Cosmetic Dentistry
Over time, our teeth do gradually become discolored or yellowish due to aging or personal habits such as drinking coffee, tea, alcohol or smoke. In today advancement in technologies, there is a variety of smile whitening methods and technologies. Your smile can easily be whitened in a number of ways
A dental crown or dental cap is a custom made restoration that covers a tooth with sustained significant loss of structure. They are analogical to being a thimble capped over your finger. Dental crowns are used to restore teeth to a certain shape and size. They provide strength and improves the appearance of the tooth.
A dental bridge is one method to fill a gap created by a missing tooth (or teeth). Dental bridge or pontic is a custom-made false tooth or teeth, that is permanently placed between two healthy teeth, filling in the area left by a missing tooth or teeth. The bridge is held in place by crowns placed on the healthy teeth on each side of space to be filled.
If part of a tooth has been lost through decay or damaged due to an accident, your dentist may put in a dental filling. Dental fillings are used to fill a portion of tooth or plug the hole and stop any future pain or discomfort. Tooth-colored or composite resin dental fillings are commonly used to replace amalgam silver fillings.
Dental veneers, also called porcelain veneers or dental porcelain laminates, are wafer-thin, custom-made shells of tooth-colored materials placed over the front surface of teeth to improve tooth appearance. Veneers are ideal for teeth that are too small, too big, or have uneven surfaces. It is very common for people to have imperfect teeth, either oddly shaped teeth, chipped teeth, crooked teeth, teeth with small holes in them, or an inappropriate sized tooth or teeth that have an odd appearance. Veneers solve such irregularities and create a durable and pleasing smile.
Inlays are similar to fillings but the entire work lies within the cusps (bumps) on the chewing surface of the tooth. Onlays are more extensive than inlays, covering one or more cusps. Onlays are sometimes called partial crowns. Overlays extends outwards from onlays.
Inlays, onlays and overlays are normally done to repair damaged portion of teeth that may be too large to be fixed with composite resin fillings whilst the damage is not overly extensive requiring a dental crown.
Dental bonding is a procedure in which a tooth-colored resin material (a durable plastic material) is applied and hardened with a special light, which ultimately “bonds” the material to the tooth to restore or improve person’s smile.
Dental Bonding may be used to repair chipped teeth or provide a new surface over teeth using composite resin. For cases whereby composite resin is applied to the entire tooth surface in improving aesthetics of teeth, this type of dental bonding is referred to as composite veneers.