Dental Sealants in Scarborough

Dental Sealants in Scarborough, ON

Pit and Fissure Sealants are a safe and effective way to prevent dental caries and should be considered as part of an overall caries-preventive strategy that includes promotion of healthy eating and twice daily brushing and flossing. The many grooves, pits and fissures on the chewing surfaces of young teeth are often hard for brush bristles to reach and therefore cannot be cleaned properly. Dental sealants help coat these decaying grooves and fissures to stop your child’s teeth from further damage.

What Are The Benefits Of Sealants?

Resin-based fissure sealants are effective at preventing caries on pit and fissure surfaces in children and adolescents. Sealants are slippery and make it harder for plaque that causes decay to stick in the pits and grooves of molars. Because sealants can prevent more than 80% of dental decay in children, they reduce the need for fillings and other more expensive treatment. Sealants are an economical preventive measure to keep teeth healthy for years.

A sealant is a thin, tooth-coloured coating that we paint onto the chewing surfaces of the back teeth. Those surfaces are covered in tiny grooves and pits, and they tend to be narrower than a single bristle on a toothbrush. That means food and plaque can settle down into them and stay put, even when your child is brushing well.

The sealant flows into those grooves and sets into a smooth, protective layer. Once it's in place, the surface is easier to keep clean and there's far less room for the bacteria that cause cavities to take hold. It's a quiet little safeguard that sits on the tooth and does its job day after day.

Sealants are mostly used for children and teens, but they aren't only for young mouths. Adults who have deep grooves and no decay or fillings in those back teeth can benefit too, so it's worth asking us at your next visit whether they make sense for you.

The molars at the back of the mouth do the heavy lifting when it comes to chewing, and their surfaces have the deepest grooves of any teeth. They're also the hardest for a young child to reach with a toothbrush. Put those two things together and you can see why back teeth are where cavities most often start.

Because of that, the timing of sealants usually follows the arrival of the permanent molars:

• Around age 6, when the first permanent molars come in behind the baby teeth.
• Around age 12, when the second permanent molars appear.
• Sometimes earlier, on baby molars with deep grooves, if a child is more prone to cavities.

The sooner a fresh molar is sealed after it comes through, the less chance there is for decay to get started in those grooves. We'll keep an eye on which teeth have erupted at each visit and let you know when the timing is right. You can read more about how we care for young patients on our children's dentistry page.

Getting a sealant placed is quick and comfortable. There's no drilling and no freezing, and most children are surprised by how little there is to it. Here's how a visit usually goes:

1. We clean the tooth so the chewing surface is fresh and free of plaque.
2. We dry the tooth and keep it dry, since the sealant bonds best to a dry surface.
3. We apply a mild gel that gently roughens the surface so the sealant grips well, then rinse and dry again.
4. We paint the liquid sealant into the grooves and pits with a small brush.
5. We harden it with a curing light for a few seconds, and check the bite so it feels normal.

The whole thing takes just a few minutes per tooth, and your child can eat and drink as usual straight afterward. Many kids find it easier than a regular cleaning, since there's no scraping involved.

Sealants help protect the grooved chewing surfaces, but they don't cover the smooth sides of teeth or the spaces in between, so they work best alongside everything else that keeps a mouth healthy.

What sealants work best with

Think of a sealant as a teammate rather than a replacement. To get the most out of it, keep up with:

• Brushing twice a day with a fluoride toothpaste.
• Flossing to clean between teeth where a brush can't reach.
• Fluoride, which strengthens the whole tooth, not just the grooves.
• Regular checkups and cleanings to catch small issues early.

We check them at every visit

Sealants can wear down or chip over time, especially with years of chewing. At your regular checkups we'll look them over, make sure they're still doing their job, and reapply if one has worn thin or come loose. Keeping them in good shape is part of the ongoing care we offer across our pediatric dentistry services at all five clinics across Scarborough and East York.