Nicole has been a part of Dental Wellness Center of Maryville since 2017. She earned her dental assisting degree in 2014 and has eight years of customer service experience. Nicole started her career as a dental assistant but transitioned to the front office where she can utilize her analytical and problem-solving skills. But, from time to time, you may find her on the clinical side of our office because she loves assisting our patients and helping them realize the importance of having a healthy mouth. It is important to Nicole that our team takes great pride in making sure that each of our patients has a comfortable and pleasant experience every time they visit our office.
Becky has worked with Dr. Mike Murphy since 1999 when she completed her dental assisting program. She has been with Dental Wellness Center of Maryville since 2016. Twenty years of experience working with the best doctors makes for happy patients, and Becky will tell you that she has learned from the best. She likes working with an amazing team, giving patients smiles they love and the treatment they need. She loves having long-term patient-assistant relationships. She likes getting to know her patients on a personal level and helping them with their dental needs.
Jill has over 14 years of experience as a dental assistant, and has been with our team since our office opened two years ago. Jill enjoys the team mentality and positive attitude at our office, and considers herself the office motivator. She works hard to make her positive outlook contagious and to help both our team and our patients feel comfortable. Outside of the office, she enjoys traveling, crafting, hiking and birdwatching.
Christie graduated from SIU with her Bachelor of Science degree in dental hygiene. She has been with our team for 10 years. She enjoys working with a team that feels like family and who can always be counted on to give a helping hand. Christie and her husband, Jeremy, have three sons and a dog. Outside of the office she enjoys spending time with her family and camping.
Karen joined Dental Wellness Center of Maryville in 2018 and graduated from the Southern Illinois University Carbondale with a Bachelor of Science in dental hygiene. She loves providing preventive care to our patients to help them have healthy smiles. Karen appreciates the family atmosphere at our office and how everyone works together as a team to provide high-quality dental care.
Brittany is a graduate of Granite City High School and holds a certificate of Business Office Technology from Southwestern Illinois Business College. For Brittany, communication is an important key to success in business. Communicating and connecting with our patients is an important part of the job for her. Her favorite parts of working at Dental Wellness Center of Maryville are the relationships she has with her patients and her coworkers. Everyone at the office gets along and makes it a family atmosphere at the office.
Brittanys mother and father work for the city and travel to Haiti twice a year to help manage an orphanage that is run by her church. In her free time, Brittany enjoys spending time with her pets, playing and watching sports, cooking and collecting vintage video games and consoles.
Dani graduated hygiene school with a 4.0 GPA and as a member of the Presidents List. She has been a part of Dental Wellness Center of Maryville since 2018 and has passion for patient care and hygiene. She loves working at our office because of the environment created by the staff and the drive to provide great patient care.
Leaha is a proud graduate of the Lewis and Clark Dental Hygiene program Class of 2009. Along with more than 10 years of experience, she has had the pleasure of working with dental hygiene students for a year as a clinical instructor in the Lewis and Clark Dental Hygiene Clinic. Leaha strives to assist her patients in finding an individualized plan that works for them to achieve their goals to be healthy and confident in their smiles.
In her spare time, she enjoys making memories with her husband, Ryan, and their two children. They prefer to be outdoors, taking family walks, biking on the trails, playing with their golden retriever and swimming.
A dental implant is a specialized metal post, typically made of surgical-grade titanium, which serves as a replacement for a tooths natural root. At Dental Wellness Center of Maryville, our dentists can place the implant, and when you are ready, add the crown or restoration to complete your smile. The implant is placed in the jaw and over time, it fuses with the bone to become a strong foundation for a replacement tooth. Implants can be used to replace a single tooth, to support a bridge or to secure a denture.
Implants cannot decay, and they are not sensitive to hot or cold. What is perhaps even more impressive is that implants preserve the bone around them and help prevent the bone from gradually shrinking over time. (When a patients tooth is lost or removed, gradual bone shrinkage in the surrounding area will occur; however, an implant can halt or even reverse this process.)
For traditional bridgework, the teeth next to the missing tooth must be trimmed. In many cases, these are perfectly health teeth with no decay or fillings, yet they must be modified to accommodate the bridge. If instead, a dental implant, abutment, and crown are used to replace the tooth, there is no need to modify or trim the adjacent healthy teeth.
Patients with traditional bridges must use a special flosser, called a floss threader, to floss their bridges. Because of the extra time required to use the threader, some patients gradually decrease the frequency of flossing. Without proper daily dental hygiene, the bridge can become decayed over time and require a replacement. Dental implants can be flossed just like natural teeth, and they do not require the use of a threader.
Even with the best daily hygiene habits, a bridge often requires replacement over the course of a patients life. The likelihood of replacement for a dental implant is considerably less, with over 98% of implants lasting well over 20 years and often for the patients lifetime.
At Dental Wellness Center of Maryville we offer complete in-office implant solutions. Unlike other practices, who are unable to place implants and must refer patients to a specialist for this portion of the treatment, our dentists place the actual implant and then finish it by placing an abutment and a crown. Providing this service in one location not only saves time, but it also proves more cost-effective for patients.
Our team at Dental Wellness Center of Maryville is like a big family focused on one goal. We want to make it all about our patients. When patients visit, we want them to be comfortable and relaxed, never rushed, and in order to help with that, we encourage you to take a minute and read about Dr. Pat Murphy, Patrick Heulsmann, Dr. Mike Murphy and our team.