What Are the Different Types of Dental Specialists

You may know that there are different types of dentists who care for your dental health. Dentists are highly trained medical professionals who specialize in treating your teeth and mouth.

Would you like to know what other types of dentists there are? You’re in the right place.

General Dentist

A general dentist, also known as a family dentist, takes care of your dental health on a regular basis. The majority of their work involves essential preventative dental care. This includes regular teeth cleanings and educating patients about proper at-home dental care. They are also responsible for restorative dental care, including treating tooth decay, fillings, healing gum disease and root issues, whitening, and repairing cracked or missing teeth.

A general dentist can also inform you about getting braces, crowns, veneers, and other treatments. They will often refer you to a specific type of dental specialist, such as the following.

Orthodontist

You may know that orthodontists install braces, but they also correct misaligned teeth, jawbones, as well as other supporting facial structures. They improve people’s bites by producing custom braces, mouthguards, alignment trays, retainers, headgear, and facemasks that can fix developmental issues. All of these tools are made to improve deformed bone structure and teeth with spacing issues.

Oral and maxillofacial surgeon

This type of surgeon deals with the hard and soft tissues in and around the mouth. This refers to the cheeks, gums, lips, soft palate, hard palate, tongue, and facial tissues. They are trained in hospitals after their dental schooling and are capable of performing more invasive surgeries. They usually get the groundwork ready for future dental procedures as they take care of the necessary surgical improvements of teeth and bones before oral devices, fake teeth, or other cosmetic procedures can be done.

Periodontist

Periodontists are responsible for preventing and treating various gum problems. This can mean extreme gum inflammation or pain, severe gum disease (periodontal disease), or performing cosmetic skin grafting on gums or dental implants. Periodontists also consult general dentists on prevention and treatment that will work best for their patients.

Prosthodontist

Prosthodontists are concerned with providing oral prostheses that replace damaged or missing teeth. Oral prostheses are tooth appliances such as crowns, dentures, bridges, implants, and veneers. These teeth devices are often functional and cosmetic, and they can significantly improve the ability to bite, chew, and even speak properly. Prosthodontists work together with dental labs that create these appliances to ensure that the prostheses they work with are a perfect fit for their particular patient.

Endodontist

The pulp is the inner part of the tooth, protected by hard enamel and the inner layer of dentin. It is located below the gumline. It is made up of soft sensitive living tissue and is the part of the tooth that endodontists are responsible for.

Tooth pulp can become damaged or inflamed, through injury or decay, and it then needs to be treated. If it can be preserved, it will keep the tooth alive. Otherwise, the required procedure is a root canal treatment, which is probably the most common procedure for endodontists.

There are also three other dental specialties, including Certified Specialist in Oral Radiology, Certified Specialist in Oral Pathology, and Certified Specialist in Pediatric Dentistry.