Smile balancing through functional tooth reshaping

According to Gordon Christensen, dental equilibration (bite balancing) might be one of the most widely UNDER-utilized services in dentistry. – JADA April 2005 136(4): 497–499; Teeth that fit together correctly do not require the additional muscular activity needed to shift the jaw to the side or squeeze unilaterally when one side hits first.  The art of…

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2014 Team Buiding: Bicycle tour Historic Downtown Atlanta

Atlanta is a great city, and we at Caughey DDS are proud to be a part of its history. In summer 2014, we toured through Oakland Cemetery, Sweet Auburn Curb Market, and the Martin Luther King Center for non-violent social change. If you didn’t think Atlanta was bicycle-friendly, you haven’t toured with these guys!

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2014 Pankey Faculty Equilibration

What an honor it is to share my learning with others – the passionate few in my profession who want nothing but the best for their patients.  There is a certain culture of excellence, humility, and drive embodied by both students and faculty at the Pankey Institute.  I have been recognized and asked to teach…

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Facial “body building” related to tooth shifting

This patient was unconcerned with subtle changes in her bite until she noticed her smile in a photograph: a front tooth had drifted quite a bit, and her smile was no longer pleasing to her eye.  Comparison of photographs over a ten-year period reveal a change not only at the tooth level, but also in…

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Mary B.

I started seeing Dr. Caughey six years ago when I started experiencing painful muscle spasms in my neck and jaw joint, with great difficulty opening and closing my mouth.  The pain was so intense there were times I would just sit and cry!  I was started to feel unmotivated to do things I use to…

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Myth about most “metal-free” dental crowns

As a restorative dentist, I place equal value on predictability, longevity, comfort, biocompatibility, and aesthetics.  One soap box I don’t mind stepping on is the busting down the metal-free myth about the more popular new ceramic crown options. The two most popular types of all-ceramic crowns for back teeth are made from aluminum oxide and…

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What is JVA?

What is the JVA? The JVA or Joint Vibration Analysis machine is a small set of headphones which we place in front of the patient’s ears. But instead of the patient listening to music, this small sensor will pick up vibrations inside the patient’s jaw joint. Healthy jaw joints make very little friction as you…

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Hard raw-foods diet leads to fractured fillings; gold chewing surface sustains bite

Conservative dentistry and naturally sustaining lifestyles go together, and as such, many of the people attracted to our practice focus on their nutrition and overall health.  This patient eats a strict raw-foods diet, including very hard foods like raw carrots and almonds.  Though amalgam filling material has a compressive strength (aka, ability to resist biting…

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