The health of your mouth is very important. Your smile is often the first thing people notice about you, so let’s try to make it a good one! Gum disease is known to be linked to heart disease and gum disease can be hereditary so if you know your parents lost teeth at an early age it’s worth knowing how to protect yours.

Our Oral Health Educators, Carly and Laura, can help you with improving the health of your mouth. They will see both adults and children. Things you might want to talk about include:

• The best technique for toothbrushing.


• Choosing the best brush (manual or electric).


• How to clean in-between your teeth with floss or Tepe brushes.


• The links between diet and oral health, looking at your sugar intake.


• Dry mouth problems (often linked to medication)

We may suggest that you have hygiene appointments with Emma or Katie, who are our qualified dental hygienists, instead of seeing your dentist. They can spend more time with you, helping you to improve your gum health. This will usually be covered by your current plan but we may suggest extra appointments if we feel you need them.

Appointments with Carly are free-of-charge to registered patients so please ask at reception or email us if you would like an appointment.

Many people are anxious about visiting the dentist. This may be due to bad experiences in the past, a phobia of needles or worries passed on from parents. Nowadays anxiety need not be a reason to avoid the dentist. Techniques are much more gentle than they used to be and all our dentists will talk you through what they are doing to allay any fear of the unknown.

If you are very worried then come to see Jenny Page.

Jenny has trained in clinical hypnosis and stress management with the British Society of Clinical and Academic Hypnosis and has also trained in EFT (emotional freedom techniques, or tapping). Using hypnosis you can learn techniques to cope with your anxiety in both dental situations and outside the dental surgery. Treatment can be performed with no need for conventional anaesthesia (no needles!) Phobias can be dealt with once and for all and you can learn how to calm yourself with just a squeeze of your hand. Hypnosis can also be used to help stop smoking , lose weight and deal with other phobias or anxieties. If you would like to come and talk about the possibilities please email or ask at reception.

Do you have missing teeth? In the past the only way to fill gaps was with either dentures or a bridge. Implants can be used to support a removable denture, which can be made to cover a lot less of the mouth than a conventional denture and is a lot more secure. They can also hold crown and bridges, replacing a single missing tooth if needed. As they are secured into the jawbone they can feel like having your old teeth back again.

Implant treatment can be very complicated and for that reason we choose our implant cases very carefully to make sure that we are treating appropriately. A complex assessment will be carried out by Jon Page before treatment is decided. The treatment may take up to 9 months to complete and you may need follow-up appointments to check on the health of the implants and surrounding teeth.

Jon Page has obtained a Master’s degree from the university of Warwick to equip him to carry out this complex work. Our nurses also have extra training to help him during the surgical procedures involved in placing the implants.

Mr Page may choose to refer you on for more complex treatment. We tend to refer to Arnica Dental Care in Cheltenham

Not everyone is happy with the appearance of their teeth. Teeth are not naturally completely white but can vary in shade quite considerably from light yellows to browns. A whiter shade tends to look younger and healthier. The technique we use to whiten teeth is a night-time tray system.

We take moulds of your mouth and the laboratory make very thin plastic trays that cover your teeth tightly and hold a gel against them while you sleep. This is a very safe peroxide-based gel. The gel is applied before you go to bed every night for about 2 weeks. We will gauge the shade of your teeth at the start of the treatment and again after 2 weeks. Some people find their teeth lighten very quickly and others take a lot longer. We find that using the trays every night changes the colour slowly and steadily which means the colour change lasts well. Some people find that the gel makes their teeth temporarily sensitive to cold so we will provide a mousse to put on your teeth in the morning to re-hydrate them and stop the sensitivity.

Tooth whitening should always be carried out in a dental practice as it is not an appropriate procedure for every patient and an examination needs to be carried out before going ahead with treatment. The average cost is £350

Dentistry is about sorting out health problems in your mouth like decay and gum disease but it can also be about improving your smile.

What could we do for you?

Do you have old, discoloured fillings? Do you have old crowns where you can see the dark edges? Are your teeth crooked? Are your teeth too dark? All these things and more can be sorted out to give you the smile that you want. Tooth-coloured filling materials can improve the appearance of your teeth with sometimes minimal work. New porcelain and zirconia crown and bridgework can get rid of those dark lines that showed up old crowns.

Julie Grant can assess you for the possibility of orthodontic treatment to sort out crooked teeth (it’s not just for teenagers!) Jon Page can assess you for implant treatment to fill unsightly gaps or help you lose those old, loose dentures. Tooth whitening and then replacing dark fillings may be all that’s needed to brighten a smile. If you are embarrassed by your smile then ask what we can do for you.