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Drill Free Cavity Treatment Takes The Pain Out Of Going To The Dentist

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- How do you like going to the dentist to have cavities filled and drilled? Not so much?

Imagine being a young child with cavities -- even worse!

As CBS2's Dr. Max Gomez explained there is a new way to stop cavities in their tracks without drilling.

Many people think, 'what's the big deal with cavities in baby teeth? The child is going to lose them anyway.'

Baby teeth are important place holders for eating, speaking, and a toothache can impact general help. Stopping a cavity in kids can be an ordeal, but there is a better way.

Drilling a cavity in a young child involves giving them nitrous to calm them before filling the cavity.

"There's also novacaine, it's a shot, then removing the decay, put in the filling or even a crown. It's a lot to ask of a kid," Dr. Amr Moursi, NYU College of Dentistry said.

That's what had Phoebe Segovia worried about her son, Victor Sebastian. Victor is autistic and often doesn't do well with new situations.

"He has cavities in front, his front teeth are split wider," Segovia said.

Instead of sedation, shots, and drilling, Victor is going to have a very effective and inexpensive liquid applied to his cavities. It's called silver diamine fluoride.

"Key ingredient in SDF is silver. It's anti-bacterial, stops the bacteria that causes the cavity, and fluoride which mineralizes the tooth and makes it a stronger surface preventing more decay," Dr. Moursi said.

While Victor isn't crazy about the treatment, it's completely painless and takes less than a minute. Within seconds afterwards he was smiling for the camera.

"This is good, no drilling on the teeth," Phoebe said.

Dr. Moursi, the chair of pediatric surgery at NYU said silver diamine fluoride doesn't completely replace filling a cavity, it buys time to decide the best approach.

"SDF almost like a bandaid, stops progression of a cavity long enough to decide the best way to treat and sometimes the best way to treat is observe and maybe let the tooth fall out on its own. If it's gonna fall out in the next year, and you can keep the child out of pain, etc. That might be the best option," Dr. Moursi said.

The only downside to the silver solution is it will discolor the surface of the tooth, turning it dark brown or black which is usually the color of a filling anyway, and in kids it's just till that baby tooth falls out.

Silver diamine fluoride is also FDA approved for adults.

 

 

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