Planmeca ProMax 3D

Dr. Green, Dr. Van Tassell and our clinical team invest in the technology and training to ensure the best treatment experience and results! The latest addition to our high tech practice is the three dimensional cone beam computer aided tomography Planmeca ProMax 3D. This technology allows us to take 3-D images for accurate diagnosis and procedures. Having this technology in Wichita Falls saves patient’s travel time to Dallas, as well as reduces time to communicate results. The ProMax also has many features that improve our workflow and your dental experience:

  • Precise 3D imaging.
  • The environment is open, not claustrophobic.
  • Significantly less radiation than a medical CT scan (about 90% less).
  • Lower cost than a medical CT scan.
  • No hospital appointment required.
  • Easy wheelchair access.
  • We can easily share the 3-D data using Romexis software. You can see the images, and we can send them to a specialist if you need one. We can even store them for later reference.
We use the ProMax to improve many procedures in our office, including: Dental Implants, Third Molar (Wisdom Teeth) Extractions, Impacted Teeth, Supernumeraries (Excess Teeth), Airway Assessments for Sleep Apnea Diagnosis and Treatment , Panoramics, and Cephalometrics.

TMJ Technology (BioPak)

As LVI Fellows and neuromuscular dentists, Dr. Green and Dr. Van Tassell understand the importance of whole-mouth harmony. Your jaw joints, bones, muscles, and nerves rely on proper occlusion and alignment for optimal functions. Stress, heredity, injury, and several other factors can cause jaw joints (temporomandibular joints) to become misaligned. This irritates muscles and nerves, and many patients find themselves suffering from migraines, earaches, face and neck pain, jaw pain, impaired function, and habitual teeth grinding (called bruxism).

The Biopak is a suite of tools from BioRESEARCH that allows us to diagnose the function of your jaw joints and muscles. It gives us objective data that can help us design and tweak treatment. The Biopak includes the following technology.

EMG – Electromyography

Electronic Muscle Graphing is a non-invasive and pain-free tool we use to measure how your jaw muscles rest, clench, chew, and swallow. It helps us determine the balance of your muscle function during every step of your treatment process.

JT-3D™

The Jaw Tracker provides accurate measures of mandibular movement, speed, and position. It uses a highly accurate sensor array to provide reproducible and quantitative data about deflections, jaw deviations, and range of motion.

M-Scan™

This simple and fast device measures how your facial muscles function with easy to interpret data. We use this data to compare bilateral muscles for function and symmetry without pain and also helps us determine the effectiveness of any dental treatment or oral appliance we provide you.

TENS Therapy

QuadraTENS provides patients with a safe, low-cost, and simple alternative to narcotic drugs for pain relief. TENS provides gentle stimulation through patches placed on facial nerves to improve blood flow and facilitate relaxation.

T-Scan Occlusal Analysis

The T-Scan provides our dentists with information for the exact force, balance, and timing of your bite. This helps them get your bite just right in your treatment process.

T-Scan

T-Scan is a digital bite measurement. It allows us to measure the exact force your teeth are experiencing in real time. This gives us the final crucial piece of information that we need to comprehensively diagnose and treat TMJ. By measuring the exact force on each of your teeth, we can be sure that your bite is ideally balanced. We also use it when placing cosmetic dentistry restorations so we can be sure that they don’t interfere with your ideal bite.

LightWalker Hard and Soft ALL Tissue Laser

Lasers have transformed medical surgery offering minimally invasive alternatives to traditional scalpel incisions and sutured closures. Laser light is extremely efficient, producing very little heat as it acts on its target. This makes it ideal for oral surgery, since it seldom affects tissues other than those it targets. The laser provides precise control over the depth and extent of cutting, while simultaneously minimizing bleeding and sterilizing the treatment area.

At StarImage Dentistry we have been using lasers for over 12 years and the LightWalker is the fifth laser in our practice. As with all new technology we bring in, the number one goal is the benefits it will offer to our patients. The LightWalker system offers little or no pain treatment of soft and hard tissues. Additionally it offers faster healing, bloodless and sutureless soft-tissue surgery, effective periodontal treatments, safe and efficient endodontic (root canal) treatment, and numerous cosmetic procedures.

Digital Dental X-rays

Using digital radiography, we can clearly identify all external and internal anatomical structures and accurately diagnose your dental problems. Even more amazing, we can immediately translate that information into a large, clear, accurate image, projected onto a monitor that patient and doctor can study together in the operatory. Digital radiography technology improves and simplifies the way we care for our patients’ teeth, resulting in better dental evaluations and treatment decisions. Digital radiographs help us help you.

Digital X-rays offer unparalleled benefits over traditional radiographs: they’re convenient, safe for the environment, provide a great opportunity for patient education, can be transferred and copied accurately, and best of all, they’re safer for our patients (with up to 90% less radiation than traditional X rays).

VELscope Oral Cancer Screening System

Your oral health is very important, and this is why we use technology that dramatically improves our ability to screen for oral abnormalities that could lead to cancer. Because early detection is essential to increase chances for successful treatment, we always check your entire mouth. The VELscope, a state-of-the-art, painless, non-invasive screening tool helps us to see what we can’t see with the unaided eye during your routine oral cancer checkup.

What can you expect during a VELscope examination? After conducting a thorough oral cancer examination, we’ll use a handheld device that will shine a blue light into your mouth. We will then examine the tissues through a special eyepiece. This technology takes advantage of your mouth’s natural fluorescence which is normally invisible. It takes about five potentially life-saving minutes.

Digital Smile Imaging

When you decide to correct or enhance your smile, it’s often difficult to determine ahead of time exactly what kind of results to expect. After all, a smile is a pretty personal thing, and changing your smile can feel like changing your life. That is where cosmetic digital imaging comes into play. Digital imaging is computer software that allows us to take your digital photograph and manipulate it to reflect the procedures you’re considering. The result is a photo that shows you what your smile would look like after treatment.

The process is quite simple. Once Dr. Green or Dr. Van Tassell have completed your oral exam and discussed your smile goals, a treatment plan will be created. You can even take a photo of the new smile home to share with family or friends!
Informed patients make wise decisions, and digital imaging allows you the opportunity to actually glimpse your future before committing to treatment.

The Wand Anesthesia

Patient comfort is one of our primary concerns, so we are proud to have integrated the Wand into our practice. CompuDent, which is the brain behind the Wand, is a computerized local anesthesia delivery unit. The Wand is actually the pen-like handpiece that administers the anesthesia.

Injections can be irritating for many reasons, but one pain factor is that the anesthesia is concentrated in a small area until it dissipates. Anesthesia administered too fast can also cause pain. Another irritation stems from too much tissue going numb, which can leave a patient drooling after an appointment.
CompuDent manages the flow and volume of anesthesia being delivered, and it also offers more accuracy for the area being numbed. The Wand, through which the regulated anesthesia flows, does not look or feel like a syringe. A drop of topical numbing agent first numbs the injection site, and then the needle creates a comfortable injection pathway.

Anutra Buffered Anesthesia

Have you ever wondered why anesthesia injections can sting so much? It’s because most anesthesia is maintained in an acidic solution to improve its shelf-life. It’s like injecting vinegar or lemon juice. The Anutra system allows us to buffer the acid for a more comfortable injection. And it helps the anesthesia work faster, too.

OraVerse

Do you hate the way you leave a dental appointment with residual numbness? Your entire day can be thrown off because you can’t talk, drink, or eat because your mouth and lips are numb. With OraVerse, you don’t have to worry about that any more. OraVerse neutralizes the local anesthesia so that you have feeling back in half the time.

Watch-PAT200

The Watch-Pat 200 is used for the diagnosis, treatment assessment, and follow-up of sleep-related breathing disorders. With this mini-computer we can easily monitor and adjust the effectiveness of our sleep apnea (SOMNOMED) treatment. The main highlights of this equipment include:

  • Minimal sleep interference
  • Non-invasive finger probes are safe and easy to use
  • Comfortable and convenient for you to wear at night
  • Single button operation means you won’t lose hours trying to figure out how to operate the equipment
Most people can take advantage of this at-home sleep test for diagnosis of sleep apnea. Others may require a sleep study in a lab. But all will benefit from the use of this sleep test to monitor and refine sleep apnea treatment.
If you would like to learn more about these and other technologies we use to improve your dental care at StarImage Dentistry, please call 940-322-2252 or contact us today for an appointment.