Services
Services
Many children feel uncomfortable visiting the dentist for the first time. At The Wiggly Tooth, we strive to create an environment that is both welcoming and professional. From our special office design to our communication style, our team of pediatric dentists can help your child feel good about visiting the dentist and teach them how to properly care for their teeth.
Our team consists of highly-trained professionals who specialize in the treatment of children as well as those with special needs. We focus on children’s overall dental health, including prevention, early detection, and treatment of dental disease.
Pediatric Dentistry
Pediatric dentistry is a dental specialty focused on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of oral health problems in children. Pediatric dentists have specific training that qualifies them to provide care for children’s teeth and gums as they change throughout childhood. Pediatric dentists provide comprehensive care, from preventative treatment like cleanings and sealants to treatment for oral disease and injuries. A pediatric dentist will also counsel parents about a child’s nutritional and hygienic habits.
Did you know…
that early childhood caries is the most common chronic disease in American children? It is far more prevalent than other common childhood illnesses, such as asthma. Furthermore, tooth decay and gum disease that begins early in life are likely to progress over time, potentially leading to a lifetime of oral complications.
Frequently Asked Questions
What ages of children do pediatric dentists treat?
A pediatric dentist will treat patients from birth through adolescence. The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry recommends that young patients begin visiting a pediatric dentist no later than the first birthday when most children already have a first tooth. Children will continue to visit the dentist periodically throughout childhood to prevent tooth decay and gum disease.
What type of training does a pediatric dentist have?
A pediatric dentist has the same credentials as a family dentist, only with two additional years of training specifically in the oral treatment of babies, children, teens, and kids with special needs. They are trained to understand not only the dental needs of a child but also the psychological and emotional needs as well.
Sedation
Nitrous Oxide (Laughing Gas)
Nitrous oxide (N20), most commonly known as “laughing gas”, has been the primary sedation technique in dentistry for many years because of its safety, effectiveness, and non-irritating properties. Patients are able to breathe on their own and remain in full control of all bodily functions while using laughing gas. All our offices and clinicians are trained and certified to provide nitrous oxide.
Advantages of using nitrous oxide
Patients may wish to use nitrous oxide because of benefits such as:
No after-effect such as a “hangover”
Safe with no side effects to your heart, lungs, etc.
Effective in minimizing gagging
Works rapidly and takes as little as 2-3 minutes for relaxation and pain-killing properties to kick in
Sedation level can be altered at any time
Reasons not to use nitrous oxide
You should not utilize nitrous oxide if you have been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Though there are no other major contraindications to using nitrous oxide, you may not want to use it if you have emphysema, exotic chest problems, MS, a cold, or other difficulties with breathing.
Pediatric Moderate Oral Conscious sedation
Pediatric oral conscious sedation is more effective than nitrous oxide alone and can be very helpful for children with dental anxiety as well as for those with significant dental treatment needs. Similar to nitrous oxide, children receiving oral conscious sedation are able to respond purposefully to verbal commands as well as to light tactile stimulation.
Every child will receive a complete evaluation by their pediatric dentist to confirm that the patient is a safe candidate for sedation as well as to review instructions to ensure a safe and pleasant experience prior to the sedation appointment. Children under 13 years old will receive a cocktail of oral medications that they will drink. The dose of these medications is specifically tailored to each child and is based on their weight. All patients are monitored by a pediatric dental team using patient monitors that measure oxygenation of the blood, EtCO2, respiration, blood pressure, and basic cardiac function.
Sedation medications are delivered and monitored by our specialist pediatric dentists and teams who are licensed and certified to provide this level of sedation by the North Carolina Dental Board.
General Anesthesia
General anesthesia uses a combination of inhaled gasses and intravenous medications to render patients completely unconscious. While under general anesthesia, patients are unable to respond to or feel any pain during a medical procedure. General anesthesia may be used for dental procedures when moderate conscious/IV sedation is not sufficient to keep the patient comfortable and stable enough to undergo extensive treatment. Treatment under general anesthesia is rendered in our office, an ambulatory surgery center, or hospital setting with anesthesiologists, nurses, oral surgeons and/or pediatric dentists providing the treatment and monitoring of the patient. This is an outpatient procedure and patients are back home the same day and back to their normal routines the next day.
Oral Restrictions (Lip & Tongue Ties)
Between 4-10% of infants are born with some degree of frenum restriction in their tongue and lip, affecting their ability to breastfeed or even take a bottle. These tongue or lip ties can be released with a simple procedure known as a frenectomy.
What are the benefits of laser frenectomy?
Virtually no bleeding, even in cases with thick tissue
The laser kills bacteria and other microbes, making infection virtually impossible
Laser tip offers ultimate precision and accuracy
Capable of going as far back as needed to eliminate 100% of the restriction
What can you expect during your visit?
Your visit will consist of a consultation with Dr. Bland, during which a thorough assessment will be made to determine if your child is a candidate for a frenectomy. The procedure itself will take place in-office. The average laser frenectomy procedure lasts only 2-3 minutes and is virtually painless.
Healing and Recovery
Recovery time is usually quick, with minimal discomfort during the first 24 to 72 hours following the procedure. For infants, with the help of frequent breastfeeding and skin-to-skin contact, mother and child can recover quickly and enjoy the benefits of improved feeding time.
What are the symptoms of a lip or high palate tongue tie?
Child symptoms include:
Weight loss or slow weight gain
Frequent feedings (2 hours apart or less)
Shallow latch on breast or bottle
Clicking or popping sounds during nursing
Significant reflux or gassy tummy
Sucking callus on the lip
Fatigue quickly during feedings
Inability to eat age-appropriate solid foods
Gagging, choking, or vomiting foods
Persistent food fads Difficulties related to dental hygiene
Dental problems starting to appear (mal-positioned teeth, tooth decay, gingival recession)
Persistent dribbling or drooling Delayed development of speech
Deterioration of speech
Loss of self-confidence because they feel and sound different Development of poor compensation habits
Speech Articulation Difficulties:
Common problems occur with the following sounds: L , R, T, D, N, Th, Sh, Z
Cognate pairs: t/d, s/z, ch/j
Mommy symptoms include:
Painful breastfeeding
Breast still full of milk after feedings
Mastitis or thrush infection
Nipple trauma such as cracking, bleeding, bruising, creasing, or flattening
Orthodontics
Braces
The Wiggly Tooth offers orthodontic dentistry services for both children and adults, including the application of braces. Braces use constant, gentle pressure to move teeth over time into their proper positions. The three main components of your braces, the brackets, the archwire, and the elastics, work together to create the right amount of pressure to move teeth. In order for this force to remain constant, elastics must be worn all the time and changed every day.
Metal braces are the most popular with kids and teenagers. They love using different colors of ligature ties. With new technology improvements, these braces are smaller than ever before.
Translucent clear ceramic braces are the most popular with adults. You have to be very close to someone to be able to see them. However, because they are ceramic materials, they are more fragile.
Invisalign
The Wiggly Tooth offers orthodontic dentistry services for both children and adults, including the application of Invisalign. Invisalign uses a series of clear removable aligners to straighten your teeth without metal wires or brackets. The aligners are made through a combination of the dentist’s expertise and 3D computer imaging technology. You will wear each set of aligners for about 2 weeks, removing them only to eat, drink, brush, and floss. As you replace each aligner with the next in the series, your teeth will move – little by little, week by week – until they have straightened to the final position the dentist has prescribed. You’ll visit the dentist about once every 6 weeks to ensure that your treatment is progressing as planned.
Total treatment time averages 9 – 15 months and the average number of aligners worn during treatment is between 18 and 30, but both will vary from case to case.
Interceptive Orthodontics
At The Wiggly Tooth we focus on prevention using interceptive orthodontics, to help your child enjoy and grow into their great smile for life. As part of our prevention plan, we evaluate your child’s bite for signs of malocclusion at every appointment.
Malocclusion is simply the abnormal alignment of teeth, which can affect the way your child chews smiles, and even how well he can brush and floss his teeth.
Why Choose Early Interceptive Orthodontics?
Our dental team often encourages Interceptive Orthodontics to prevent more serious problems from developing later on that will be more difficult and complicated to treat. Not only is it a preventative therapy, but it can also completely reduce your child’s need for full Phase 2 braces, or minimize the treatment time if they are still needed.
Early intervention orthodontics….
Lowers the risk of tooth injury to protruding teeth
Enhances your child’s appearance
Gently guides the jaw growth for better facial symmetry
Encourages teeth into ideal position
Creates room for erupting teeth
Maintains space for adult teeth
Reduces the risk of tooth extraction
Optimizes proper bite and jaw development
We offer a wide range of Interceptive Orthodontic treatments. Should your child need traditional braces, we’ve partnered with a local orthodontist for further treatment.
Maintaining Space
Sometimes a baby tooth is lost prematurely, before it’s time for the adult tooth to come in. Without that tooth, adjacent teeth can gradually close the gap, creating an area that’s too crowded. To maintain that space for the adult tooth that will eventually appear, all of our offices use interceptive space maintainers.
A stainless steel band is placed around a neighboring tooth to anchor a small wire loop that spans the gap and touches the adjacent tooth. This customized orthodontic device prevents the teeth from drifting and maintains the needed, uncrowded space for your child’s adult tooth to erupt.
Expanders
Some patients have narrow upper arches that can cause future dental complications if left untreated. With a customized orthodontic expander from The Wiggly Tooth, we can widen the palate, creating more space for your child’s teeth to grow. A narrow jaw can also impact your child’s ability to draw breath through their nose, encouraging mouth-breathing, dry mouth, and even bad breath.
Cross Bite Correction
An ideal bite is one where the upper teeth close in front of the lower teeth. Children who have a crossbite – or an underbite – have the opposite placement. When the lower teeth close over the upper teeth, it can cause:
Higher risk of trauma to the teeth
Long-term abnormal wear of the teeth
Headaches
Muscle strain
Increased risk of cavities
Higher chance of gum disease
Your child’s Interceptive Orthodontic treatment includes crossbite correction, to guide their teeth and jaw into the ideal placement.
Prevention
At The Wiggly Tooth Pediatric Dentistry & Orthodontics, our team members provide comprehensive pediatric preventive dentistry services to keep your child’s smile healthy, confident and bright. Our pediatric dental team is trained to help your child understand the importance of preventive dental care as they grow and maintain effective oral hygiene habits for life.
We agree with the American Academy of Pediatric Dentists (AAPD) and recommend your child receive a preventive dental checkup every six months to keep their smile healthy.
What To Expect During Your Child’s Preventive Dentist Appointment
During your child’s regular teeth-cleaning appointment, our pediatric dental team will thoroughly examine their teeth and gums for any signs of gum disease or tooth decay. If we see anything concerning, we will fully inform you and discuss the recommended treatment options with you.
These regular preventive dentistry appointments also allow our pediatric dentists to closely monitor any new changes in your child’s mouth and ensure that you have the information you need to promote your child’s continued oral health.
After our pediatric dental team examines your child’s teeth and gums, we will thoroughly clean their teeth. We’ll also make sure you and your child have everything you need to take care of their teeth at home.
If your child is showing early signs of tooth decay, we may recommend adding the following preventive dentistry services to their preventive dental appointment.
Teeth-Strengthening Mineral Application
Dental teeth-strengthening mineral treatments are safe and effective in decreasing the number of cavities in children. Our pediatric dentists often recommend this simple preventive treatment along with dental sealants to help protect your child’s teeth. This teeth-strengthening mineral is quickly painted onto your child’s teeth and acts as a shield for the tooth’s outer enamel, protecting their smile from tooth decay.
Protective Pediatric Dental Sealants
Protective dental sealants are thin coats of plastic our doctors can apply to your child’s rear molars to protect their deep grooves and depressions from catching harmful bacteria and food particles. Studies show that 88% of cavities in American school-aged children are caused by food and bacteria being caught in their rear molars.
At The Wiggly Tooth, we typically recommend applying a protective sealant to your child’s back teeth, premolars, and molars. The sealant will last for several years and we will continue to ensure it stays intact during your child’s regular pediatric preventive dentistry appointments.
Have Questions About Our Preventive Dentistry Services?
Is your child due for a preventive dental checkup? Call The Wiggly Tooth to schedule an appointment with our pediatric dentists today!
If you have multiple children who need to see our pediatric dentist, we can schedule all of your children’s dental services at one convenient appointment time!
Special Needs
Our team knows that the needs of our patients are as varied and unique as their smiles. If your child requires a special needs dentist, for the following, but not limited to:
ADHD/ADD
Down’s Syndrome
Medical Conditions
You can rest assured that they’re in great hands at The Wiggly Tooth. Your child will benefit from our compassionate nature and extensive experience working with special needs children.
Tailored Dental Treatments
It’s not unusual for a child to be nervous before their appointment. When medical, behavioral, or developmental concerns are also a part of your child’s life, a visit to any new place can be intimidating.
At our Scottsdale and Chandler locations, we customize your child’s treatment and appointment to meet their comfort level and needs. Does your child need several short appointments instead of one regular visit? We can do that! Is your child anxious? We offer 3 different sedation options to help them relax:
Oral, conscious sedation helps take the anxious edge off, for a more peaceful treatment. It acts quickly, and because it’s administered orally, we can tailor it to your child’s needs.
Nitrous gas, also known as laughing gas, is administered through a soft nose piece, to help your child relax and float on the edge of calm awareness. Many patients find the warm, floaty sensation soothing and the effects wear off within minutes, once the treatment is completed.
Intravenous sedation is also available from the convenience of our practice. Safely administered, your child can nap through their dental therapy, and wake up to a healthier smile.
Even if your child’s first visit just needs to be a “happy visit” tour of the clinic, we’re happy to do that!
Child Friendly Vocabulary
As a pediatric practice, we use child-friendly words to describe what we do. For example, we do not use four-letter words (such as hurt, pain, pull and shot). Please support us in making this experience fun by not going into detail with young children and allowing us to explain in ways that keep anxiety to a minimum. Some examples of the terminology we use:
We Do NOT Use:
Shot
Drill
Pull the tooth
Hurt
We Do Use:
Squirt the sleepy juice
Tickle the sugar bugs
Do a tooth dance or wiggle the tooth
Feels weird/different
We Listen To You
Our goal is to help every child enjoy a healthy, beautiful smile – for life. Nobody knows your child as you do. That’s why we work closely with you, to co-plan your child’s appointment and any needed dental treatment. After all, you know best how to help your child feel relaxed, and how to coax them into the dental chair and work with us as we polish their teeth.
When it comes to caring for your child’s smile, we’re all ears! Please let us know if you have any concerns or suggestions regarding your child’s visit. Call today to schedule your child’s same-day appointment.
Get your child’s smile off to a great start, by protecting their teeth with professional, preventive dentistry services.
Emergency Dentistry
There are few things worse in life than a dental emergency unless it’s watching your child suffer through one. At The Wiggly Tooth, our entire dental team is always here for our dental families!
Don’t hesitate to call our office if your child has:
A cracked or knocked out tooth
Pain, redness or swelling
A broken crown or filling
Bleeding
Trauma to the teeth or lips
Signs of an abscessed tooth
A tooth that’s sensitive to sweet, cold or hot foods
What You Can Do
Dental pain rarely goes away on its own and often worsens. If your child is suffering from dental trauma or discomfort, same-day emergency appointments are available. Simply give us a call to let us know you’re on your way, so we can have everything ready for your child when you arrive.
If your child has knocked out a baby tooth, DO NOT put it back in, and call our office right away. If it is an adult tooth, immediate action can make all the difference! Being careful not to touch the root and put the tooth back in place until you can get your little one to our Scottsdale or Chandler office. If it can’t be put back, the tooth can also be carefully tucked into the cheek or stored in a cup of milk.
After Hours? Call Us!
When your little one has a dental emergency, you don’t want to talk to a machine. Existing patients can call our office, even when we’re closed, to speak with our answering service. They’ll take your information and forward your urgent concern to our doctors right away.
We’re Here To Help
If your child can’t sleep, eat or go to school, it’s a dental emergency and needs urgent treatment from our emergency dentists. We’ll get your child in, relieve their pain, and get their smile back on track! Call The Wiggly Tooth Pediatric Dentistry & Orthodontics right away.
