Peters Mark P DDS

Information may not be reliable

First of all let me say “thank you” for taking the time to visit our website!
While this medium has provided us with great flexibility and opportunities to help make important choices, we fully realize there is no way we can communicate the uniqueness of our practice to you over the internet.
What we can do is briefly share with you how we set ourselves apart from the vast majority of dental practices. With this in mind, we want you to know that your dental health - and you as a unique individual - are our absolute greatest concerns.
Please feel free to come in and experience a truly personalized level of service!

About Dr. Peters
Dr. Mark Peters grew up primarily in West Texas, graduating from Big Spring High School in 1972. He earned a golf scholarship to Western Texas College in Snyder for three semesters, before transferring to Angelo State University in San Angelo. He received his B.A. in Biology from Angelo State in 1976.
Dr. Peters attended the University of Texas Dental Branch in Houston, graduating in 1980. After practicing two years in the Houston Medical Center, he and his wife, Keyea, moved to Conroe, where he started up his practice.
Dr. Peters is a member of the American Dental Association, the Texas Dental Association, the Brazos Valley District Dental Society, and earned his Fellowship in the Academy of General Dentistry in 1990. In addition, he has been an active member in several dental study groups in the Conroe/Houston area, and attended the Misch Implant Institute.
Since 1986 he has spent one to two weeks each year serving on the Visiting Faculty at the L. D. Pankey Institute for Advanced Dental Education in Miami, Florida. Here Dr. Peters teaches other dentists advanced clinical procedures, many of which are not covered in dental school, so they are able to increase their clinical skills and better serve their patients. He also is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Pankey Institute.
Dr. Peters and Keyea have a daughter, Kailey, as well as a son, Joseph. Dr. Peters is a member of the West Conroe Baptist Church, the Greater Conroe Chamber of Commerce, and served as a Children’s Teaching Leader for Bible Study Fellowship.

Having a practice predominantly dedicated to adult restorative dentistry for 24 years has given me some valuable insights on “how to” and “how not to” best help the patients who place their trust in me for their dental care.
One of the best things I can do for my patients is take the time to get to know them and make time to listen - truly listen - to their concerns and wishes. I have found that the more I listen, the better I can help the patient understand whether or not their expectations can be met. That’s why I personally greet each new patient in the reception room and take them into my private office to sit and talk for 10-20 minutes before they go back to any other area of the office.
From Frustration to Satisfaction
Our “instant gratification” culture makes it easy for patients to be led down a path that is both frustrating and ultimately disappointing for both the patient and the dentist.
Too often I have had new patients come in sharing stories of disappointments they experienced at their previous dentist. Most of the time, it seems that their dentist had simply been “too busy” to listen to them. They tell me how different the initial visit in our office is from any medical environment they have seen. One comment we regularly receive is “This office is so comfortable and soothing”!
A Consultative Approach
Once we open the lines of communication, we can start gathering the information needed to establish the patient’s current condition. With all the data in place, I then sit down with the patient and their spouse, if desired, to discuss pros and cons of various methods of solving the patient’s problems.
One of the best services I can provide for my patients is to help them avoid mistakes in their choices of treatment. I have performed countless restorative crown and bridge procedures and I have seen them remain in service for many years. Quite simply, I have the experience to know what will work and what will not. When there are “gray areas”, I give the patient the pluses and minuses to be considered in order to equip them to make a more informed decision.
A Win-Win Situation
My goal for my patients is to help them to “win the game” – in other words, to keep their teeth as long as they need them. My recommendations are not based on “How much dentistry can I do for my patients”? They are based on “How can I help this patient ‘win the game’ with the least amount of dentistry to predictably get there”?
Thankfully, I have been blessed to be able to do a level of dentistry which few in my profession have been able to do. I have been blessed again with talent to do this level of restorative excellence and the benefits for my patients have been very gratifying for them, my staff, and me.

“Aesthetics/Cosmetics” in dentistry has undergone a significant paradigm shift over the last 26 years I have been in practice! Let me clarify something for everyone reading this: Every dentist who treats a patient is a “cosmetic dentist.” There are some who hold themselves out to be a “cosmetic specialist” and this can be misleading to the general public. Granted, there are some who have more talent in this area than others, but any dentist who does a restoration on a front tooth is, by definition, a “cosmetic dentist.”

On numerous occasions, I have had patients comment that they are fearful of getting their front teeth fixed or restored because they don’t like what they have seen done to their friends or family members at another dental office. They feel the crowns or veneers look too “bulky” or prominent, even as though the person has “horse teeth!” I had one patient who had veneers placed by a dentist who said she was tired of people never looking her in the eye anymore because her teeth overwhelmed every other aspect of her face. She felt all people ever looked at were her teeth. Unfortunately, the only way I could help her was to take off the offending restorations and redo them even though they were less than two years old
A Matter of Balance
The current phenomenon and popularity of “extreme makeover” has created some “smile monsters” in the dental profession, whose concept of aesthetics in dentistry is “opaque, white, ‘chicklettes’” for their patients. Their patients all get the same “cookie-cutter” smile, with oftentimes more dentistry than they really needed to have done. Regrettably, the patients are the ones who have to live with and carry these fake, offensive “smiles” with them wherever they go, and pay a high price for having seen an “overaggressive” dentist.
When you look at people they are different, and each person’s facial features, lip line, muscle tonus, arch form, tooth position, etc. are unique as well. That is why it is imperative for me, as their dentist, to take all of these into consideration when I am planning their case, so that they end up with a smile that is beautiful, comfortable, functional, and naturally pleasing to both them and those they see everyday. That is why I take many photographs and use study models of their teeth, so I can do my own “diagnostic wax-up” as a blueprint with which to analyze their smile and show them the possibilities we can accomplish.
Many dentists send the patient’s models off to a dental lab in California to do this wax-up, as it is time consuming. One thing I have found in doing all of my own wax-ups, is that I learn a great deal about the patient’s bite, limitations, and problems that may arise before we ever proceed on their case.

Once the patient elects to proceed, I personally carve the patients temporaries or “provisionals” under a 10X microscope and the patient, my assistant, and I mark and go over the teeth to “fine tune” them to the patient’s desired specifications. The patient then wears the provisionals for one to two weeks to make sure that their tooth position, tooth symmetry, lip position, function, and phonetics (or speech) are the best they can be. During this time, modifications and alterations can be made to help the teeth feel and look as natural as possible. When the patient says, “This is it! I like how these look and feel, make them just like these!,” then I know we are safe to proceed. We take an impression of those provisionals so my lab can make indexes to capture that precise tooth position and shape and duplicate them on the final restorations. It’s much like having a set of blueprints with which to build a house. It takes the guesswork out of the process and enables us to have a predictability of success that is unparalleled!
At “try-in” of the final restorations, if the patient, my assistant, or I have any reservations about color, shape, or fit of the restorations, we do not proceed. This is a rarity, as we have solved the case in the provisionals beforehand.
One of the most gratifying comments I have ever received was from an attorney whose wife had us restore her smile. About a year and a half after we had completed her case, he stopped me one day and said, “You know Mark, I love what you did for my wife’s smile! Do you know why?” I took the bait. He said, “You made her smile beautiful and no one can tell she has had any dentistry done!” To me, that is the best compliment I can receive!

Implants are a “God-send” for the public and give us solutions that we just didn’t have 25 years ago for people who had lost one, numerous, or all of their teeth. Dentures, removable partial dentures, and fixed bridges are becoming relics and “things of the past” in our society’s dental health. The longest running case for implants I’ve restored for one of my patients is roughly 22 years. I don’t know about your definition of success, but this case is a “raging success” for this gentleman.

My father, who was a dentist in West Texas, lost numerous back teeth due to smoking and gum disease, which he had battled for many years. Rather than making him removable partials, I had one of my specialists place six implants, on which I did the restorative crowns and bridges. This effort provided him with the natural teeth he needed to help him “win the game.”
Although Dad passed away in 2004, the implants and crowns we had placed allowed him to retain his ability to eat as if he had never skipped a beat for 12 years. What’s more, he didn’t have to place his teeth in a glass of water on the bedside table at night!
Finally - Eating Comfortably Again
We have restored many cases, with the numbers of implants ranging from 1 to 14 implants per patient. Patients who have been missing teeth for years are able to eat with confidence again and enjoy the foods they hadn’t eaten in years as well. One gentleman who had implants with crowns and bridges placed one year earlier came in the office to tell me, “Mark, this is the first time I’ve been able to eat my meals comfortably in 50 years!”
Call today so we can show you the possibilities for restoring the missing teeth you really have been “missing!”

Occlusion, or the patient’s bite, has been an issue at the forefront of my practice for 26 years. I was blessed to have been an Associate to two of the premier dentists in the entire Houston area for two years. Their knowledge and guidance in this profoundly important aspect of restorative dentistry has been a springboard for my own quest to learn the complexities and nuances of this area of practice.
The difficulty of learning and dealing with this sensitive area has thwarted and frustrated many dentists, causing some to just “look the other way” or discount it as a non-issue” in their practices. This is troubling as I have found I can’t do any dentistry, even on one tooth, without it having an impact on the patient’s bite, and in some cases, a major impact.
Putting ‘The Bite’ Back in Dentistry
Many times we have seen new patients who are complaining about headaches multiple days per week with associated symptoms of fatigue of the facial muscles, sore joints, sore teeth, loose teeth, popping and clicking joints, etc. The sad thing is sometimes a patient can have these kinds of symptoms as a result of having one crown done!
This is why it is so important to do a thorough exam and assess if the patient is having related symptoms indicating occluso-muscle problems before dentistry is done! With a thorough exam, we can identify problems associated with the patient’s dental complex. This helps us to address these problems before treatment begins and prevents creating more problems for the patient as the services are undertaken.
Sometimes Less is More
I was blessed to have been able to spend a significant amount of time with Dr. Henry Tanner, one of the “pioneers” and world authorities on recognizing and treating occlusion. Henry used to tell me, “Mark, take what the patient has and make it better!”
Different philosophies of occlusion being espoused by some dental “gurus” make it necessary to prepare and restore all of the patient’s teeth in order to build a new bite at a new position. It will be interesting to see where these people are in 20, 30, or 40 years! They may, in fact, find themselves in a difficult position. This is why I am trying to help my patients find solutions to their occlusal problems by seeing how few teeth we can impact, not how many teeth can we do.

“Occlusal reconstruction”, is required when patients have had excessive wear, missing teeth which have contributed to a drifting of the teeth, and previous dentistry which has not maintained stability for the patient over a period of time. These cases are almost always significantly more complex and demanding than other cases and are best accomplished by someone who has had repeated exposure and experience with them.
The Experience Factor
Because of my early training and subsequent 20 years of teaching at The Pankey Institute for Advanced Dental Education, I was able to have the “tools on the shelf” that Dr. Pankey told us were necessary to help these kinds of dilemmas for my patients. In getting started with these cases early in my practice, I have been able to see how they hold up through the years.
In those early years I surrounded myself with excellent mentors and spent much time taking my patients’ cases and study models to them to ask for advice on how I could best serve them. I am ecstatic I listened and implemented what was advised! The result has been decades of excellent service for the complex restorative cases we have done! I have many cases which are 15-22 years old, have served our patients well, and are continuing to do so!

Because I have been photographing my patients and the work we have done since I started practice, I am able to show new patients cases very similar to their own and help them to see how well these cases hold up. Chances are good that I have restored a case very similar, if not more difficult, than those for almost anyone who comes in our office. In those rare instances I see anything I can’t handle, I help the patient find those who can
If you feel you have a difficult or complex dental situation, call and set up a no-charge consultation visit so we can sit down and discuss the possibilities for you!

TMD (temporomandibular dysfunction) or TMJ (temperomandibular joint)
“TMD” affects primarily women and onset can come at virtually any age – even in the teenage years.
Symptoms include any one or combination of:

Headaches – mainly in the temples, forehead, and sides of head, but can radiate to the back of head, as well

There are “links in a chain” in the chewing system, which any one or a combination of two or more, can affect the system detrimentally.

WEAR OF THE TEETH (reconstruction/restorative)
One of the most overlooked and common problems I have noticed in patients over the last 26 years is the wearing away of their teeth. There are numerous factors for this occurrence that I feel are responsible:

Balancing the existing bite
Appliance therapy to help protect the teeth at night – when individuals may be doing significant damage
3. Restorative dentistry to rebuild and restore the teeth to a more anatomical and functional position

Thank you so much for the dentistry you did for me nineteen years ago! I am still pleased with how well my teeth function and how great they look! I am thankful for your perfectionism and that you never let me leave your office until everything was just right!

It is with great pleasure I have the opportunity to express my sincere appreciation regarding the dental practice of Dr. Mark Peters. I have been a patient of Dr. Peters for the last 24 years and have found his practice to be very professional and genuine. Mark maintains very high standards for both himself and his staff and it shows in all facets of his practice. The quality of his work combined with his kind and caring demeanor truly makes for a positive dental experience. I highly recommend his practice to anyone who is looking for a dental professional who will always recommend and do what is best for the patient.

It was a blessing to be your patient and getting to be with a group of people that love the Lord. Thank you for making my visits pain-free and giving me back my smile! LOVE MY TEETH!

Dr. Mark Peters has been my dentist for over fifteen years and I am delighted with what he has accomplished with my teeth! He treats his patients with compassion and respect and cares for you like a member of his family! The office is immaculate and sterile technique is strictly adhered to. His staff is organized and well trained. My bite has been improved and my smile looks great! I can highly recommend Dr. Peters for the quality of his work that is accomplished without any discomfort to his patient!

Dear Dr. Peters and Staff,
Thank you so much for working me in on such short notice when I had my accident! It didn’t surprise me since you have never hesitated to help me in the past. You all have been so great to me through the years and always make me feel better once I walk in the office! Dr. Peters, I don’t even know where to begin – you have always brought a smile to my face even when I came in feeling like I’ve had the worst day of my life! You have fixed me up so many times and made my teeth look great! Although I’ve moved into Houston, I refuse to go to another dentist! I really appreciate all of you!

I didn’t realize the difference veneers could make on my smile! I am so happy I made the decision to have you take care of my dental needs! You did a great service for me, and as I had heard – you are an excellent dentist!

I’ve been a patient of Dr. Mark Peters for many years, and had my veneers done over five years ago. His attention to detail enabled him to do all of my dentistry with the highest level of professional skill, care, and compassion! I’ve come to expect the follow-up call from Dr. Peters the night after a procedure, just to make sure I am doing well. I’m delighted with how my smile looks and thankful he takes such care to “do things right!” The entire staff is top notch – professional AND caring – which is the only way Dr. Peters would have it!

Brushing with whitening toothpastes is ill-advised as over vigorous use may actually remove enamel making the teeth darker!
Bleaching with trays at a dental office gives the patient more control of the process

Reshaping - Polishing the teeth to change the shape
Repositioning - Orthodontics – a.k.a. – “Braces” and/or surgery to reposition the jaws
Restoring – Bonding/ Crowns/ Veneers

The amount of tooth structure saved - More tooth structure is removed to do a crown than on a veneer
The way they are “cemented” or “bonded” to place - Veneers are more difficult to place than crowns in general
Aesthetics / Appearance - Both can be made to look great!

Yes - On rare occasions
No - The vast majority of the time the teeth will have to be reduced or “prepared” to make the restoration look natural

Anything done on the front or back teeth impacts the “System”!
The “System” involves the Muscles, Joints, Teeth, Gums, Lips, Tongue, Speech, and associated comfort or discomfort experienced by the patient at any of these areas