It’s a common misnomer that maintaining a good smile is easy. However, quite often, a cosmetic dentistry procedure is needed to bring the ‘wow’ back into your smile. Having stained teeth, a broken or chipped tooth, or misaligned teeth can be a problem. Let’s take a look at some of the most common cosmetic dentistry procedures and what their benefits are.

Teeth Whitening

This type of cosmetic dentistry is a common dental procedure. In this treatment, the patient gets impressions taken of his teeth and custom whitening trays are made from these impressions. The trays are designed to fit the patient’s teeth exactly so the whitening gel comes into contact with all sides of the teeth providing the best possible result. The dentist then provides professional whitening gel to use with these custom trays. The patient is then advised to use the gel daily. The process takes about 2 weeks.

There are also over-the-counter products. These also work but they are not custom to the patient and the gels are not as concentrated so typically give a less dramatic result.

Teeth Alignment

Misaligned teeth not only affect your appearance, they may also affect your ability to chew, and in extreme cases may cause damage to the jaw joints.

Braces are the most common procedure to align teeth. Treatment times vary depending on the severity of the misalignment and can range from a few months to 1-2 years.

There is also a relatively new way to treat misaligned/crowded teeth using clear acrylic aligners (most common brand is Invisalign). These trays are clear, thin and almost unnoticeable and work well in certain types of misalignments. The treatment time for this is also variable but typically is shorter than conventional braces.

Bonding

At times you may suffer from a broken or a chipped tooth. Under such circumstances, bonding can assist you by using resin to fix the broken part of the tooth. A major advantage of using dental bonding is that these bonds are similar to natural teeth and are not noticeable. While using teeth bonding, you may have to take care and avoid hard foods that are capable of cracking or breaking the bond.

Implants

Dental implants are used to replace missing teeth. Titanium screws are used to fix the dental implant into the jaw. These types of dental implants are considered to be useful as it is challenging for people to distinguish the replaced tooth from the natural teeth.

Now that you know the most common cosmetic dentistry procedures, you can visit a dentist to understand what kind of cosmetic dentistry is suitable for your dental condition. A dentist can also suggest you on how you can keep your teeth in healthy condition.

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