08/25/2026 Ask the Expert with Ghareeb Dental Group

I want to start a little bit about – and this is really a good topic because we – We talk a lot about things that you can do to repair teeth.

There's all kinds of different things that you guys bring up on this show.

Folks can come in and get evaluated for different types of repair and things like that.

But sometimes it's like a tire that you patch.

Eventually, you just have to replace the tire.

And maybe that's not the best analogy in the world.

But when it comes to taking care of your teeth, patching the problems that are in your mouth and different things along those lines, there comes a point where you have to – determine if continuing down that path is the best or maybe you have to look for another program.

You can come up with something better.

That's right.

What we see, it's one of the most common things that come into the office, is a patient comes in and there's a tooth that has a significant break in it or a significant cavity that's pretty large.

Maybe it's had some fillings done before.

And the question is, Doc, can we patch this up and fix it and get us through for a little bit longer or fix it completely that way? Or do we have to say we've done enough of that and we really have to go to the next step? And then we talk about what are the next steps.

And you can take this however far you'd like to go with one single tooth, a corner of the mouth.

We call it a quadrant.

We break things up into four sections.

Or you can talk about entirely.

All of your teeth are starting to do this.

What do we do in general for a total plan? But the bottom line is that I do use the car analogy a lot of times.

Your tires are getting bald or you have a hole in a tire.

We can patch it, and those patches last for a period of time, but it's not a permanent solution.

So we can typically patch up a tooth permanently.

But we have to know that this may not be the best thing for the tooth or for you in the long term.

So after that, once we've kind of filled it to its maximum amount, what can happen is the tooth then is in danger of fracturing or breaking or becoming weak and needing a root canal down the line if we leave it in that condition.

So the next step typically would be Um, you know, kind of upgrade it in a sense to the next, um, more complex treatment would be a crown on that tooth.

So if you filled it all that you can, then a crown, what that is, some people call them caps and they, it covers the entire two, 360 degrees with a strong porcelain material, sometimes a metal material like a gold we can use as well, but it holds the tooth together and protects it from future breaking.

I want to start a little bit about – and this is really a good topic because we – We talk a lot about things that you can do to repair teeth.

There's all kinds of different things that you guys bring up on this show.

Folks can come in and get evaluated for different types of repair and things like that.

But sometimes it's like a tire that you patch.

Eventually, you just have to replace the tire.

And maybe that's not the best analogy in the world.

But when it comes to taking care of your teeth, patching the problems that are in your mouth and different things along those lines, there comes a point where you have to – determine if continuing down that path is the best or maybe you have to look for another program.

You can come up with something better.

That's right.

What we see, it's one of the most common things that come into the office, is a patient comes in and there's a tooth that has a significant break in it or a significant cavity that's pretty large.

Maybe it's had some fillings done before.

And the question is, Doc, can we patch this up and fix it and get us through for a little bit longer or fix it completely that way? Or do we have to say we've done enough of that and we really have to go to the next step? And then we talk about what are the next steps.

And you can take this however far you'd like to go with one single tooth, a corner of the mouth.

We call it a quadrant.

We break things up into four sections.

Or you can talk about entirely.

All of your teeth are starting to do this.

What do we do in general for a total plan? But the bottom line is that I do use the car analogy a lot of times.

Your tires are getting bald or you have a hole in a tire.

We can patch it, and those patches last for a period of time, but it's not a permanent solution.

So we can typically patch up a tooth permanently.

But we have to know that this may not be the best thing for the tooth or for you in the long term.

So after that, once we've kind of filled it to its maximum amount, what can happen is the tooth then is in danger of fracturing or breaking or becoming weak and needing a root canal down the line if we leave it in that condition.

So the next step typically would be Um, you know, kind of upgrade it in a sense to the next, um, more complex treatment would be a crown on that tooth.

So if you filled it all that you can, then a crown, what that is, some people call them caps and they, it covers the entire two, 360 degrees with a strong porcelain material, sometimes a metal material like a gold we can use as well, but it holds the tooth together and protects it from future breaking.