Dental Implants Before and After Photos

Monique – Financial Coordinator

Monique grew up in a military household that allowed her to start traveling at very young age. She began high school in Virginia and relocated to San Diego halfway through. After graduating, she completed dental assisting school and has worked in a variety of fields within dentistry, including both clinical assisting and administrative roles. When she’s not working, she enjoys cooking, shopping and traveling to new places.

Ann – Surgical Assistant

Ann was born and raised in Manila, Philippines where she practiced dentistry before moving to San Diego. She has 25 years of experience in the dental industry and takes pride in educating and helping patients improve their oral health and achieve their best smile. In her free time, she enjoys watching movies and TV series with her family.

Geeta – Surgical Assistant

Geeta has over 20 years of experience in the dental field and over 10 years in Periodontics. She loves working with Dr. Beck and ensures that each patient has a positive experience and receives the best dental care in our office. She loves spending time with her family and watching movies. She enjoys an active lifestyle that includes hiking, exercising and traveling.

Jessica – Registered Dental Hygienist

If you’re a Rancho Santa Fe resident in need of a highly skilled and caring periodontist, then you need to look no further than San Diego’s Dr. Beck. With a Doctorate of Dental Surgery (DDS) degree from UCLA and 3 additional years of education at of one of the world’s best specialty training programs in periodontology and oral health, Dr. Beck is the perfect dental practitioner to guarantee you and your family’s oral health. Located just off the 15, she’s also conveniently close for Rancho Santa Fe patients.

What Does a Periodontist Do?

Many Rancho Santa Fe residents who are initially told by their regular dentist that they need to see a periodontist for advanced care, may be concerned. After all, you brush and floss daily, and see your dentist regularly for check-ups & cleanings. Why would you need specialty care from a periodontist?

A periodontist is a dentist who specializes in many advanced dental procedures, including:

Deep Teeth Cleanings

“Deep cleaning” is a layman’s term for a procedure technically called Scaling and Root Planing, in which bacterial deposits are carefully removed from deep below the gum line. Local anesthesia, AKA Novocaine, is required to ensure your comfort during this procedure. While not required, Dr. Beck is happy to offer sedation for those who desire additional peace of mind and comfort during the procedure. Some Rancho Santa Fe residents require this procedure because they have bone loss and inflammation due to chronic periodontitis (gum disease).  Dr. Beck and her team are the ideal choice for this procedure as they are well equipped with the best technology and specialized equipment  to ensure optimal results.

Removing Diseased Teeth

As an expertly trained dental surgeon, a periodontist like Dr. Beck is well-versed in performing a wide variety of oral surgical procedures. These include carefully and painlessly extracting diseased and infected teeth for Rancho Santa Fe patients.

Dental Implants

As a board certified periodontal surgeon and graduate from a world-renowned advanced specialty training program, Dr. Beck is an expert in all things dental implants. Not only has she placed thousands of dental implants, she also regularly attends seminars and training programs all over the country to stay up to date with the latest research and technologies.  She is highly regarded by her peers as one of the best in Southern California.

Gum Recession Treatment

Gum recession can not only look unattractive, but it puts one at risk for more serious complications like root decay, bone loss, and even infection and tooth loss. In most cases Dr. Beck can prevent this by performing minimally invasive gum recession treatment.

The Pinhole Surgical Technique

In cases when gum recession is caught early, Dr. Beck may be able to perform the minimally invasive pinhole surgical technique. With this gum grafting alternative, Dr. Beck uses small pinhole-sized incisions to gently nudge the existing gum tissue back to its original position, covering exposed roots.

Bone Grafting Surgery for Dental Implants

When a tooth has been missing for a prolonged period of time, or if bone grafting was not performed at the time of tooth extraction, the jawbone in the area can begin to breakdown. With bone regenerative surgery, Dr. Beck uses a bone mineral powder to stimulates your stem cells to grow new bone tissue so that a dental implant can be placed in the most ideal location, ensuring long-term health and success.

Crown Lengthening Surgery

There are a few different types of crown lengthening surgery.  The two most common are to remove extra gum tissue, exposing one’s natural tooth when they are unhappy with the appearance of their gummy smile.  Another common type of crown lengthening procedure serves to expose additional tooth structure to allow a healthy and long lasting restoration (crown) to be placed. Whatever the reason, Dr. Beck is one of the most trusted periodontists to treat Rancho Santa Fe patients.

If you have been told you need any of the above procedures or you’re interested in learning more about them, call and make an appointment today to meeting with Dr. Beck and learn how she can help you. From the moment you meet her and her team, you will know you are making the right choice trusting them with your care. Schedule a consultation today by calling (858) 635-6700.

If you’re a Rancho Santa Fe resident and your dentist has diagnosed you with gum disease, technically called chronic periodontitis, it’s likely that your dentist will refer you to San Diego periodontist Dr. Tina Beck for gum surgery. This type of gum surgery serves to eliminate inflammation, preserve and even regenerate infected or disease bone, and reduce gum pocketing to facilitate long term maintenance and gum health. However, there are many different types of gum surgery, including for treatment of gum recession.

Receding gums occurs when the attachment of the gums to your tooth’s root has become so damaged or weakened that it erodes, exposing the tooth’s root. Unfortunately many patients this of this as  just a cosmetic concern, but that is misguided. While aesthetics are important, gum recession can also put you at risk for the following conditions:

• Developing cavities along the gum line
• Teeth that become very sensitive to hot or cold temperatures, or even just to the touch
• Inflammation and erosion of the underlying bone that supports the teeth
• Loosening of the teeth
• Abscess of the gum and bone due to the weakened attachment

Clearly, these complications are not ideal and most Rancho Santa Fe patients would choose to prevent them from occurring if given the opportunity. Luckily Dr. Beck is an expert at treating gum recession by performing corrective gum surgery. Using minimally invasive techniques including subpeithelial connective tissue grafting and the Pinhole Surgical Technique, Dr. Beck corrects gum recession and prevents these undesirable complications.  These procedures are performed on an outpatient basis using a variety of sedation dentistry options to ensure your optimal comfort.

What is Gum Surgery?

When many Rancho Santa Fe patients are told they need gum surgery, they may initially get anxious, or even fearful. After all, few people look forward to having a surgical procedure done, even if minimally invasive. Being told that you need to see a specialist for surgical procedure can understandably be met with hesitation. But rest assured that when you are working with Dr. Beck and her team, you are in expert hands,… literally. As a UCLA-trained dentist, then completing 3 additional years of education at of one of the world’s best specialty training programs in periodontal (gum) surgery, you’ll be hard pressed to find a more knowledgeable and skilled surgeon.  What makes Dr. Beck even more impressive is that she actually cares about you and your overall well-being! Her reviews don’t lie. Dr. Beck is a high-skilled dental professional who always puts you, your comfort, and your health and her first priority.

This types of gum surgery is an outpatient procedure that is performed in the comfort of Dr. Beck’s personal office, where you’ll have your choice of sedation options. In most cases Dr. Beck will need to remove a small piece of tissue from under the gum on the tongue-side of your upper back teeth. She then transfers this piece of highly regenerative, stem-cell rich tissue to the area of recession, gently tucking it underneath the area of recession.  Very small stitches are then used to stabilize the graft in place.

Although it may seem overwhelming, most patients are surprised and relieved to discover how easy the procedure is and how fast they heal. Depending on your unique situation and the severity of your recession, Dr. Beck may even be able to use the pinhole surgery technique and eliminate the need for removing tissue from the palate at all! Since every Rancho Santa Fe patient is different, your unique surgical treatment plan will differ too.  Call today to discuss your treatment options!

Recovering from Gum Surgery

When told they need to have gum surgery, many Rancho Santa Fe patients are curious about what their recovery will be like. Dr. Beck knows that her periodontal patients don’t want to experience any unnecessary pain with their surgery, so she uses the most advanced, minimally invasive techniques to accelerate healing, including a product called Emdogain, a protein-based growth factor that stimulates your stem cells to multiply and activate, speeding up the healing process and minimize your discomfort.* In fact, many of Dr. Beck’s gum surgery patients report that thanks to Dr. Beck’s techniques, they have almost no pain after the procedure!*

To relieve the minimal pain that is sometimes experienced most patients only require over-the-counter medications, like Advil, to manage post-operative discomfort. Because every patient is different, Dr. Beck may prescribe a few doses of a stronger medication to be sure that you are comfortable, regardless of the severity of your condition. Much to the surprise of many of Dr. Beck’s patients, a liquid diet is not required after gum surgery. In fact, you are encouraged to begin eating solid food as soon as the local anesthesia, AKA novocaine, has worn off (typically a few hours after you get home from your appointment*).

Life After Gum Surgery

For many of Dr. Beck’s Rancho Santa Fe patients, gum surgery permanently resolves the gum recession.*  Not only does their smile once again look more youthful and healthy, they are no longer at risk for root cavities along the gum line, bone loss, tooth sensitivity and loosening, or future tooth extraction.*

If you’ve been told that you have receding gums, and you don’t want to risk the possible complications of this condition, seek out the expert advice of Dr. Beck immediately to prevent worsening of your condition, and regain the youthful health and aesthetics of your smile. Schedule an appointment today by calling her San Diego offices at (858) 635-6700.

* Individual results may vary.

What is Gum Grafting?

Gum grafting is a type of periodontal surgery to correct receding gum for our Rancho Santa Fe patients. A receding gum line, called gingival recession, may cause one’s smile to become unattractive, exposing one’s tooth roots; but it is more than just a cosmetic problem. In fact, gums that are receding may cause a host of additional problems including tooth sensitivity (especially to hot and/or cold foods and drinks), increased risk for cavities or decay along the gum line, and even bone loss which may result in loosening of the teeth, or even tooth loss in severe cases. Luckily many of these complications can be avoided with a simple gum grafting procedure.

There are many different types of gum grafting procedures. Some involve utilizing donor tissue from a cadaver, while others involve utilizing one’s one tissue from another area of the mouth to augment and strengthen the gums in the affected area. In some cases, the surround gum tissue can simply be moved to cover the exposed roots without the need for grafting. In cases where the surrounding gum tissue is inadequate to cover the exposed root, gum grafting should be performed not only to cover the root, but strengthen and thicken the surrounding gum tissue to prevent the recession from recurring.

There are even several different techniques for the purpose of gum grafting utilizing tissue from another area of the mouth.  Often times, the palate is the only (and best) source for this additional tissue, due to the rapid regenerative capability of the palatal gum tissue. Older techniques require removal of the actual skin from the palate, leaving a large, painful wound on the roof of the mouth. This gum tissue is then moved to the area of recession and sutured on top of it.  Although effective at prevent additional recession, the grafted gum often looks out of place.

More modern techniques like Dr. Beck performs, use minimally invasive techniques to carefully remove tissue from underneath the skin on the palate, leaving only a small incision like a paper cut which heals in a matter of days, not weeks.  This procedure is called a “subepithelial connective tissue graft”. The gum tissue in the area of recession is lifted away from the tooth root, to create pouch into which the graft can be secured.  Dr. Beck uses very small stitches to stabilize the graft, so small that they are usually only used for ophthalmic (eye) surgery and other microscopic surgical procedures.  In just a few weeks the graft and overlaying gum tissue grow together to cover the formerly exposed tooth roots and thicken and strengthen the gum-tooth attachment.

What is Gum Recession and What Causes it?

Gum recession, technically referred to as gingival recession, is when the attachment of the gum to the tooth is compromised and and breaks down, exposing the root of the tooth. Gingival recession can have many causes and is often multi-factorial. Common causes include gingival inflammation, overly aggressive brushing, using an abrasive toothpaste, tooth position, or sometimes just genetics and the natural biology/anatomy of the original gum tissue (ie, weak gums).

Am I a Candidate for Gum Grafting?

Most Rancho Santa Fe residents with receding gums are candidates for gum grafting surgery (subepithelial connective tissue graft). Even though this condition can begin as early as your teens or early 20s, age doesn’t usually affect the healing or success of the procedure. During your consultation, Dr. Beck will carefully review your medical history and any medications you may be taking to ensure you are healthy enough for the procedure and anticipate any potential complications.

What is Surgery Day Like?

With Dr. Beck, subepithelial connective tissue grafting (gum grafting) is performed as an outpatient procedure in Dr. Beck’s San Diego office. Although it can be performed with just local anesthesia (numbing like novocaine), many Rancho Santa Fe patients prefer to take advantage of our sedation options. To ensure peace of mind and optimal comfort for all her patients, Dr. Beck offers the following sedation dentistry options:

• Conscious sedation, which makes you drowsy and unaware of the procedure, but still somewhat responsive to Dr. Beck and her surgical team. Often there is little to no recollection of the details of the procedure. This is the most common preference for our patients.
• Deep sedation/general anesthesia is similar to the deeply sedated, unconscious state required for general medical surgical procedures. When this heavier level of sedation is preferred, a board-certified anesthesiologist is utilized to closely monitor and administer the anesthesia.

During both types of sedation, you safety and vital signs are closely monitored to ensure your safety. Whichever your choice, you can rest assured you are in good hands with Dr. Beck and her team.

Recovering from Gum Grafting Surgery

Due to her careful, minimally invasive technique, sometimes combined with materials to accelerate healing like Emdogain or PDGF, most of Dr. Beck’s gum grafting patients are surprised how easy and fast the recovery is. For most patients post-operative discomfort can be managed by over-the-counter medication like ibuprofen (also known as Advil). While you will be advised not to chew or brush the treatment area for a few weeks, there’s often no need to be restricted to a liquid diet, and normal activities can be resumed within a few days.

If you think you would benefit from gum grafting, don’t delay and risk worsening or additional complications. Meet with Dr. Beck to discuss your concerns, evaluate the area of concern, and develop a customized plan for you. To schedule an evaluation and consultation with Dr. Beck, call our office in the Rancho Santa Fe area at (858) 635-6700 today.

While your smile is one of the first things that people notice about you, some Rancho Santa Fe residents aren’t as confident as they could be about their pearly whites. Whether they are unhappy with tooth sizes, position, or spacing, have cracked teeth, or missing teeth due to tooth decay, gum disease, or an accident or injury, we can help!  Some people desire dental implants to replace missing teeth so their smile can reflect how great they feel emotionally. Dental implants are the most natural option to replace missing teeth.

The 411 on Dental Implants

Rancho Santa Fe dental implant patients are very savvy, and therefore want to know the ins and outs of this tooth replacement solution before committing to treatment. After all, when it comes to repairing your smile, you want the best of the best, right? Well, that’s exactly what dental implants offer.

First, as a Rancho Santa Fe candidate for dental implants, you should know that dental implants are often the healthiest option for your oral health. This is because natural tooth roots do more than just hold your tooth in place. They actually stimulate your jawbone to keep it strong and healthy. When teeth are missing, the jawbone weakens and breaks down, often immediately after the tooth is removed. The jawbone and overlaying gum tissue shrinks, which can cause neighboring and opposing teeth to shift and move, destabilizing the bite, sometimes leading to irreversible damage to other remaining teeth.

Replacement of missing teeth with dental implants can prevent all this. A dental implant is a small titanium screw that replaces the root of a tooth to support a crown, just like crowns on natural teeth. When you chew, the implant stimulates the supporting jawbone keeping it strong and healthy.

Second, as a Rancho Santa Fe resident considering dental implants, you should know they are the best tooth replacement option available. Better than dentures, which are bulky and need to be taken out daily, dental implants stay permanently in your mouth while you chew and savor your favorite food, without the fear of them becoming dislodged. Dental implants are also often more ideal than permanently cemented bridges, which require your adjacent teeth to be drilled down and capped. Unlike bridges, dental implants are also as easy to brush and floss as natural teeth.

Finally, dental implants provide the most aesthetic tooth replacement option currently available to Rancho Santa Fe patients. When you choose to have dental implants placed by Dr. Beck, nobody you meet will know that you have false teeth; they’ll only notice your beautiful smile! Best of all, with a special type of dental implants procedure, sometimes referred to as “All on 4” or “teeth in a day”, you can have a total smile makeover utilizing dental implants if you require replacement of all your teeth.

How Dr. Beck Places Dental Implants

When considering dental implants, it is critical that you choose a surgeon like Dr. Beck who specializes in dental implant procedures. Unfortunately, not every dentist who claims to be able to perform dental implant placement truly understands the overall science and biology of implant-related procedures. When performed by poorly skilled dentists often don’t understand how to properly plan and perform the procedure, or when cheap, substandard materials are used, devastating complications can occur.  As an expert in the field, Dr. Beck not only completed three years of rigorous training from one of the most respected surgical training programs, she also regularly participates in conferences and seminars taught by experts around the world.  Dr. Beck is well versed in a multitude of surgical techniques and utilizes only the best and safest materials and products. In fact, when patients have complications with their implants and the original dentist or surgeon is unable fix it properly, they trust Dr. Beck to correct it!

Dr. Beck and her team understand that every Rancho Santa Fe patient is different, and therefore every treatment plan is custom designed with to your unique needs. When a tooth requires removal and replacement, a common scenario is as follows:

• First, a 3-dimensional dental cone beam CT scan is taken to evaluate your unique situation including the extent of infection, if present, as well as the proximity of any important structures like nerve or blood vessels. This step is critical to minimize complications and properly plan your case
• In some cases, bone augmentation (grafting) may be required either at the time of, or prior to, implant placement procedure. This can usually be determined at the time of your consultation by carefully examining the CT scan.
• After a thorough evaluation, Dr. Beck will discuss all your options and walk you through the entire process, taking care to answer all your questions.
• Finally, as with any procedure, Dr. Beck offers a variety of sedation options to ensure your optimal comfort.

Dr. Beck is not only highly knowledgeable and respected by her peers as an expert when it comes to dental implants, she also takes great pride to provide the best care possible for all her patients.  You can rest assured that you are making the right decision in trusting Dr. Beck and her team with your treatment.

If you think that you may benefits from dental implants, call Dr. Beck’s San Diego office today at (858) 635-6700 to schedule a consultation.

What is Dental Bone Grafting?

When it comes to oral and periodontal surgery, there are many types of bone grafting surgeries that are performed for Rancho Santa Fe patients. The most common type of dental bone graft is a bone mineral powder from a human donor source, which stimulates your stem cells to grow new bone. The bone graft comes from a tissue bank that operates under the highest of safety standards, with strict screening and processing protocols to insure that the bone graft is completely safe and does not pass on any diseases to the recipient patient. In fact, this particular form of dental bone grafting using donor bone mineral powder has been used in dentistry for over 30 years with an extraordinary success rate!

There are many reasons that a Rancho Santa Fe resident may be in need of dental bone grafting, including but not limited to the following:

• Preserving the natural contour of your jaw and overlying gum after a tooth extraction surgery
• Growing additional jawbone tissue to support a dental implant
• Regenerating bone that was damaged and/or lost due to periodontal (gum) disease

Three Types of Dental Bone Grafting Procedures

In her San Diego practice, Dr. Beck performs many types of dental bone grafting procedures for Rancho Santa Fe patients:

• Ridge Preservation

For many Rancho Santa Fe patients, it’s necessary to perform dental bone grafting immediately at the time of tooth extraction. This procedure preserves the natural contour of the jawbone by preventing the severe bone loss that commonly occurs as a result of tooth removal.  Ridge preservation bone grafts ensures adequate jawbone tissue to be present for a future dental implant, as well as to minimize bone loss and gum recession on neighboring teeth.  Dr. Beck is highly-skilled in this procedure, having performed it thousands of times.  She also painstakingly studied the details of this procedure for her Master’s thesis.  The results of her research were so profound that they were chosen to be published in the world-renowned medical journal, the Journal of Periodontology. If you need to have a tooth extracted, particularly if you think you may want to have a dental implant placed in the future, you can trust Dr. Beck is highly skilled in performing ridge preservation procedures.

While the thought of two surgeries performed simultaneously may make some dental patients squeamish, most Rancho Santa Fe patients and pleased to report that in Dr. Beck’s expert hands, tooth extraction with ridge preservation is a relatively painless procedure with rapid recovery and healing. To summarize, ridge preservation bone grafting at the time of tooth extraction is an extremely common and predictable procedure that prevents long-term complications, such as jawbone deformation due to severe bone atrophy and compromised bone support and gum recession of adjacent teeth, both often requiring additional costly surgical procedures in the future, with compromised results.  Ridge preservation grafting maintains the natural contours of the bone and gum so that the future implant looks and feels just like the natural real tooth did and is easily maintained in good health.

• Ridge Augmentation

            This procedure is also referred to as “guided bone regeneration”.  When a tooth has been missing for a prolonged period of time, or if ridge preservation grafting was not performed at the time of tooth extraction, severe bone atrophy can occur, requiring careful and complex reconstruction to allow proper placement of a dental implant. Guided bone regeneration can require several different materials and sometimes  multiple procedures just to get the site back to how it was when the tooth was present.

• Sinus Grafting

An additional dental bone grafting procedure provided to Rancho Santa Fe patients by Dr. Beck is called sinus grafting, “augmentation,” or “list.” For those unfamiliar with facial anatomy, the maxillary sinus is an empty space above the upper jaw, inside the cheek bones, just above your back upper teeth. For some patients, the tooth roots of these upper back teeth may actually extend into the sinus cavity, which does not usually cause any problems unless the tooth needs to be removed. Often times after extraction of an upper back tooth, the sinus space will actually enlarge, a process called “pnuematization.” This process reduces the amount of bone available to support a dental implant and  bone grafting of the sinus is required. The more teeth that are missing and the longer a tooth is absent increases the degree of pnuematization (bone loss/atrophy).  When this occurs, patients require sinus grafting/augmentation, also called a sinus lift, to allow for the proper placement of dental implants.

There are several techniques to achieve bone augmentation in the sinus and 3 dimensional imaging via cone beam CT scan is required to measure and analyze the area to determine the amount of augmentation required, and thus the surgical technique required to accomplish it. If the degree of bone loss/atrophy is severe, dental implant placement may need to be delayed until the recently grafted bone has healed sufficiently to support a dental implant.

Just like with ridge preservation, many of Dr. Beck’s patients report that sinus grafting can be performed with only local anesthesia (commonly referred to as novocaine), without the need for heavy anesthesia. In expert hands like Dr. Beck’s, the sinus bone augmentation procedure and recovery are virtually painless, often requiring only ibuprofen (advil) to relieve post-operative discomfort. Most sinus grafting patients in Rancho Santa Fe can return to work a day or two after their procedure.

• Periodontal Bone Graft

Another common dental bone grafting procedure performed by Dr. Beck is called a periodontal bone graft, or “regeneration”. With this procedure, Dr. Beck repairs bone damage to a tooth or dental implant that has occurred as a result of chronic inflammation, commonly referred to as gum disease, periodontal disease, periodontitis, or peri-implantitis, when occurring around a dental implant. When performed properly and skillfully, like the expert hands of Dr. Beck, periodontal bone grafting (regeneration) is an effective procedure to rebuild lost or damaged jawbone tissue and can save the affected tooth or dental implant.

If you’ve been told that you need any of these dental bone grafting procedures performed and you are in the Rancho Santa Fe area, there’s no more skillful, knowledgeable, and trust-worthy surgeon than San Diego’s own Dr. Beck. With a doctorate degree in dental surgery from UCLA and three additional years in one of the best surgical specialty residency programs in the world at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio,  Dr. Beck is an expert in periodontal bone grafting procedures. If you and in need of any of these bone graft procedures, you can trust that you are in good hands with Dr. Beck.

Call our office in the Rancho Santa Fe area today to learn how she can help you obtain heathy teeth and smile that last a lifetime (858) 635-6700.