in cavities.

A dental sealant is an acrylic-like material that helps shield out decay-causing bacteria from the chewing surfaces of back teeth. Dr. Berkovich will base her diagnosis and recommendation for dental sealants on the patient’s susceptibility to tooth decay and how the teeth were shaped when they originally formed below the gum. Though there is no specific age at which sealants are indicated, often Dr. Berkovich we will recommend that the best time to apply them is when the six-year molars (the first permanent back teeth) appear.