Lau & Su Dental Clinic & Surgery
Monday-Sunday: 9am-6pm. Wednesday: 9am-9pm. Selected PH: 9am-6pm.
Conditions we treat
Most people do not arrive knowing they need an endodontist. They arrive with a tooth that hurts. Find what you are experiencing below, what it usually means, and what can be done about it.
Where it hurts
“A tooth that aches, throbs or wakes you at night”
Pain that lingers after the trigger has gone — particularly a throb that keeps you awake or is worse lying down — usually means the nerve inside the tooth is inflamed or infected. That does not settle on its own, and painkillers only buy time. Treated early it is a root canal; left too long it becomes an extraction.
How we treat it
“A sharp jolt from cold drinks, ice cream or cold air”
A short, sharp pain that stops as soon as the cold does usually points to exposed dentine — from receding gums, worn enamel, grinding, or a cracked filling. It is generally the mildest of the causes of tooth pain and often the easiest to fix, but it can also be the first sign of a crack that is going to get worse.
How we treat it
“Blood in the sink when you brush; puffy, tender gums”
Gums that bleed when brushed are inflamed, and healthy gums do not bleed. At the early stage this is reversible with a professional clean and better technique. Left alone it progresses to periodontitis, where the bone holding the teeth is lost — which is not reversible, and is the leading cause of tooth loss in adults.
How we treat it
“Pain, swelling or a bad taste right at the back of the jaw”
A wisdom tooth that cannot come through properly traps food and bacteria under the gum flap over it, which causes repeated infections, and it can decay the healthy molar in front. Recurring pain at the back of the jaw in your late teens or twenties is almost always this. An X-ray shows whether it needs to come out.
How we treat it
“A tooth cracked or lost in an accident, or on something hard”
Treat this as urgent. A knocked-out adult tooth can sometimes be replanted if you get to a dentist quickly — keep it in milk, hold it by the crown and not the root, and come straight in. A chip or crack needs assessing even if it does not hurt, because a crack that reaches the nerve is far more work than one caught early.
How we treat it
“Breath that does not improve with brushing or mouthwash”
Bad breath that survives brushing usually has a dental cause: gum disease, decay, an old failing restoration, or bacteria on the tongue. Mouthwash masks it for an hour. Finding the source is a straightforward examination and, in most cases, so is fixing it.
How we treat it
“Teeth that overlap, twist or sit out of line”
Crowding is not only cosmetic. Overlapping teeth are harder to clean, so they decay and develop gum problems more often than straight ones. Both fixed braces and clear aligners correct it; which suits you depends on how far the teeth have to move, and how much visibility during treatment matters to you.
How we treat it
“Spaces between the front teeth”
Gaps can be closed by moving the teeth together with aligners or braces, or by making the teeth wider with veneers or bonding. Moving them keeps your own tooth structure intact and takes months; building them up is quicker but permanent. Both are reasonable answers to the same problem.
How we treat it
“Upper and lower teeth that do not meet properly”
A bite that does not meet correctly wears teeth unevenly, strains the jaw joint and can make chewing tiring. Many bite problems are treatable with braces or aligners; some, caught early in a growing child, are much simpler to correct than they will be later, which is the argument for an orthodontic assessment around age seven.
How we treat it
“Teeth that look dull or yellow in photos”
Surface staining from coffee, tea, curry, red wine and smoking sits on the enamel and lifts with professional whitening. Deeper discolouration inside the tooth — from an old root canal, trauma or tetracycline — does not, and is better treated with veneers or, in some cases, resin infiltration. The examination tells you which you have.
How we treat it
“Too much gum showing when you smile”
A smile that shows more gum than tooth has three possible causes — a lip that lifts too far, gums sitting too low over the teeth, or the position of the teeth and jaw. Each has a different treatment, and getting the diagnosis right is the whole job: Botox will not fix a gum-line problem, and reshaping the gum will not fix a lip that lifts.
How we treat it
“Front teeth that look flat, short or ragged along the edge”
Front teeth wear down from grinding, acid erosion or simple age, and the effect on how a smile reads is larger than the millimetres involved. Rebuilding the edges restores both the appearance and the way the teeth meet — and it is worth finding out what caused the wear, or the new work wears down too.
How we treat it
“A gap where a tooth has been lost or extracted”
A gap does not stay a gap. The teeth on either side tilt into it, the opposing tooth drifts down, and the jawbone under the space begins to shrink — so a single missing tooth quietly becomes a bite problem. Replacing it with an implant, a bridge or a denture stops that, and the sooner it is done the simpler it is.
How we treat it
“Dentures that move, rub or make eating difficult”
Dentures loosen over time because the bone beneath them keeps shrinking once the teeth are gone — so a denture that fitted well five years ago will not now. They can be relined or remade, and implants can be used to anchor them so they stay put, which for most people transforms what they can eat.
How we treat it
“Dark marks on a child's teeth, or a child complaining of pain”
Decay in baby teeth is common and does need treating — those teeth hold the space for the adult ones and an early loss lets the rest drift into the gap. Caught early it is a small filling; caught late it is an extraction and a distressed child. Six-monthly check-ups exist to keep it in the first category.
How we treat it
You do not need a diagnosis to book. Describe what you are feeling on WhatsApp and we will tell you whether it needs seeing urgently or can wait for a routine appointment.
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