Author: Andrew Savage

Tartar is removed mechanically — an ultrasonic scaler vibrates the hardened deposit off the tooth, hand instruments finish what it leaves behind, and polishing smooths the surface afterwards. There is no chemical or paste that dissolves it.

Plaque you can remove yourself. Tartar you cannot, and knowing why is the difference between good home care and wasted effort with a hard-bristled brush. Once plaque mineralises it is bonded to the enamel or root like scale in a kettle. Brushing does not touch it. Whitening toothpaste does not touch it. It comes off with an instrument, applied by someone who can see what they are doing — the core of a professional cleaning appointment, and a physical job rather than an application of something.

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From Plaque to Tartar in Under Three Days

Plaque is a biofilm — a soft community of bacteria in a sticky matrix they build themselves. It starts forming on a clean tooth within hours, which is why brushing is a daily job, and at that stage it wipes off.

Left alone, minerals in your saliva — mostly calcium and phosphate — precipitate into the biofilm and harden it. Calcification begins within roughly 24 to 72 hours, and from then the deposit is calculus: rough, porous, firmly attached.

Two things follow. Your daily window is short, and the surfaces you skip turn to tartar. And tartar is not the disease — it is a retentive surface holding fresh plaque against the gum. Removing it removes the scaffolding.

Where Tartar Builds Up, and Why It Is Not Random

Tartar has favourite locations, the same in almost everybody:

• The tongue side of the lower front teeth, where the submandibular and sublingual salivary ducts open into the floor of the mouth.
• The cheek side of the upper molars, where the parotid duct opens opposite the upper first molar.

It forms fastest where saliva enters the mouth, because saliva supplies the minerals. The location is anatomy rather than a verdict on your brushing — and those two zones deserve deliberate attention, angled into the gumline rather than scrubbed across the tooth.

Above the Gum and Below It

Supragingival calculus sits above the gumline — white, cream or yellow, visible in a mirror, and the stuff people notice. Unsightly, and it holds plaque, but on its own it is not what destroys teeth.

Subgingival calculus forms inside the pocket between tooth and gum. Darker, brown to black, stained by blood products from inflamed tissue, and invisible to you. This is the dangerous one: it sits against the periodontal tissues, keeps them chronically inflamed, and the inflammatory response destroys the bone holding the tooth in. That bone does not come back.

Which is why probing depths matter, and why a “quick scale and polish” of the visible surfaces leaves the real problem intact. Where pockets are deep and bone is going, the treatment is gum disease therapy rather than routine hygiene.

The Instruments and What Each One Does

Ultrasonic and piezoelectric scalers. A metal tip vibrates tens of thousands of times a second and shatters the bond between calculus and tooth. Water sprays continuously to cool the tip and flush debris from the pocket, and cavitation in that spray disrupts bacteria beyond the tip’s physical reach. This does the bulk of the work, fast.

Hand scalers and curettes. Sharpened steel — sickle scalers above the gum, rounded-toe curettes below it. Slower and not obsolete, because a hand instrument gives tactile feedback a vibrating tip does not. The hygienist is feeling for residual roughness on the root, which is how you know a tooth is actually clean rather than approximately clean.

Air polishing. A jet of air, water and fine powder — glycine or erythritol below the gum, sodium bicarbonate above it. Efficient on stain and soft biofilm, gentle on roots, useful around implants and brackets. It does not remove hard calculus.

Prophy cup and paste. A slow-speed rubber cup and abrasive paste after scaling, removing residual stain and leaving a smooth surface. Fluoride varnish is painted on at the end, and matters most on exposed roots, which decay far more readily than crown enamel.

Why Polishing Comes Last

Doing it first would be pointless — dragging paste over deposits that need an instrument. The better reason is that scaling leaves microscopic roughness on enamel and cementum, and rough surfaces accumulate plaque faster, so polishing restores the surface.

It is skipped or reduced sometimes, which is a considered decision rather than a shortcut — prophy paste is mildly abrasive and there is no case for polishing teeth with no stain on them. Polishing does not whiten teeth either. Removing stain often looks like whitening, but the underlying colour is unchanged. Changing that is a separate treatment at a separate cost.

Scaling and Root Planing: the Deeper Version

When pockets are deep and the roots inside them contaminated, routine scaling is not enough. Root planing means instrumenting the root itself until it is smooth enough for tissue to reattach against. It is usually done under local anaesthetic, split into two or four appointments, with a review four to six weeks later. Maintenance then runs at three or four months rather than six, because subgingival bacteria recolonise on roughly that timescale. Our post on how long a cleaning takes sets out the difference, and how often you should be seen covers why the interval tightens afterwards.

Implants need the same attention with different instruments. Peri-implantitis — inflammation and bone loss around an implant — behaves much like periodontitis and is a leading cause of implant failure, so anyone with implant treatment needs a maintenance schedule. Titanium or plastic-tipped instruments are used so the surface is not scratched.

Why It Bleeds, and What That Means

Healthy gums do not bleed when instruments touch them. Inflamed gums do, and the blood comes from the ulcerated lining of the pocket, not from anything the hygienist has cut. Bleeding on probing is a diagnostic sign showing where the inflammation is and how extensive; it is commonly misread as rough treatment, which puts people off attending. What it should tell you is where you are missing at home. Clean between your teeth properly for a fortnight and gingival bleeding usually resolves; bleeding that persists suggests deeper pocketing and needs assessing at a proper examination.

Sensitivity for a few days afterwards is normal, particularly on exposed roots. Gums may also look slightly receded once swelling settles — puffy tissue shrinking back to the level the bone actually supports. Honest reporting, not a bad outcome.

You Cannot Do This at Home, and the Kits Are Worse Than Nothing

Steel scaler kits sell online for a few dollars and are a genuinely bad idea.

• You cannot see what you are doing. Most of the calculus that matters is below the gumline, invisible in a bathroom mirror.
• You will scratch the root. Cementum is far softer than enamel and a sharp instrument in an untrained hand gouges it. A scratched root accumulates plaque faster than before you started.
• You will lacerate gum tissue, which heals with scarring or recession, and push debris deeper into the pocket, which is the mechanism that drives bone loss.
• You will remove the visible tartar, leave the harmful part, and conclude it is solved.

There is no home remedy either. Vinegar, baking soda and oil pulling do not dissolve calculus, and acidic rinses erode enamel while leaving the tartar where it was. Tartar-control toothpaste slows new deposit slightly and does nothing to what is there. The one home tool worth buying is an interdental brush that fits your gaps.

What Actually Prevents Tartar

• Clean between your teeth every day. The highest-value habit available and the one most people skip. Whichever tool you genuinely use daily beats the theoretically best one you abandon in a fortnight.
• Brush at the gumline, bristles angled about 45 degrees into the margin. Calculus forms there, not on the bulge that gets all the attention.
• Twice a day, two minutes, soft bristles. Hard bristles and pressure cause recession and abrasion without removing more plaque.
• Target the two hotspots — behind the lower front teeth, and the cheek side of the upper molars.
• Reduce snacking frequency, and stop smoking, which accelerates calculus, masks bleeding and worsens bone loss at once.

The honest caveat: some people form calculus rapidly whatever they do, because their saliva is more mineral-rich, flows more, or sits at a higher pH. Heavy formers can have excellent technique and still need scaling every three or four months. That is physiology, not laziness, and being told otherwise is a reason to be annoyed rather than ashamed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you remove tartar yourself at home?

No. Once plaque has mineralised it is bonded to the tooth and needs an instrument. Home scaler kits damage the root and gum and leave the subgingival deposit that actually matters.

How long does it take for plaque to turn into tartar?

Mineralisation begins within about 24 to 72 hours, which is why daily interdental cleaning beats an occasional thorough effort.

How often do I need tartar removed?

Between every three months and once a year, depending on how fast you form it and whether you have periodontal disease. Ask what your interval is based on rather than accepting six months by default. Children are usually on the straightforward end of this; see children’s dentistry.

What does it cost?

Scaling in Ontario is billed in units of roughly fifteen minutes; our fees and payment page explains estimates. Eligible patients should check CDCP coverage, noting the plan pays on its own fee schedule and the gap is not covered.

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If it has been a long time, that is the reason to come in rather than to keep putting it off. Long gaps are ordinary and nobody gets a lecture. Where scaling uncovers decay under old deposit, small cavities are handled with a straightforward filling later.

The household can be seen through our family dentistry side at whatever interval suits each person; new patients start here. If cost is the obstacle, say so — there are ways to make care affordable.

Book online or contact the office. More on prevention and what happens at a recall is on the blog.

A routine recall cleaning takes about 30 to 60 minutes. Add the examination and you are usually looking at an hour in the chair.

Nobody can give you a single number because dental cleaning in Ontario is measured, scheduled and billed in units of scaling time — roughly fifteen minutes each. Four units is about an hour. Six is about ninety minutes. Your appointment length is a judgement about how many units your mouth needs, made before you sit down and revised while you are there.

Everything below explains what pushes that number up or down. If you are booking a cleaning appointment and need to know how much of your day to block out, plan for an hour and be pleased if it runs short.

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Units, and Why They Explain Everything

Ontario dentistry codes scaling by time, not by tooth. One unit is approximately fifteen minutes of active scaling. The 2026 ODA Suggested Fee Guide — published each January by the Ontario Dental Association as a suggested guide, not a mandated price list — puts scaling at $65 to $70 per unit in Ontario, which works out to about $261 for four units and $391 for six.

	Time in the chair	Ontario guide fee, 2026
1 unit	About 15 minutes	$65-$70
2 units	About 30 minutes	$130-$140
4 units	About an hour	$261
6 units	About 90 minutes	$391

Those are scaling figures alone. Polishing, fluoride varnish at $38 and the examination are separate items; our fees and payment page covers how estimates work here.

When someone says a cleaning “takes about an hour”, they mean most people need about four units. It is an average, not a rule, and it is why your friend was out in twenty-five minutes and you were in there for ninety.

Insurance plans usually cap units per year, which catches people out. If your plan covers four and you need six, the extra two are yours. Check before the appointment rather than at the desk afterwards.

What Happens in Each Phase

• Assessment, 5-10 minutes. Soft tissues, then periodontal probing — a graduated probe measures pocket depth around each tooth in several places. Under 3 mm with no bleeding is healthy. Deeper pockets that bleed mean disease and change what the appointment is for. This is where the number of units gets set.
• Ultrasonic scaling, 10-25 minutes. A vibrating tip and water spray break up and flush away the bulk of the calculus. The noise is the worst part. It is also the fastest way to shift hard deposits.
• Hand scaling, 10-20 minutes. Curettes and sickle scalers finish what the ultrasonic left, especially below the gumline where tactile feedback matters more than power. The slow, careful part.
• Polishing, 3-5 minutes. A rubber cup and prophy paste remove surface stain and smooth the enamel.
• Flossing, 2-3 minutes. Clears paste and debris, and shows where things are being missed at home.
• Fluoride varnish, 2 minutes. One of the highest-value two minutes in dentistry.

Our post on how tartar is actually removed goes into the instruments in more detail.

What Makes It Take Longer

• Time since your last cleaning. The biggest factor. Six months of deposit is a routine four units. Six years can be two appointments.
• Heavy calculus formation. Some people build tartar quickly because of their saliva chemistry. Not a character flaw, and not entirely within your control.
• Inflamed, bleeding gums. Bleeding obscures the field and the tissue is tender, so the work goes slower. Inflammation also signals subgingival deposit to find, which takes longer than scraping visible tartar off the front of a tooth.
• Being a new patient. First appointments include history-taking, charting every tooth and restoration, full periodontal charting and usually X-rays. See what happens at a first visit and new patient information before you come.
• Sensitivity. Sensitive root surfaces slow everything down, and should — the answer is to go gently, not push through.
• Deep staining. Tea, coffee, red wine and tobacco take real polishing time. Polishing removes surface stain only; it does not change the underlying tooth colour, which is what whitening is for. Anyone selling a cleaning as a whitening treatment is overselling.
• Orthodontic appliances, bridges and implants, all of which need working around.

The Checkup Is Usually in the Same Appointment

Most recall appointments combine an examination with the cleaning, adding ten to twenty minutes: every tooth and restoration, the bite, the soft tissues, an oral cancer screening, and X-rays if due.

Radiographs are not routine at every visit. Bitewings are commonly every twelve to twenty-four months for a low-risk adult, more often where decay is active. If you are X-rayed every single time with no reason offered, ask why.

The two parts serve different purposes and can run on different schedules. Our post on how often you should see a dentist explains why the cleaning interval and the examination interval are not the same thing.

Scaling and Root Planing Is a Different Procedure

If you have periodontal pockets — attachment loss, bone loss, deep pockets that bleed — a routine clean is not the treatment. Scaling and root planing goes below the gumline to remove calculus and contaminated deposit from the root surfaces themselves, and to leave those surfaces smooth enough that the tissue can reattach.

It takes considerably longer, usually split across two appointments of an hour or more, half the mouth at a time. Local anaesthetic is often used, because working millimetres below the gum on sensitive root surfaces is not comfortable otherwise; how long dental freezing lasts is typically three to five hours for the soft tissue.

Expect a review four to six weeks later to re-probe, then maintenance every three or four months rather than six. This is gum disease treatment rather than routine hygiene — a treatment course, not a single visit. If anxiety is what has kept you away, sedation options are worth asking about before you decide to keep avoiding it.

How to Make Your Cleaning Shorter

The honest answer is unglamorous and it works: clean between your teeth every day.

Not brushing harder, and not a more expensive electric brush, though a decent one helps. Interdental cleaning — floss, interdental brushes, whichever you will actually use — removes plaque from the two surfaces a toothbrush cannot reach, which is exactly where calculus forms and exactly where the hygienist spends most of her time. The second thing is angling the brush into the gumline rather than scrubbing the middle of the tooth, because calculus forms at the margin, not on the bulge.

This is a section arguing you into buying less of what we sell, and it is still true. Someone who cleans between their teeth daily might drop from six units to four. Over ten years that is real money and a lot of your time back.

Turning up is the other half. People who stretch appointments out because they are dreading them end up needing longer ones, which makes the next worse. If cost is what has kept you away, say so — there are ways to make care affordable, and CDCP coverage includes scaling for eligible patients, though the plan pays on its own fee schedule, which can sit below the ODA guide, and the gap is not covered.

Children’s Cleanings Are Shorter

A child’s cleaning is usually 15 to 30 minutes — fewer teeth, less calculus, and often nothing beyond a polish with a rubber cup and fluoride varnish. The appointment is structured differently too: shorter, more explanation, and it stops if the child has had enough. That is standard children’s dentistry, not anything specialist, and easier than most parents expect.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does a deep cleaning take?

Scaling and root planing is normally two appointments of an hour or more, half the mouth at a time. Some cases are split into four quadrant appointments instead.

Why did my cleaning take longer than my partner’s?

More calculus, deeper pockets, more bleeding, or longer since your last visit. Units are set by what is actually there, not by a standard slot.

Does a dental cleaning hurt?

Routine cleaning is generally uncomfortable at worst — vibration, water, occasional sensitivity. Inflamed gums are tender and bleed, which makes it less pleasant, and that improves once the inflammation settles. Deep cleaning below the gumline is usually done with freezing.

How often should I get my teeth cleaned?

Between three months and a year, depending on your risk. Three to four months for anyone with treated gum disease; annually is defensible for a genuinely low-risk adult who cleans between their teeth daily.

Will a cleaning whiten my teeth?

It removes surface stain, which often makes teeth look noticeably brighter. It does not change the underlying tooth colour. That is a different treatment with a different price.

Is it normal for my gums to bleed during a cleaning?

Common, and it means the gums are inflamed rather than that the hygienist is rough. Bleeding that stops within a fortnight of proper home cleaning was gingivitis; bleeding that persists needs looking at properly.

Book Your Cleaning

Tell us when you were last seen and whether your gums bleed. That is enough for us to book the right length of appointment rather than running you over time or having you sit in an empty slot.

Book online or contact the office. Booking the whole household at once is straightforward through our family dentistry side, and small cavities found at a recall are usually handled with a simple filling. Other questions about routine appointments are answered on the blog.

A pediatric dentist — paedodontist — is a dental specialist who completed two or three years of postgraduate training beyond dental school in treating children, including those with complex medical, developmental or behavioural needs.

Here is the part most pages leave out: most children do not need one. A general or family dentist who is comfortable with children handles the large majority of paediatric dentistry perfectly well, and always has. Examinations, cleanings, fluoride, sealants and straightforward fillings are core general practice work. If you started searching because you assumed children require a specialist by default, you need less than you thought.

There are real situations where a referral is right, listed further down. Otherwise what matters is finding a practice that is good with children rather than one with a particular certificate on the wall.

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What the Extra Training Actually Covers

A pediatric dentist finishes the same dental degree as any general dentist, then completes an accredited postgraduate residency — typically two to three years — before registering as a specialist. That residency concentrates on:

• Growth and development of the face, jaws and dentition, and how decisions now affect the adult mouth later.
• Behaviour guidance for children too young to cooperate.
• Children with significant medical complexity — congenital heart conditions, bleeding disorders, cancer treatment — and children with developmental or physical disabilities, where a standard appointment structure does not work.
• Sedation, hospital general anaesthetic dentistry, and assessing who needs it.
• Trauma in developing teeth, and interceptive orthodontics when teeth are lost early.

A genuine specialty with a genuine scope. It exists because a small proportion of children present problems that need it, not because ordinary children are beyond general practice.

The Difference in Practice

A specialist paediatric practice differs mainly in that everyone there works with children all day and the case mix skews difficult. A good general or family practice offers something a specialist cannot — the household on one file, one set of appointments, and continuity when the child turns eighteen. Parents get seen too, which matters: the strongest predictor of a child’s attendance is whether their parents attend. Neither is better in the abstract; they suit different children.

When a Specialist Referral Genuinely Is the Right Call

We refer children out, and would rather do it early than after a failed appointment has frightened a child off dentists. The situations that warrant it:

• Extensive treatment needs in a very young child. A three-year-old with multiple cavities needs more than a routine filling appointment provides.
• Significant special needs. Autism where sensory load is the barrier, cerebral palsy, severe learning disability, or anywhere standard chairside care is unworkable.
• Severe dental anxiety that has not responded to a gentle general-practice approach, particularly where treatment cannot wait.
• Complex medical history — cardiac conditions needing specific protocols, bleeding disorders, immunosuppression, active oncology treatment.
• Dental trauma in a young child, especially to primary teeth threatening the permanent tooth above, or to immature permanent teeth with open root apices.
• Treatment under hospital general anaesthetic. A specialist pathway, and the honest answer for some children.

Being told your child should see a specialist is not a failure and not a brush-off. Some cases need equipment, an environment and a volume of experience general practice does not have.

What a Children’s Dental Visit Involves Anywhere

At any competent practice, specialist or not, it looks broadly like this. The child is sat in the chair — often on a parent’s lap for the very young — and shown the instruments before anything is used. The dentist counts and examines the teeth, checks the bite and soft tissues, and looks at how the jaws are developing.

Then a clean appropriate to their age — for a small child often nothing more than a polish with a rubber cup, plus fluoride varnish where indicated. Sealants may be suggested once the first permanent molars erupt around six, because those deep grooves are where most childhood decay starts. X-rays only if there is a reason. Then a conversation with the parent about brushing and diet; see what to expect on a first visit.

Where treatment is needed, small cavities in baby teeth are handled with ordinary fillings under local anaesthetic exactly as in adults, and routine cleanings continue at whatever interval suits the child.

The First Visit by Age One

Canadian and international guidance converges: a first dental visit by the first birthday, or within six months of the first tooth, whichever comes first.

Parents find that early, and fairly — a one-year-old has a handful of teeth and rarely anything to treat. That is the point. The first visit is about:

• Checking eruption and development are on track.
• Spotting decay risk before it becomes a cavity, particularly the pattern caused by bottles or sippy cups at bedtime.
• Teaching the parent to brush a small child’s teeth properly, which is harder than it looks.
• Establishing that a dental office is an ordinary, boring place. A child whose first ten visits are uneventful behaves very differently at the eleventh than one whose first visit is at five with toothache.

Familiarity is built cheaply in advance or paid for expensively later.

Behaviour Guidance, and the Line We Do Not Cross

Behaviour guidance is the set of techniques used to help a child accept treatment: tell-show-do, where each instrument is explained and demonstrated before use; positive reinforcement; a stop signal that is honoured; short appointments; distraction. Where that is not enough, options include nitrous oxide — the mildest form of sedation, which takes the edge off while the child stays awake and responsive — oral sedation, or hospital general anaesthetic for extensive work in a very young or very anxious child.

What does not happen: a child is never forced, restrained or held down to complete treatment. If a child cannot cope, the appointment stops and we reschedule, change the approach, or refer. Nothing dental is urgent enough to justify holding a frightened child still, and doing it once buys a lifetime of avoidance. Genuine emergencies go through the emergency pathway with a proper conversation with the parent first. If a practice offers to “just hold him for a second”, find another practice.

Paying for Children’s Dentistry in Ontario

Healthy Smiles Ontario is the provincial programme for children 17 and under in eligible low-income households, covering examinations, cleanings, fillings, extractions, X-rays and urgent care. See Healthy Smiles Ontario in Windsor.

The Canadian Dental Care Plan covers children under 18 in eligible families — no private dental insurance, adjusted family net income under $90,000, taxes filed. Co-payment is nothing under $70,000, 40% from $70,000 to $79,999, and 60% from $80,000 to $89,999. The detail worth knowing: CDCP pays on its own fee schedule, which can sit below the ODA guide, and the difference is not covered, so a 0% co-payment does not always mean nothing to pay. Our CDCP page explains it. Neither plan covers orthodontics; see orthodontic treatment if that is what you are planning for. Ask for numbers before treatment either way — our fees and payment page sets out how written estimates work.

How to Talk to a Child Before an Appointment

Parents create more dental anxiety than dentists do, almost always with the best intentions.

A child does not know what a dentist is. Say “it won’t hurt” and you have introduced hurt as a possibility they had not considered. Same with “you don’t need a needle” and “be brave”. Reassurance against a threat teaches the child there was a threat.

• Avoid the words hurt, pain, needle, drill, pull and shot entirely, including in denials.
• Keep it short and flat: the dentist is going to count your teeth and check they are healthy.
• Do not narrate your own dental history in front of them. Your fear is contagious; theirs is not yet formed.
• Do not offer a large reward in advance. It signals something worth being paid for is coming.
• Book mornings for small children, and let the dental team use their own vocabulary.

If you are anxious yourself, say so quietly to the team on arrival rather than in front of the child.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a pediatric dentist and a regular dentist?

A pediatric dentist completed two to three additional years of postgraduate training focused on children, including those with medical complexity and disability. A general dentist treats all ages, children included, as ordinary practice.

Do children need to see a pediatric dentist?

Most do not. Referral is appropriate for very young children needing extensive work, significant special needs, complex medical histories, severe anxiety, or treatment under general anaesthetic.

Do baby teeth with cavities need to be filled?

Often yes — they hold space for the permanent teeth, enamel is thinner so decay reaches the nerve faster, and early loss causes crowding. That said, a small lesion in a tooth about to fall out may be watched rather than filled. Ask which situation you are in.

What if my child will not open their mouth?

Then it becomes a familiarisation visit and we try again. That is a normal outcome for a two-year-old, not a failed appointment.

How often should children have a dental checkup?

Usually every six months, more often where decay is active, starting by the first birthday. Our post on how often to see a dentist covers how the interval is set.

Bring Them In

If your child has never been seen, start with a simple examination and let it be uneventful. If something has already happened, read what to do with a broken tooth first — and remember a knocked-out baby tooth should not be put back.

Registering the family at once is straightforward; see new patient information. Book online or get in touch with questions first, including whether your child needs a specialist. We will tell you honestly. More on children’s dental care is on the blog.

Somewhere between every three months and once a year, depending on your risk — and “every six months” is a convention, not a clinical law.

Twice a year is the answer almost everyone has been given, and for a large slice of the population it is roughly right by accident. It did not come out of research. It came out of habit, and it survives because it is easy to remember and easy to schedule.

Your interval should be set by how fast things go wrong in your particular mouth. A 27-year-old with no fillings, healthy gums and good home care is over-serviced at six months. A smoker with treated periodontitis is under-served at the same interval and will lose bone between appointments. Working out which you are is the point of a proper dental examination — the risk assessment more than the appointment itself.

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Where “Every Six Months” Came From

Nobody discovered six months. There is no trial establishing it as optimal for the general population, and reviews of the evidence have repeatedly found the case for fixed six-month recalls weak in low-risk adults.

It spread through public health messaging, military dental programmes, toothpaste advertising, and the fact that a half-year rhythm is easy to run. Insurance built coverage around it and locked it in — when a plan pays for two cleanings a year, two is what people have. National guidance has moved towards risk-based recall for years; most practices have not, because assessed intervals require the dentist to make and justify a judgement.

What Actually Determines Your Interval

• Gum disease history. The biggest single factor. Lost attachment does not grow back and the disease recurs when biofilm is left undisturbed. Treated periodontitis is maintained, not cured.
• Decay rate. New cavities in the last three years is the best available predictor of the next three.
• Smoking. It suppresses gum bleeding while accelerating bone loss, so the warning sign disappears as the disease speeds up.
• Diabetes. It runs both ways: poor glycaemic control worsens gum disease, and gum inflammation worsens glycaemic control.
• Dry mouth. Saliva buffers acid, clears food and returns minerals to enamel. Hundreds of common drugs reduce it — antidepressants, antihistamines, blood pressure medication, diuretics. It can move a low-risk adult to high risk within a year, and most people never connect the two.
• Diet. Frequency of sugar and acid matters more than quantity. Sipping something sweet across an afternoon is far worse than the same drink in ten minutes.
• Pregnancy. Hormonal change commonly causes gingivitis, and dental care while pregnant is safe rather than something to postpone.
• Orthodontic appliances, which give plaque somewhere to hide, and existing restorations, because a mouth full of large old fillings has more margins available to fail.
• Home cleaning, honestly assessed. If you do not clean between your teeth, that is a risk factor, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.

A Risk-Tier Guide

	Profile	Suggested interval
Low risk	No decay in 3+ years, healthy gums, non-smoker, no dry mouth, cleans between teeth daily	12 months
Moderate risk	Occasional new decay, gingivitis that comes and goes, several large restorations	6 months
High risk	Active or treated periodontitis, multiple new cavities, smoker, diabetic, significant dry mouth	3-4 months
Very high risk	Head and neck radiotherapy, severe dry mouth, immunosuppression, rampant decay	3 months or shorter, with extra preventive measures

Treat that as the start of a conversation, not a diagnosis. Risk moves — a new medication, a pregnancy, quitting smoking — and the interval should move with it rather than being set once in your thirties and never revisited.

Who Genuinely Needs Every Three or Four Months

Anyone with periodontitis, active or treated. The aim after therapy is to disrupt the subgingival biofilm before it re-establishes, and roughly three months is where recolonisation starts to matter. Stretching a periodontal patient to six months is how carefully treated cases quietly relapse. Ongoing gum disease maintenance is a different service from a routine recall clean.

And anyone in an active decay phase — several new cavities in a short period, usually with dry mouth or a high-frequency sugar habit behind it. Short intervals there are about catching lesions small and about fluoride, not about the cleaning.

Who Can Reasonably Go Once a Year

If you have had no new decay in several years, no bleeding gums, no pocketing, do not smoke, are not on drying medication, and genuinely clean between your teeth daily, annual attendance is defensible. Not risk-free — nothing is — but better supported by the evidence on low-risk adults than a reflex six months.

We would rather tell you that and see you once a year for twenty years than book you twice a year, have you feel over-sold, and lose you entirely. The condition is that you come back when something changes: new sensitivity, bleeding when you clean, a rough edge, or a lump that has not gone in two weeks.

Children Follow Different Logic

Children are not scaled-down adults here. Their teeth are on a schedule — eruption, exfoliation, permanent molars at roughly six and twelve — and decay moves faster through them, because primary enamel is thinner and the pulp relatively larger. A six-month gap covers more ground in a five-year-old than in a forty-year-old.

Regular short visits also build tolerance before anything difficult is needed, and the first permanent molars need watching as they erupt because that is when sealants are worth placing. Most children do well on six months, more often where decay is active. That is ordinary children’s dental care, not anything specialist, and running the household through one family practice makes scheduling far less painful.

The Cleaning Interval and the Exam Interval Are Not the Same

Almost everyone conflates these, including plenty of dental staff.

The examination is diagnostic: teeth, gums, restorations, bite and soft tissues, with X-rays at appropriate intervals — not at every visit. The cleaning is therapeutic. How long a cleaning takes depends on how much there is to remove, and what happens during it is more involved than most people assume.

These can run on different clocks. Someone with immaculate gums and heavy calculus might need a scaling appointment every four months and an examination annually; someone with fragile restorations and no calculus needs the reverse. Bundling them permanently into one six-month slot is administratively tidy and clinically lazy. Ask which is driving your recall. If nobody can answer, the interval was not really chosen.

What a Checkup Finds That You Cannot

• Interproximal decay. Cavities between teeth are invisible and painless until large. Bitewings catch them while a filling is still all that is needed.
• Bone loss. Probing and radiographs measure attachment loss long before a tooth feels loose. By the time it wobbles, most of the support is gone.
• Oral cancer screening. Two minutes over tongue, floor of mouth, palate and throat. Early oral cancer is painless and survival depends heavily on stage at diagnosis.
• Failing restorations and grinding wear, all found before you feel anything.

The Cost Argument, With Real Numbers

Under the 2026 ODA Suggested Fee Guide — published each January by the Ontario Dental Association as a suggested guide, not a mandated price list — a recall examination in Ontario runs $96 to $182 and a four-unit cleaning of about an hour is $261. Call it $350 to $450 for a routine visit with a clean, before X-rays.

The other side: a molar root canal with four or more canals is $1,417 in the same guide, $1,579 where access is difficult, and that tooth then needs a crown at $1,349 to $1,449 including the lab fee. Roughly $2,800 to $3,000 for one tooth that began as a small cavity nobody looked for.

One avoided root canal and crown pays for six or seven years of recall visits. That is not an argument for attending more often — it works identically at an annual interval — but for attending at the interval your risk justifies.

The Canadian Dental Care Plan covers examinations and scaling for eligible patients, though it pays on its own fee schedule, which can sit below the ODA guide, and the gap is not covered: a 0% co-payment does not always mean nothing to pay. Our fees and payment page sets out how estimates work, and if cost is why you have not been in for years, there are ways to make this work. The expensive end is covered in our post on root canal costs in Ontario.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is going to the dentist once a year enough?

For a genuinely low-risk adult — no recent decay, healthy gums, non-smoker, good home cleaning — yes. For anyone with gum disease, frequent cavities or dry mouth, no.

What happens if you do not go to the dentist for 10 years?

Usually decay past the filling stage, calculus build-up and some gum disease. Almost always fixable, and usually cheaper to start than people fear. An examination and a staged plan come first.

I have not been in years and I am embarrassed. What now?

Come in. We have seen worse than whatever you are picturing, and the appointment is an examination and a plan, not a judgement. Start with our new patient information.

We Will Tell You If You Can Go Longer

Setting everyone to six months is the easy option and it is what most of the industry does. We would rather assess your risk, tell you what interval it justifies, and revisit it when things change — including when that means seeing you less often than you expected.

Book online or contact the office and ask what your interval should be. More on routine care and what it costs is collected on the blog.

Rinse with warm water, press gauze on any bleeding, put a cold compress on the outside of your face, save the broken piece in milk, and phone a dentist today rather than tomorrow.

Work through the numbered list below in order, then read the section matching what your tooth actually looks like — a chipped corner and a tooth snapped off at the gumline are not the same emergency. If the tooth has been knocked completely out, skip ahead; that one is timed in minutes.

Bleeding you cannot stop, a tooth out of its socket, or escalating pain is an emergency dental appointment, not a routine booking. Call as early in the day as you can.

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The First Ten Minutes

1. Rinse your mouth gently with warm water. This clears blood and debris so you can see what you are dealing with. Do not scrub the area.
2. Find the fragment if you can. Put it in a small container of milk, or in your own saliva. Do not let it dry out — a dentist can sometimes bond a clean fragment straight back on, and it beats any filling material for colour match.
3. Control bleeding. Fold clean gauze or a damp tea bag over the site and bite with firm, continuous pressure for ten minutes by the clock. Do not keep lifting it to look.
4. Cold compress outside your face over the area, twenty minutes on, twenty off.
5. Take over-the-counter pain relief as directed on the package, assuming it is something you normally take safely.
6. Cover a sharp edge with sugar-free chewing gum or orthodontic wax so it does not shred your tongue on the drive in.
7. Phone a dentist. Say what happened, what you can see, and whether it hurts to bite.

Do not put aspirin or any tablet against the gum. Aspirin is acidic and burns a chemical ulcer into the soft tissue, so you end up with two problems. Pain relief works through your bloodstream, not by contact.

How Bad Is It? Reading Your Own Broken Tooth

Look in a mirror with good light. What you are trying to work out is how deep the break goes.

• Chipped enamel only. Small corner missing, no sensitivity, rough but not sharp. Not urgent. Book normally.
• Fracture into dentine. A larger piece gone, the exposed surface yellower than surrounding enamel, cold air makes it twinge. Needs seeing within days — dentine is porous and decays quickly once uncovered.
• Fracture exposing the pulp. A pink or red spot in the middle of the broken surface, or bleeding from the tooth itself rather than the gum. Urgent, same day where possible. The nerve is open to the mouth.
• Cracked tooth, nothing visibly missing. Sharp pain on releasing a bite, or on cold. Cracks are hard to diagnose and worsen if you keep chewing on them.
• Broken at or below the gumline. Often painless if the nerve died first. Whether it can be saved depends on how far below the bone the fracture runs.
• Knocked out entirely. See the next section now.

Any of these can happen without pain, and people take that as permission to wait. A painless exposed dentine surface is still an open wound. Bacteria do not need you to feel anything.

Knocked-Out Permanent Tooth: Do This Now

Time is the single variable that decides whether the tooth survives. The ligament cells on the root surface start dying within about fifteen minutes of drying out.

1. Pick the tooth up by the crown — the white chewing part. Never touch the root.
2. If it is dirty, rinse it for a few seconds in milk, saline or the patient’s own saliva. Brief cold running water beats nothing. Do not scrub it, use soap, or wipe it with a cloth — you are washing off grit, not cleaning the root.
3. If you can, put it straight back in the socket the right way round and bite gently on a cloth to hold it. A tooth back in its socket has the best chance there is.
4. Otherwise store it in cold milk, or the patient’s own saliva held in the cheek if they are old enough not to swallow it. Never tap water; it destroys the root cells faster than dry storage.
5. Get to a dentist immediately. Not this afternoon. Now.

A knocked-out baby tooth should not be put back. Reimplanting a primary tooth risks damaging the permanent tooth developing above it. Control bleeding, keep the child comfortable, have them seen — but leave the tooth out. Unsure whether it is a baby tooth? Take it with you and let a dentist decide. Children’s injuries are best handled by someone used to treating children.

When It Is a Hospital, Not a Dentist

Go to an emergency department instead of a dental office if any of these apply:

• Facial swelling with difficulty breathing or swallowing, or swelling closing an eye or crossing the floor of the mouth. A spreading infection is time-critical.
• Significant facial trauma — a blow hard enough to break a tooth can break other things.
• Suspected jaw fracture: teeth no longer meeting correctly, inability to open or close, numbness in the lip or chin.
• Bleeding you cannot stop after twenty minutes of firm pressure.
• Loss of consciousness, confusion, repeated vomiting or severe headache after the injury.

A dental office cannot manage an airway or image a skull. Nobody will think you overreacted.

What to Eat While You Wait

Chew entirely on the other side. Soft food, nothing that needs tearing, nothing very hot or very cold — exposed dentine transmits both straight to the nerve. No nuts, crusty bread, ice or boiled sweets. Keep brushing the broken tooth gently with a soft brush; plaque left on an exposed surface makes everything worse faster.

Break Type Against Likely Treatment

	What you have	Usual treatment
Minor enamel chip	Rough edge, no sensitivity	Smoothing, or composite bonding
Moderate chip into dentine	Yellower exposed surface, sensitive	A filling or bonding
Large piece of a back tooth lost	Cusp broken off, structure gone	A crown, sometimes an onlay
Pulp exposed or nerve dying	Pink spot visible, throbbing, or bleeding from the tooth	Root canal treatment plus a crown
Vertical root fracture, or broken deep below bone	Often mobile, may be painless	Extraction then an implant, bridge or partial

Nobody can put you in a row of that table over the phone. It needs looking at, usually with an X-ray. The table is for knowing the range of what might be coming so a quote does not blindside you. Ontario-wide ranges for the bigger items are in our post on root canal costs, and our fees and payment page explains how written estimates work. If money is why you are hesitating, check CDCP coverage before deciding to live with it.

What Not to Do

Superglue. Not sterile, not designed for oral tissue, and it seals bacteria against exposed dentine. It also makes the eventual repair harder and dearer, because someone has to grind it off first.

DIY repair kits and pharmacy filling putty. Useful for one thing: re-seating an intact crown that has fallen off, for a night or two, until you can be seen. Everything else they promise, they do badly.

Filing the edge yourself. Nail files remove enamel you do not get back.

Ignoring a break that does not hurt. This is the big one. A dead nerve, damaged nerve, or a fracture that has not yet reached the pulp all produce a comfortable tooth. Meanwhile exposed dentine decays far faster than enamel, and a tooth that needed forty minutes of bonding in March needs a root canal and a crown by autumn. Roughly a tenfold cost difference. Painless is not the same as fine.

Stopping the Next One

If you broke a tooth on food that should not have broken it, something else is going on. Night grinding is the usual suspect — it flattens cusps, cracks enamel and destroys restorations, and most people who do it have no idea. A night guard is cheap compared with what it protects. Old, large amalgam fillings are the other common cause: a tooth with more filling than tooth left is held together by not much, and cusps fracture off them routinely.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a broken tooth be saved?

Usually, yes, if there is enough structure above the bone and the root is intact. Fractures running vertically down the root are the main thing that cannot be repaired.

How long can I leave a broken tooth?

An enamel chip can wait weeks. Exposed dentine, days. Exposed pulp, a loose tooth or one broken at the gumline should be seen the same day.

Does a broken tooth always need a crown?

No. Small and moderate breaks are handled with bonding or a filling. Crowns are for teeth that have lost enough structure that a filling would not survive chewing. If you are told everything needs a crown, ask what happens if you do less — sometimes the honest answer is nothing much.

Will it hurt to fix?

Treatment is done under local anaesthetic. See how long dental freezing lasts for what to expect afterwards.

Get Seen Today

Bring the fragment if you have it, in milk. Tell us what happened, when, and whether anything else was injured. Contact the office or book online — and if it is out of the socket, phone rather than typing. Other things worth knowing before they happen are on the blog.

For a standard local anaesthetic with a vasoconstrictor, the tooth itself is numb for roughly one to two hours and the lip, tongue or cheek stays numb for about three to five hours.

Soft tissue always outlasts the tooth. The numbness you can feel — the dead lip, the tongue that will not behave — hangs around long after the working anaesthesia has gone. Nothing has failed. They are two different measurements.

Lower jaw injections last longer than upper jaw ones, sometimes considerably, and longer-acting agents used for surgery can hold soft tissue numb for eight hours or more. Most freezing in general practice is for routine fillings, where one small injection is enough and you are back to normal by lunchtime.

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Pulpal Numbness Versus Soft-Tissue Numbness

Two things get frozen and they wear off at different rates.

Pulpal anaesthesia is the tooth nerve. It is the only part that has to work while the dentist is drilling, and it is the shorter of the two — around 60 minutes for an upper infiltration, up to about 90 minutes or two hours for a lower block.

Soft-tissue anaesthesia is the lip, tongue, cheek and gum supplied by the same nerve, and it typically runs two to three times longer. Appointments are planned around the pulpal window, not the numb-lip window, which is why a long procedure sometimes needs a top-up while your lip is still dead. Numb lip does not mean numb tooth.

Upper Jaw Versus Lower Jaw

	Upper jaw (infiltration)	Lower back teeth (nerve block)
What is anaesthetised	The area around one or two teeth	The whole inferior alveolar nerve trunk
Typical pulpal numbness	About 60 minutes	About 90 minutes to 2 hours
Typical soft-tissue numbness	2-4 hours, lip and cheek	3-5 hours, half the lip, chin and tongue
How it feels	Localised	Half your lower face, including the tongue

Upper jaw bone is porous, so solution placed beside the tooth diffuses through to the root. Lower back teeth sit in dense bone it cannot cross, so the dentist blocks the whole nerve trunk before it enters the jaw. That single injection switches off everything downstream, which is why a lower filling leaves half your tongue numb and an upper one does not. Lower front teeth are usually infiltrated and behave like upper teeth, so not every bottom injection lasts until dinner.

What Makes Freezing Last Longer or Shorter

• The agent. Lidocaine is the everyday workhorse. Articaine diffuses through bone well. Bupivacaine and other long-acting agents are chosen deliberately for surgery, where hours of post-operative comfort is the point rather than a side effect.
• Whether a vasoconstrictor was included. Most cartridges contain a small amount of epinephrine, which narrows local blood vessels so the anaesthetic is carried away more slowly. It roughly doubles the working time. Plain solutions without it wear off much faster and are used where a vasoconstrictor is best avoided.
• The dose, the number of injections and the technique. More solution and more sites means longer. A nerve block outlasts an infiltration; an intraligamentary injection around a single tooth wears off quickly.
• Your own metabolism. Blood flow and liver metabolism vary. Some people reliably come out of freezing early and should say so, because it is useful next time.
• Inflammation and infection. A hot, abscessed tooth is genuinely harder to numb. Infected tissue is acidic, which reduces how much of the anaesthetic can cross into the nerve, and inflamed nerves fire more readily. This is why an infected tooth needing root canal treatment sometimes takes extra injections or a different technique.

There is also a reversal agent — phentolamine mesylate — that can be injected after treatment to speed the return of soft-tissue sensation, often roughly halving the numb time. It is not standard for every filling. It comes into its own for children, who are the ones most likely to chew a numb lip on the walk home, and for adults who have to speak in public that afternoon. Ask if it is available rather than assuming it is not.

Staying Safe While You Are Numb

The freezing itself is not the risk. What people do while numb is.

• Do not chew on that side until sensation is fully back. You cannot feel your cheek or tongue getting between your teeth.
• No hot drinks. A numb palate will not warn you before a scald.
• Skip alcohol until you can feel your lip.
• Watch children closely. A young child will bite, suck or scratch at a numb lip out of pure curiosity, and a chewed lower lip swells into something alarming a few hours later. It is one of the most common preventable injuries in dentistry and it is entirely avoidable with an adult paying attention for a couple of hours.
• If you have had a tooth taken out, follow the aftercare instructions on timing food, not the moment your lip wakes up.

A bitten numb lip is not an emergency in itself, but it hurts for days once sensation returns. Prevention costs nothing.

Surgery, Sedation and Longer-Acting Freezing

For wisdom tooth removal and other surgical work — including cases referred to an oral surgeon — a longer-acting anaesthetic is a deliberate choice. Numbness through the first several hours lets you get pain relief in before the discomfort starts rather than chasing it. Expect soft tissue numb well into the evening.

Sedation is a separate thing and does not replace freezing. Nitrous oxide or oral sedation changes how you feel about the appointment; local anaesthetic is what stops you feeling the tooth. You still get frozen either way.

When Numbness Lasting Too Long Is Worth a Call

Almost all prolonged numbness is nothing. Long-acting agents, a generous dose or a block placed close to the nerve can all stretch things out.

Ring the office if:

• Numbness or tingling is still there after about eight hours with no obvious explanation.
• Any numbness persists into the next day.
• You have altered sensation rather than absent sensation — burning, electric shocks, or an area that feels wrong to touch.
• There is swelling, spreading pain or fever, which is a different problem and may need urgent attention.

Persistent nerve disturbance after a routine injection is rare, and most cases resolve over weeks to months on their own. It still needs recording and reviewing rather than waiting it out silently. Get in touch and describe exactly what you feel and where.

If You Can Feel It, Say So

The single most useful thing you can do during a filling is tell the dentist the freezing is not holding. Not by tolerating it. Not by gripping the chair. Say it.

Adding more anaesthetic mid-procedure is normal and not a sign anything went wrong. Some teeth need it, some people metabolise fast, inflamed teeth are stubborn. Nobody is impressed by a patient who suffered quietly, and pushing through pain makes the next appointment worse because your nervous system remembers. Agree a hand signal before treatment starts, and use it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does freezing last after a filling?

Usually one to two hours of numbness in the tooth and three to five hours in the lip, cheek or tongue. Lower jaw blocks sit at the longer end of both, upper jaw infiltrations at the shorter end.

How can I make dental freezing wear off faster?

Gentle activity and light massage of the area may help marginally, because both increase blood flow. There is no reliable home trick. The one thing that genuinely shortens it is the reversal injection, which has to be given by the dentist before you leave.

Why is my tongue numb after a filling on my bottom teeth?

The lingual nerve runs alongside the nerve being blocked and is anaesthetised at the same time. It is expected, not an error, and it is why lower fillings feel far more disruptive than upper ones.

Is it normal to need a second injection?

Yes. Anatomy varies, infected teeth resist anaesthetic, and long procedures outlast the first dose. Needing a top-up is routine.

Does freezing hurt going in?

The sting is mostly from the solution entering the tissue, not the needle. Topical gel first, slow delivery and warming the cartridge all reduce it. Tell us if injections are the part you dread — it changes how we do it.

Book a Visit

If you have a tooth that needs work, or a history of freezing that never seems to hold, bring it up before we start — it changes the plan. Anything needing an examination first gets one, costs are set out on our fees and payment page, and you get a written estimate before treatment. New here? See new patient information. A broken tooth is worth reading about before it happens, and if you are due a clean, here is how long that takes.

Book online or contact the office. More answers to the questions patients actually ask are on the blog.

Porcelain veneers run $900 to $2,500 per tooth in Canada, averaging around $1,500. Composite veneers are $250 to $1,500, averaging about $700. The number that matters is that figure multiplied by how many teeth you do.

Veneers are cosmetic, so they do not appear in the ODA Suggested Fee Guide, which covers clinical treatment. The figures above are published Canadian market ranges, and cosmetic pricing varies more widely between practices than restorative pricing does.

Almost every article on veneer costs quotes the per-tooth price and stops there, which is useless for planning. Nobody does one veneer in isolation unless they are repairing a single damaged tooth. A smile line is usually six teeth, sometimes eight.

Before the arithmetic, see how veneer treatment works at our Windsor office — including the cases where we say no.

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Do the Multiplication

At the Canadian average of roughly $1,500 per porcelain veneer:

• Four upper front teeth: about $6,000
• Six teeth, the usual smile line: about $9,000
• Eight teeth, upper arch to the premolars: about $12,000
• Ten teeth: about $15,000

At $900 a tooth, six teeth is around $5,400. At $2,500 a tooth, six teeth is $15,000. That spread reflects the technician, the material, the case and the practice.

Composite veneers, built up directly on the tooth in one appointment, are the cheaper route: at an average near $700 a tooth, six teeth is roughly $4,200.

If a quote is a single lump sum, ask for it per tooth and ask how many teeth it covers. That is the only honest way to compare two quotes.

Porcelain or Composite

	Porcelain veneer	Composite veneer
Canadian cost per tooth	$900-$2,500, average ~$1,500	$250-$1,500, average ~$700
Typical lifespan	10-15 years	5-7 years
Made	In a dental laboratory	Sculpted directly on the tooth
Visits	Two or more	Usually one
Stain resistance	Does not stain	Picks up colour from coffee, tea, wine
Repair	Usually replaced	Patched and repolished chairside
Enamel removed	A thin layer, permanent	Minimal, sometimes none
Appearance	Best available, translucent like enamel	Very good, less depth

Composite is not a downgrade so much as a different trade. It costs less up front, is repairable, and takes less tooth away. It also stains and needs replacing sooner, so over twenty years its running cost can approach porcelain. That is an argument for porcelain if you are certain, and for composite if you want to try the shape first.

Veneers Are a Lifetime Purchase, Not a One-Off

This is the part cosmetic marketing skips, and it should be the first thing you are told.

Preparing a tooth for a porcelain veneer removes a layer of enamel, and enamel does not grow back. Once prepared, that tooth needs something covering it for the rest of your life — a veneer, or a crown if it is damaged further. You are not buying a set of veneers. You are buying the first set of a replacement cycle that runs every ten to fifteen years for as long as you have the teeth.

Do that arithmetic at 35. Six porcelain veneers at $9,000, replaced perhaps three times over a lifetime, is a commitment near $27,000 in today’s money. That is not an argument against veneers, but an argument for being certain and for not putting them on teeth that did not need them. Composite is more forgiving because so little enamel is removed, which is why it is often the right starting point in your twenties.

Insurance Will Not Help

Veneers are cosmetic. Private dental plans exclude them, and the Canadian Dental Care Plan excludes cosmetic treatment at every income tier — our CDCP guide lists the exclusions in full.

One narrow exception. Where a front tooth is genuinely broken and a restoration is clinically necessary, the work may be claimable as a restoration rather than cosmetic. That is decided by the clinical situation, not by how the claim is worded. We can submit one and use direct billing where the insurer allows it. Our fees and payment page covers cosmetic estimates, and if the full plan is out of reach this year, ask about sequencing it affordably.

The Cheaper Options That Are Often Correct

We will not prepare eight healthy front teeth for veneers because someone saw a result online. Before anyone touches enamel, three questions get asked.

Is it a small chip or a worn edge?

Composite bonding is $200 to $600 per tooth in Canada, averaging around $400. One appointment, little or no enamel removed, repairable, and on a chipped corner or a short edge it produces a result nobody identifies as dental work. Paying $1,500 a tooth to fix a chip that bonding handles for $400 is money thrown away.

Is the only problem the colour?

Then whiten. In-office whitening in Canada is $400 to $900 and custom take-home trays $200 to $500 — less than a single veneer, for the whole arch. Our post on what whitening costs covers what responds and what does not, and professional whitening is reversible in a way veneers never are.

Are the teeth actually crooked?

Then straighten them. Using veneers to hide crowding means grinding down healthy teeth to fake an alignment that clear aligners or orthodontic treatment would have achieved without removing anything. It is the most common reason people end up with veneers they regret. Aligners take months. Enamel takes forever.

Sequence, and Why It Saves You Money

Straighten, then whiten, then veneer to the new shade. Get that order wrong and the costs compound. Veneer then straighten, and the veneers no longer sit where they were designed to. Veneer then whiten, and your natural teeth change colour while the porcelain does not, so the only fix for the mismatch is remaking the veneers.

A smile makeover is planned in that order for a reason, and any cosmetic dentistry consultation worth having settles the sequence before the price.

Two more things get checked first. Healthy gums, because veneer margins sit at the gum line and inflamed or receding tissue shows a dark line within a year — gum disease is treated before cosmetic work. And grinding, because porcelain on the front teeth of an untreated bruxist chips. If you clench, a night guard is part of the plan, not an optional extra.

What Makes Veneers Look Fake

• All the same length and shape. Real teeth are not identical; laterals sit slightly shorter than centrals.
• Too white for the face. Shade should be chosen against skin tone and the whites of the eyes, not against a chart in a bright room.
• Too thick, because the teeth were not prepared and the porcelain was laid over the top.
• No translucency at the edge. Natural enamel is slightly see-through at the tip; flat opaque porcelain reads as false immediately.
• A flat front-on arch instead of a curve that follows the lower lip.

Ask to see cases the practice has actually done, not stock photography.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much do veneers cost for a full set in Ontario?

For six porcelain veneers at the Canadian average, budget around $9,000, with a realistic range of $5,400 to $15,000. Eight teeth pushes the average nearer $12,000. Composite is roughly half.

Are veneers permanent?

The preparation is. The veneers last 10 to 15 years in porcelain and 5 to 7 in composite, then need replacing — and because enamel has been removed, the tooth cannot be left bare.

Does insurance cover veneers?

Not for cosmetic reasons, and CDCP does not cover them at all. A genuinely broken front tooth restored with a veneer may be claimable as a restoration — send a predetermination and find out in writing.

Do veneers ruin your teeth?

Properly planned and made, no — but they permanently change them. A minimal-preparation veneer removes a fraction of a millimetre. A poorly planned case removes far more. The risk is not the veneer; it is having them on teeth that did not need them.

Veneers or Invisalign?

If the teeth are the right colour and shape but the wrong position, aligners. If they are positioned well but chipped, worn or badly discoloured, veneers. Plenty of people need a short course of aligners and then two veneers instead of eight.

Can I get veneers on just my top teeth?

Most people do, because the lower teeth show less in a normal smile. What matters is that the new upper shade does not make the lowers look yellow, which is another reason to whiten before the porcelain shade is picked.

How long does veneer treatment take?

Composite is usually one appointment. Porcelain is a consultation, a preparation visit with temporaries, and a fit two or three weeks later. Add months if straightening or restorative work comes first.

Get an Honest Assessment First

Bring in what you want changed rather than the treatment you think you need. We will tell you whether bonding, whitening, aligners or veneers gets you there, in what order, and what each costs — and if you need less than you came in for, that is what you will hear. A routine examination comes first either way, because cosmetic work goes on healthy teeth.

Book online or contact the office. Also worth reading: what a crown costs in Ontario. Every cost breakdown we have published is indexed on the blog.

In-office whitening runs about $400 to $900 in Canada, averaging around $650. Custom take-home trays are $200 to $500, averaging about $350 — and the trays are reusable, which changes the maths entirely.

Whitening is cosmetic, so it does not appear in the ODA Suggested Fee Guide, which covers clinical treatment. The figures above are published Canadian market ranges, and cosmetic pricing varies more between practices than restorative pricing does.

The cost of teeth whitening at the dentist splits in two. One route is a single supervised appointment using a high-concentration gel with the gums isolated. The other is a set of custom trays made from a scan of your teeth, with gel you use at home over one to two weeks. Both work, at different speeds and for different money.

Here is what whitening involves at our Windsor office, including what we check before agreeing to do it.

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In-Office, Take-Home, or the Drugstore

	In-office whitening	Custom take-home trays	Drugstore strips or kits
Typical Canadian cost	$400-$900, average ~$650	$200-$500, average ~$350	$30-$100
Time to result	One appointment, 60-90 minutes	1-2 weeks of nightly or daily wear	2-4 weeks, if it works
Gel strength	Highest, professionally isolated	Moderate, safe for unsupervised use	Lowest
Fits your teeth	Not applicable	Moulded to your arch, gel stays put	One-size strip, misses the edges
Top-ups later	Full price again	Cost of a gel syringe only	Buy another box
Gum protection	Barrier placed by the clinician	Trays trimmed to the gum line	None, gel leaks
Supervised	Yes	Assessed first, then you run it	No

The value argument for trays is the one most people miss. The expensive part is making the trays, and you keep those. Two years later when the colour has drifted, a top-up costs a syringe of gel rather than another course of treatment. Over a decade, trays are the cheaper way to stay white by a wide margin.

Drugstore strips are not a scam. They contain a real whitening agent at low concentration and on mild surface staining they do something. They cost less because they do less, they cannot reach the curve between teeth, and the gel goes where it likes because nothing holds it against the enamel. If your teeth are only slightly dull they are a reasonable first try, and we will say so before taking your money.

What Drives Professional Whitening Cost

• Peroxide concentration and how long it stays on the tooth.
• Whether the appointment includes gum isolation and a clinician sitting with you, which is chair time.
• Whether custom trays and a scan are part of the package or an add-on.
• Number of applications — some in-office protocols run three cycles in one visit, some one.
• Whether follow-up gel and a review appointment are included.
• Laser or light activation. The evidence that a light meaningfully improves on the gel alone is weak, and laser whitening cost is typically higher for a result largely down to the peroxide. If someone charges a premium for the lamp, ask what it adds.

Insurance Does Not Pay for This

Whitening is elective and cosmetic, so no private dental plan covers it. Neither does the Canadian Dental Care Plan, which excludes cosmetic treatment outright at every income tier — our CDCP guide lists what is and is not on the plan.

What insurance often does cover is the cleaning that should come first, which is where the honest money-saving advice starts. See our fees and payment page for how cosmetic estimates work here, and direct billing for the clinical part of the visit.

Three Ways People Waste the Money

This is the part of the post that argues against our own revenue, and it is the useful part.

Whitening over tartar

Calculus and built-up stain do not bleach. Gel cannot penetrate them, so you whiten the enamel that was already visible while the rest stays as it was. A four-unit scaling and cleaning appointment is $261 under the 2026 ODA guide, and where the problem is coffee, tea, red wine or tobacco staining rather than the underlying shade, that cleaning alone gets most people most of the way. Some look in the mirror afterwards and cancel the whitening. That is a good outcome. Our post on how dentists remove tartar explains why brushing cannot shift it.

Whitening teeth that will not respond

Peroxide lifts organic staining inside enamel and dentine. It does very little for grey teeth, tetracycline banding from childhood antibiotics, or white fluorosis spots — and on tetracycline cases it can make the banding more obvious by lightening everything around it. A single dark tooth that has had root canal treatment is a different problem, fixed by internal bleaching of that one tooth rather than a tray across all of them.

Someone should tell you what kind of discolouration you have before you pay for anything. If yours will not respond, bonding or veneers are the honest alternatives — our post on what veneers cost in Ontario sets out that budget.

Whitening after the restorations go in

Crowns, veneers, bonding and white fillings do not whiten. Peroxide does nothing to ceramic or composite. Whiten after a crown or a front filling is placed and the restoration stays the old shade, which now looks wrong — and matching it means replacing it.

Whiten first, wait two weeks for the shade to settle, then have the restoration made to the new colour. Get that order backwards on a smile makeover and you pay for the same front teeth twice. Any competent cosmetic dentistry plan starts with this conversation.

Sensitivity

Most people get some. It is a sharp, short zing rather than a constant ache, it comes from peroxide passing through the enamel to the nerve, and it settles within a day or two of finishing. It does not mean damage.

It is managed with a potassium nitrate and fluoride desensitising gel before and after, shorter wear times rather than pushing through, and spacing sessions out. If your teeth are already sensitive, take-home trays at lower concentration over a longer period are kinder than one high-strength session. Untreated decay or an exposed root hurts considerably more, which is another reason for the examination first.

How Long It Lasts

Six months to three years, and the range is that wide because it is mostly about habits. Coffee, tea, red wine, dark cola, curry and tobacco pull the shade back fastest. Rinsing with water after them helps more than people expect.

Teeth also darken with age as enamel thins and the yellower dentine shows through, so whitening is maintenance rather than a permanent change. With trays, top up when you notice the drift rather than waiting until it has gone all the way back.

One thing worth knowing before orthodontic treatment: whiten after the teeth are straight, not before. Overlapping teeth shade unevenly, and moving them afterwards exposes surfaces that were never bleached.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does it cost to whiten teeth professionally in Canada?

In-office treatment is typically $400 to $900, averaging near $650, and custom take-home trays are $200 to $500, averaging around $350. Cosmetic work is not in the ODA guide, so these are market ranges rather than published fees.

Is professional whitening better than strips?

It is stronger, supervised, and with custom trays the gel sits where it is meant to. Strips are cheaper and work on mild staining. The bigger difference is that someone assesses whether your discolouration will respond before you spend anything.

Does whitening damage enamel?

Whitening at the concentrations used in dentistry does not soften or erode enamel when used as directed. Overuse causes sensitivity and gum irritation, which is temporary. The real risk is unsupervised high-strength gel bought online.

Will whitening work on crowns or veneers?

No. Ceramic and composite do not change colour. This is why you whiten first and match new restorations to the result afterwards.

Why is one of my teeth darker than the others?

Usually because the nerve inside it has died, often years after a knock. Whitening from the outside will not fix that. Internal bleaching of that single tooth, or a veneer, is the route — and the tooth needs assessing first.

How white will my teeth actually get?

Several shades for most people, but there is a ceiling set by your natural dentine colour. Anyone promising a specific shade before looking in your mouth is guessing.

Get Assessed Before You Pay for Anything

Come in for a look first. We will tell you what kind of staining you have, whether a cleaning alone would do it, whether whitening will work on your teeth, and what order to do things in if restorations are planned. If whitening will not give you what you want, we would rather say so than sell it. See our full list of services.

Book online or ask us first. More cost answers are on the blog.

A ceramic crown in Ontario runs $1,349 to $1,449 including the laboratory fee — and if there is not enough tooth left to hold it, there is a build-up charge on top that most quotes leave out.

Those figures come from the 2026 ODA Suggested Fee Guide, published each January by the Ontario Dental Association. It is a suggested guide, not a mandated price list, and each practice sets its own fees — still the best benchmark in the province for judging whether a quote is reasonable.

Two things drive the number. The clinical procedure: preparing the tooth, scanning it, fitting a temporary, then seating the final crown at a second visit. And the laboratory fee, a genuine pass-through, because a technician somewhere makes or mills your crown and what they charge depends on material and lab. A single all-in quote has bundled both.

Here is how crown treatment works at our Windsor office, including what happens between the two appointments.

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Materials, and What Each One Is For

	Ceramic or porcelain	Zirconia	Porcelain fused to metal
Relative cost	$1,349-$1,449 per the 2026 guide	Similar, sometimes higher	Similar to slightly lower
Appearance	Best match for front teeth	Very good, less translucent	Good, can show a dark line at the gum
Strength	Good, can chip under heavy load	Extremely strong	Strong, porcelain layer can chip off
Tooth removal needed	Moderate	Can be thinner in places	More, to make room for two layers
Best used for	Front teeth and visible premolars	Molars, grinders, back of the mouth	Long-span bridges and budget cases

Gold is the fourth option and it has not stopped being good. It is kind to the opposing tooth, needs less tooth removed, and outlasts everything on that table. People decline it because it is gold-coloured. If you have one at the back that has lasted twenty-five years, leaving it alone is usually the right advice.

The Charge Nobody Quotes You

A crown needs something to hold on to. If decay or a failing filling has taken most of the tooth away, or root canal treatment has hollowed out the middle, the remaining structure is rebuilt first with a core build-up, sometimes over a post cemented into a canal.

That is a separate procedure with a separate fee, quoted on top of the crown. It is not an upsell — cementing a crown onto a stump with nothing under it produces a crown that comes off in a bread roll.

Ask at the consultation whether a build-up is anticipated. The answer is usually visible on the X-ray, and finding out then beats finding out at the desk.

Crown After a Root Canal

On a back tooth this is effectively mandatory. Root canal treatment removes the nerve and drills through the biting surface, and what remains is dry, hollow and weak. Chewing force eventually splits it, often below the gum line where nothing can be done.

The arithmetic is unforgiving. A molar root canal is $1,417 to $1,579 per the 2026 guide, so a tooth lost to a skipped crown means that money is gone and you still need an extraction at $218 to $314 plus a replacement. Root canal and crown together typically run $2,300 to $2,400 in Canada — our post on root canal costs in Ontario breaks that down.

Front teeth are different. An upper incisor with intact structure and a small access cavity takes shearing rather than crushing force and can often be closed with a bonded filling instead. That saves well over a thousand dollars. Nobody should crown a front tooth reflexively because it had a root canal, and if that is your quote, ask why.

Two Visits, or One

Conventional crowns take two appointments. The first prepares the tooth, scans it and fits a temporary. The lab makes the final crown over roughly two weeks. The second appointment checks fit and bite and cements the permanent one.

Same-day crowns are milled in the office from a ceramic block while you wait, removing the temporary, the second visit and the fortnight between. What they do not remove is the cost — chairside milling is a capital investment and the fee is comparable. Same-day wins on convenience, and on the fact that a temporary cannot come off if there is no temporary. A laboratory still wins on complex shade matching at the front, because a technician can layer colour in a way a single block cannot.

Insurance and CDCP

Most private plans class crowns as major restorative work and cover around 50%, after any deductible and inside your annual maximum. A crown plus a build-up can absorb most of a typical yearly maximum on its own, which matters if other treatment is planned for the same year.

Send a predetermination first. The office submits the code and the X-ray, and the insurer replies in writing. Insurers also apply replacement clauses, commonly five years before they will fund a crown on the same tooth again. We handle direct billing where your insurer permits it, and our fees and payment page sets out how estimates work.

Under the Canadian Dental Care Plan, crowns can be covered but generally require preauthorisation, and the plan pays on its own fee schedule rather than the ODA guide. A 0% co-payment does not always mean nothing to pay, because the gap between the two schedules is yours. Our full CDCP guide explains where that lands. If the number is the obstacle, ask about making treatment affordable rather than deferring indefinitely.

When You Should Not Have a Crown

A crown permanently removes a significant amount of healthy tooth. That is the trade for full coverage, and it should be earned.

If the cavity is moderate and the walls are sound, a well-placed filling or an onlay does the job for a fraction of the cost and keeps more of your tooth. We will not crown a tooth that a filling can hold. If a tooth is cracked through the root or so far gone that a crown would sit on nothing, the honest conversation is extraction and whether to replace with a bridge or an implant — our post on implant costs covers that.

And a crown is a restoration, not a cosmetic product. If your front teeth are healthy and you want them to look different, crowning them is the most destructive route available. Veneers remove far less tooth, and whitening or bonding sometimes removes none.

How Long a Crown Lasts

Ten to fifteen years is the usual expectation and plenty go longer. Crowns fail less from age than from what happens underneath and around them.

• Decay at the margin, where the crown meets the tooth. This is the most common cause of failure and it is a plaque problem — regular hygiene appointments are what prevent it.
• Grinding. Bruxism chips ceramic and loosens cement. If you clench at night, a night guard protects a crown you have already paid for and is cheap by comparison.
• Gum recession exposing the margin, which is cosmetic on a molar and obvious on a front tooth.
• Trauma. Ice, popcorn kernels, and using teeth to open things.

A crown checked at a routine examination usually gets repaired or re-cemented before it becomes a new crown.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is a crown without insurance?

The fee does not change with insurance, only who pays it. In Ontario, expect $1,349 to $1,449 for a ceramic crown under the 2026 ODA guide, plus a build-up if the tooth needs one.

Why is a dental crown so expensive?

Two appointments of chair time, a scan, a temporary, and a technician making a custom object to fit one tooth in one mouth. The lab fee alone is a real cost the practice pays out.

Can I just get a filling instead of a crown?

If enough sound tooth remains, yes, and it should be offered. Once the walls are undermined a large filling flexes and the tooth eventually fractures, which is where a crown becomes the cheaper option over ten years.

Does insurance cover crowns?

Most cover roughly half as a major service, subject to a deductible, an annual maximum and often a five-year replacement clause. Get a predetermination in writing first.

What if my crown falls off?

Keep it, do not superglue it, and call the office. A crown that comes off cleanly can often be re-cemented the same day. If it broke because the tooth underneath broke, that is an emergency appointment and the sooner the better.

Are same-day crowns as good as lab crowns?

For most back teeth, yes — the fit is excellent and you skip the temporary. For a front tooth needing subtle shade work, a skilled technician still has the edge.

Find Out What Your Tooth Actually Needs

Bring the tooth in. An examination and an X-ray tell us whether it needs a crown, a filling, or nothing yet, and the written estimate covers the build-up as well as the crown so the total is the total.

Book online or contact us with a question first. Other treatments are broken down the same way on the blog.

A single implant starts around $4,165 in Ontario and typically lands between $4,165 and $5,000 all in — but “an implant” is three separate charges, and the extras are where quotes diverge.

That starting figure comes from the 2026 ODA Suggested Fee Guide, published each January by the Ontario Dental Association. It is a suggested guide rather than a mandated price list, and practices set their own fees — treat it as a benchmark for judging a quote, not a prediction of one.

Implant quotes vary wildly between practices, and it is rarely greed. Different quotes contain different things. One office prices the surgical placement and nothing else. Another prices the finished tooth. Comparing them without asking what is in each is how people end up surprised.

Start with how implant treatment works at our Windsor office, then come back for the arithmetic.

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Three Components, Three Charges

An implant is not one object. It is a system with three parts, each of which is billed.

1. The fixture. The titanium or zirconia screw placed into the jawbone. This is the surgical stage, and it is what most people picture when they hear the word implant.
2. The abutment. The connector that screws into the fixture and sits through the gum. It can be a stock part or custom-milled for your case, and that choice changes the price.
3. The crown. The visible tooth, made in a laboratory and fitted to the abutment. Close to a conventional dental crown, which runs $1,349 to $1,449 in the 2026 guide.

Between the fixture and the crown there is a healing period of three to six months while bone integrates with the implant. Nothing is billed for waiting, but it is why implant treatment is measured in seasons.

The Extras That Change the Number

A consultation quote and a final invoice differ because of what has to happen around the implant.

• Extraction first. If the failing tooth is still in place it has to come out. Per the 2026 guide, an extraction in Ontario is $218 uncomplicated or $314 surgical.
• Bone grafting. If the ridge has resorbed, there may not be enough bone to hold a fixture. A graft is $2,165 per site in the 2026 guide and adds months. This is the most common reason a $4,500 plan becomes a $7,000 one.
• CBCT imaging. Three-dimensional imaging to map bone volume and locate the nerve canal or sinus floor. Small field $234, large field $399 per the guide, and not optional for good planning — see our technology page.
• Sinus lift. Upper back implants sometimes need the sinus floor raised, which is its own procedure and its own fee.
• Sedation. Nitrous oxide $124 to $298, oral sedation $93 to $289 per the guide. If anxiety is a factor, price sedation in rather than discovering it later.
• Gum health first. Active periodontal disease is treated before an implant goes in — the bacteria that destroyed bone around your teeth will do the same around an implant. Separate cost, non-negotiable.

Why the Cheapest Quote Usually Is Not

Cross-border and discount implant pricing is real and people use it for real reasons. Some of it is fine. Some of it is a fixture from a manufacturer whose components will not exist in five years when the abutment screw loosens.

Before comparing two numbers, ask each office the same questions. Does this include the abutment and the crown, or only the fixture? Which implant system, and is it a major brand with long-term parts availability? Does it include the CBCT? Is grafting included or quoted separately? And what happens, at whose cost, if the implant fails to integrate?

Two quotes answering those differently are not the same product. A single implant with everything included generally lands in that $4,165 to $5,000 band in Ontario. Substantially below usually means something has been left out of the sentence. Complex surgical cases may go to an oral surgeon, whose fees are higher and worth it on the cases that need one.

What Insurance and CDCP Do

Implants are not covered by the Canadian Dental Care Plan at any co-payment tier. If you are on CDCP and missing a tooth, the plan’s answer is a bridge or a partial denture, and our post on what CDCP actually covers sets out the boundaries.

Private plans are inconsistent. Many exclude implants outright. Others cap the benefit at what a bridge would have cost. Plenty that exclude the fixture will still pay their normal major-restorative share of the crown, because a crown is a crown — the line item our post on crown costs covers in detail.

Send a predetermination before you commit. The office submits the coded plan, the insurer replies in writing, and you find out before the money is spent. We handle direct billing where insurers allow it, and our fees and payment page explains how written estimates work.

Implant, Bridge or Partial Denture

	Single implant	Fixed bridge	Cast partial denture
Typical Ontario cost	$4,165-$5,000	Roughly two to three crown units	$490-$1,519
Expected lifespan	20 years or more with maintenance	10-15 years	5-10 years, relines along the way
Adjacent teeth	Untouched	Two healthy teeth cut down permanently	Untouched, but clasped
Bone in the gap	Preserved by loading	Continues to shrink	Continues to shrink
Cleaning	Brush and floss like a tooth	Needs threaders under the pontic	Comes out nightly
Time to complete	3-9 months	2-4 weeks	4-8 weeks
Replaces multiple teeth	Cost scales per implant	Limited span	Handles several gaps at once

When We Would Talk You Out of an Implant

An implant is the best single-tooth replacement available and not automatically the right one for you.

If the teeth either side of the gap already have large fillings or old crowns and are heading for restoration anyway, a bridge uses work you were paying for regardless. If several teeth are missing in one arch, a well-made partial denture solves the whole problem for a fraction of four implants. If you smoke heavily, have uncontrolled diabetes or unmanaged gum disease, failure rates climb and the honest advice is to fix those first.

And if the number is out of reach this year, the answer is not to leave the gap open while you save. Gaps let neighbouring teeth drift and the opposing tooth over-erupt, which makes the eventual restoration harder and dearer. We would rather close the space affordably now than see you in four years with a bigger problem — ask about affordable options.

What Keeps an Implant Alive

An implant cannot decay, which is not the same as being maintenance-free. Peri-implantitis is gum and bone infection around the fixture and it behaves like aggressive periodontal disease. It is the main reason implants are lost, and it is largely preventable with regular hygiene visits and a checkup schedule you actually keep.

Grinding is the other threat. A ceramic implant crown does not have a periodontal ligament to absorb force, so heavy bruxism chips crowns and loosens screws. If you grind, a night guard is a cheap insurance policy on an expensive tooth.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do dental implants cost so much?

You are paying for a surgical procedure, a precision titanium component, three-dimensional imaging, a laboratory-made crown and several appointments over months. The planning is what stops the fixture ending up in a nerve or a sinus.

Are cheap implants abroad worth it?

Sometimes the surgery is excellent. The problem is afterwards. If the system is not one Canadian practices stock parts for, a loose screw becomes a replacement rather than a repair, and no local dentist inherits a warranty. Price the follow-up, not just the flight.

Does CDCP cover dental implants?

No, at any income tier. Implants are on the excluded list along with cosmetic treatment and orthodontics.

How long do dental implants last?

With good hygiene and no smoking, the fixture often lasts decades. The crown on top wears and typically needs replacing at 10 to 15 years — a cost worth planning for.

Can I get an implant the same day as the extraction?

Sometimes. Immediate placement works when the socket walls are intact and there is no active infection, and it saves months. It is decided by what we see at the extraction, not promised in advance.

Do I need a bone graft?

Only the CBCT scan answers that. The longer a tooth has been missing, the more likely it becomes — bone that is not loaded resorbs. Extracting and grafting at the same visit often avoids a bigger graft later.

Get a Real Quote, Itemised

Bring the gap in. We will scan it, tell you whether the bone is there, and give you a written estimate broken out by component so you can see what you are paying for. If a bridge or a partial is better value in your case, we will say so.

Book online or ask a question first. Weighing up whether to save a tooth instead? Read what a root canal costs in Ontario. The rest of our cost breakdowns sit on the blog.