Diagnostic

• Dental Examination
  If you cannot remember the date of your last dental appointment, then it may be time for your next visit. Your biannual dental checkup is your opportunity to keep the focus on your oral health, and when you skip them, it can be a real problem for your smile. As plaque and tartar start to accumulate, they can lead to tooth decay and periodontal disease, so it is important to stick to your schedule of cleanings and examinations.

Preventive

• Teeth Cleaning
  Keeping your smile healthy for life is our main goal, and the foundation of achieving that goal is to maintain a regular schedule of preventive exams and cleanings. In addition to helping you avoid the development of issues like cavities and gingivitis (early gum disease), each visit also helps us keep track of any changes that might occur. When necessary, we can customize an appropriate, conservative treatment to address such changes early and help you prevent them from becoming more serious concerns.
• Fluoride Treatment
  Even with good education and an early introduction to dental health care, children are often still susceptible to conditions like cavities that result from excessive plaque and tartar buildup on their teeth. If we notice that your child’s teeth have become weaker or more likely to develop cavities, we can suggest further preventive measures such as fluoride treatment, which strengthens tooth enamel against decay. We can also recommend dental sealants, or biocompatible layers that are painted over children’s molars to create a barrier that stops plaque and tartar buildup.
• Dental Sealants
  Children’s dentistry services, including fluoride and dental sealants, provide children with additional protection for their smiles.

Restorative

• Fillings
• Resin Composite
  In previous decades, the most common material used for tooth fillings was metal amalgam – a mixture of trace metals, including mercury. At our office, we use tooth-colored composite resin instead of metal for a variety of reasons, such as...
• Veneers
  For many people, the biggest challenge to improving their smiles is the number of different tooth blemishes they have to deal with. For example, if you exhibit tooth discoloration along with one or more chipped or malformed teeth, then it may seem like you need at least two or three different procedures to correct them. Yet, with an appropriate number of custom-made porcelain veneers, we can design a complete smile makeover to correct all of your smile’s concerns with just a single cosmetic treatment.
• Crowns
  If your tooth gets knocked out, pick it up by the crown. If possible, place the tooth back in your mouth and bite down gently to hold it in place. If you cannot do this, keep the tooth moist by storing it in milk and bring it with you to your appointment.
• Bridges
  There are several reasons why losing a tooth can have a detrimental effect on the rest of your overall health. For instance, the gap that’s left in your smile can create balancing issues with your bite’s pressure. To make up the difference, your remaining teeth can shift toward the gap, creating a host of other dental health concerns on top of your missing tooth. A custom-designed dental bridge, which is often crafted from lifelike dental porcelain, can stop this effect by replacing the lost tooth and closing the gap in your smile.
• Dental Bonding
  Even the smallest blemishes can have a dramatic impact on your smile’s appearance, and in many cases, your overall confidence. However, when tooth blemishes seem severe, fixing them might seem complicated and patients often hesitate or procrastinate to improve their smiles out of fear of needing extensive treatment. However, with customized tooth bonding and contouring, we can address a wide range of cosmetic blemishes without having to drastically alter your healthy, natural tooth structure.
• Restorative Dentistry
  Helping you avoid cavities is a common focus of routine preventive dental care. However, they’re still the most common chronic dental issue for children and adults alike, and treating them is a frequent focus of restorative dentistry. For most mild to moderate cavities, a tooth filling is the easiest and most effective solution, especially when the filling is created from tooth-colored, biocompatible resin. Made from finely ground acrylic and quartz-like particles, the composite resin not only effectively fills your cavity, but also blends in discreetly with your tooth and offers optimal protection against further tooth decay.

Endodontics

• Root Canal Treatment
  Tooth decay – the driving force behind cavity development – begins when oral bacteria weaken your tooth enamel and infect the tooth’s main structure. When addressed early enough, it can be alleviated by treating the cavity with a tooth-colored filling. However, in severe cases, the decay can reach the pulp chamber at the center of a tooth, where the nerves and blood vessels travel through the tooth’s root canal to your jawbone. To alleviate the pain and stop the infection from growing worse, we may recommend root canal (endodontic) treatment to remove the decay from your tooth’s inner structure.

Prosthodontics

• Dentures
  The goal of any denture is to restore your smile’s appearance and ability to function properly after suffering severe tooth loss. Traditionally, dentures have been crafted as full prostheses that replace all of the teeth on an upper or lower dental ridge. Today’s complete dentures are often crafted from lifelike porcelain, using digital imaging to create highly precise measurements and models. If you still retain healthy teeth along your dental ridge, then we can customize a partial denture that fits around and supports them, allowing us to rebuild your smile around the healthy teeth that remain.

Implants

• Dental Implants
  Because of their unique ability to replace your lost teeth roots, dental implants are often considered the optimal tooth replacement option. This ability offers several important benefits, including...

Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery

• Tooth Extractions
  Because tooth extraction is typically a last resort, we’ll thoroughly examine your tooth and explore all options before recommending it. Some of the most common reasons for tooth extraction include...

Orthodontics

• Invisalign Orthodontics
  Invisalign® and ClearCorrect® aligners are made from nearly invisible, BPA-free acrylic. By utilizing specially designed clear aligners instead of brackets and wires, Invisalign® and ClearCorrect® offer several different benefits for patients who need to straighten their teeth. Those benefits include...
• Braces
  Subtlety may not be what you think of when you consider orthodontic treatment, especially if you’ve worn braces before. Therefore, when older teens and adults need to straighten crooked teeth, they may hesitate to undergo treatment because they’d prefer to avoid having to wear braces again. Fortunately, we offer two systems of custom-designed clear aligners that can correct several different kinds of malocclusion (tooth misalignment), allowing many patients to enjoy straighter, healthier teeth without the need for traditional braces.

General

• Teeth Whitening
  Keeping your teeth clean and healthy with good hygiene and regular preventive care is an excellent way of preserving their natural, beautiful appearance. However, it isn’t always a guarantee against stains showing up on your teeth from exposure to things like food, beverages, and more. Fortunately, as long as you’ve kept your teeth healthy, we can often effectively erase the stains with professional cosmetic teeth-whitening. For optimal convenience, the procedure can be performed during a single visit to our office or from the comfort of your own home.
• Cosmetic Dentistry
  Because cosmetic dentistry treatments involve the appearance of your smile, they’re typically minimally invasive as well highly effective. For example...
• General Dentistry
  After receiving her BS from Gonzaga University, Dr. Pietrok earned her DDS at Marquette University, and she continues to pursue her passion for continuing education. She became a Fellow of the Academy of General Dentistry in 2011 and a Master in 2013. She has also held leadership positions in and is currently a member of the following organizations...