What Is Cosmetic Dentistry

What is cosmetic dentistry?  After all you hear about it all the time, you even see it on billboards as you’re driving down the street.  Have you ever noticed that they are all beautiful people and all have matching smiles?  Well they do and there’s a reason for that, it’s the dental work that they’ve all had. 

Cosmetic dentistry is any work that you have done on your teeth that is for appearance sake.  What that means is that your teeth or healthy, but you want them to look better.  This is where a cosmetic dentist comes in.  Most people know when this is what they’re looking for, but aren’t aware that it has a technical name.  They only know about the work that they want to have done.  I’m going to talk more about the different types of cosmetic dentistry, but before that here’s a warning.

Please make sure that you do your research to find a top of the line expert in the field.  The last thing that you want to have happen is your dental work to go wrong, and as a result you need medical help or worse yet you die.  That’s not a scare tactic, it’s the truth.  If you’re dentist doesn’t know what he’s doing you can have all kinds of things go wrong including getting bacteria in your blood stream and die from a brain infection.  So please do your homework, and check the qualifications of the dentist who is going to do your work.

Whitening And Braces

Everyone’s heard of both of these, in fact whitening your teeth has become a current fad.  It’s also consider to be cosmetic dentistry.  Your teeth or healthy, you’re simply making sure that they are truly your pearly whites and they can sparkle and shine just like it if you let them.  

But a word of caution here.  There are limits on how much whitening that can be done.  If you do to much to often you’re going to take the protective coat off of your teeth and then the job that it was meant to do (keep your teeth from cavities), it wont be able to do.  For example every day for 2 weeks is too much.  Make sure you read the directions if you’re not going to go to a professional and keep your mouth healthy.

Braces are most commonly seen in teenagers.  They get to the point where their mouth is fully developed and their teeth are crooked.  Most often they are anxious to get them straightened, but not so anxious to have all that metal on them.  Depending on the amount of work that needs to be done, they may be able to get ‘invisible’ braces and then both of you will be happy.

Bonding And Crowns

Bond and crowns are also forms of cosmetic dentistry IF there’s no decay involved.  My daughter is a good example of cosmetic bonding.  She decided to stop a door with her mouth.  As a result, she chipped her tooth.  It hurt as you might imagine, so we took her to the dentist.  The dentist took an x-ray to see how deep the damage was.  As it turned out, the chip didn’t go far enough into the tooth, so no treatment was mandatory.  She still has the chip, but we have the option of getting bonding done when her mouth is fully grown.  

Why we didn’t get the bonding at that time was simple.  We knew she was going to continue to grow and we didn’t want her to have to keep getting the bonding done.  She’s almost 13 now, so in the next couple of years, we’ll have her tooth bonded and it will look ‘normal’ again.  It hasn’t bothered her and she’s never been teased, so there was no urgency for the bonding to be done.

Crowning would also be an option for her or for your teeth if they are not in the shape or color that you’d like them.  Obviously, you’re going to need to get a professional consultation to find out what works best for you, as everyone is different.