The Patient Journey
Your first appointment and what to bring along
At Mark Tangri Dental Excellence we make sure the minute you step through our door you are made to feel comfortable within a warm, friendly environment. We always recommend that you arrive in plenty of time for your appointment so you are relaxed and unhurried. Tea, coffee or water is offered whilst you complete medical history and social history forms that help us understand if there are any important potential risk factors. Please remember to bring along a list of medications you take and the contact details of your medical practitioners.
Clinical assessment
One of our dental professionals will chat to you about your wants, fears, desires, phobias and expectations from us. Depending on the nature of your initial visit either an assessment or comprehensive examination, we will clinically examine you. Examinations include:
Extra-oral examination
looking for any lumps, bumps, facial asymmetry facial profile etc.
Intra-oral examination
Assessing soft tissues for any signs of disease. We check the lips, floor of mouth, under your tongue, the sides of your tongue, the cheeks and sulci, the hard and soft palate.
The gums
Checking for gum pockets and assessing levels of plaque control.
The teeth
Checking for cavities, fractures and wear. Also looking at previous restorations and their current condition.
The bite
The way teeth come together can cause disharmony within the overall biomechanics of your mouth.
Further investigations
Depending on findings of examinations we may require further investigations, for example x-rays (radiographs), models of your mouth, vitality testing – to test in the teeth are alive or if the nerve is damaged in some way.
From the results of these examnations we formulate diagnoses for your teeth and gums. We discuss all findings their relevance and what this means for you. We overlay your wants and current conditions to discuss options to manage your oral health. We also discuss the pros and cons of each option, how long things will take, what will treatments cost etc. allowing you to make an informed decision for the right reasons. Sometimes making these decisions may take time and require more than one visit.
Treatment Phases
Phase 1
Urgent / emergency treatment
We aim for you to never be in this phase.
Phase 2
Disease management
Dealing with all active disease. Gum disease. Caries – fillings and root fillings. We deal with the causes of disease, not just the disease itself. We manage risk factors, alter modifying factors and aim to eliminate aetiological factors. This gives a stable and healthy foundational basis to move on to phase 3 or 4
Phase 3
Restoring health
This could be Invisalign, implants, tooth whitening, composite bonding veneers etc
Phase 4
Long term maintenance
Once we have attained health, in phase 2 we want to maintain health in phase 4. We want you to keep as many of your teeth for as long as possible, ideally all your remaining teeth for the rest of your life.
Phases 1 & 3 are patient driven and often where patients initial conversations start.
Phases 2 & 4 are the important ones that patients realise once shown how they will improve the current condition of their mouths and the future success of any phase 3 activity.
Often Phase 2 could be completed in a visit or sometimes it can take nine months – all depends on where you start, the nature of initial disease presentation and how long we have to wait for you to heal from initial therapies.
Phase 3 could take a month or 12 months, again this depends on wants, desires and expectations of outcome. For more advanced treatments in phase 3, often we have to wait for things to heal, hence the timings
Phase 4 is critical for long term stability and overall success of therapies and treatments.
For some people who spend a lot of money in phases 2 or 3, it is reassuring to know there is long term support for them going forward.
We run Denplan maintenance programmes to help with spreading the costs of phase 4. Discover more about Denplan here.
