Dental Sealants

Dental sealants are a preventative treatment that is meant to protect the top and side surfaces of adult molars from getting cavities. Sometimes there are pits or fissures on other teeth that could benefit from sealants. Dr. Rau or Dr. Nguyen will let you know when your child’s teeth are ready to place sealants.

When teeth form, they form in parts. Sometimes those parts do not come together all the way and its leaves pits or fissures in the teeth. These pits and fissures often cannot be cleaned well with regular tooth brushing because the bristles are too big to fit in these small fissures or grooves. Because the grooves cannot be cleaned well they often get decay in them. Sealants can prevent this type of decay.

To prevent this type of decay, we often recommend placement of sealants on teeth with pits and fissures. Sealants are basically a thin layer of plastic that coats the pits and fissures which reduces the risk of decay from around 50% to about 15%.

The placement of sealants involves cleaning the teeth with an acid etch that we call “tooth soap.” After rinsing off the etch we place the sealant that we call “paint.” The the sealant is cured with a blue light that hardens the sealant on the tooth.