The New Age Of Cosmetic Dentistry
Saturday, September 11th, 2010Decades ago all forms of dentistry centered around treatment rather than prevention. In the 1960s new toothpastes came out that focused on prevention for cavities, and dentistry was brought into a new era. Suddenly our teeth were something to be proud of, not problems to be dealt with. Today in the 21st century we have gone even further - cosmetic dentistry is one of the fastest growing industries anywhere.
Not everyone is born with a beautiful smile. Teenagers grow out of proportion to their mouths and teeth become misplaced, crooked, or even impacted. Although orthodontics and braces play a pivotal role in getting things back to normal, braces can’t handle everything. There are many other issues at stake that can solve problems sometimes more difficult.
One of the first major improvements in finding the perfect smile was bonding. This was very simple, very affordable, and the first add on service a regular dentist could offer that patients would pay for out of pocket since insurance companies saw no reason as yet to cover the cost. The process was painless and could fix many problems from an irregular smile to a large gap in the front teeth. It was also successful in repairing cracks and chipped teeth.
Bonding also took the place of caps. Earlier caps were used by the wealthy when they wanted to improve their smiles. Some of the earlier movie stars such as Marilyn Monroe were almost forced by their studios to have their entire mouthful of teeth replaced with caps. Beautiful maybe, but super expensive and very invasive.
This replaced the use of unnecessary caps. Caps have always had their place in treatment plans, but people with money, including movie stars, chose to have all their teeth capped - and this meant having perfectly good teeth filed down needlessly, ruining them. If anything happened to the cap, they would have a serious problem - and this happened all the time. Caps would fall off, infection would set it, and they would crack and discolor.
The next major advance was implants. Finally patients with missing teeth had an option that didn’t involve dentures or bridges which meant healthy teeth would need to be filed down in order to have the bridge or denture attach to it. Although the implants themselves haven’t changed much over the years, the process has been changed from a three visit to a one visit in many cases. Even some insurance companies will pick up a good part of the costs which can run over $1,000 per tooth.
Veneers Toronto came next. Veneers are a bit different in that they don’t repair anything, they simply hide the problems. They are fairly expensive for each tooth but they are painless to put on and a brand new smile can be achieved in less than a few hours. There is very little prep work other than some simple filing on the surface of the original teeth needed for the new veneer to adhere to.
Veneers are another boon to the Orthodontics Toronto industry. Veneers are simply placed over the front of an original tooth without damaging the tooth itself. These are most commonly used for front teeth, and at a considerable cost for each one, many patients are happy to replace only their front teeth and still see a major improvement.
Don’t let your teeth suffer the same fear as you. Fear of dental treatemnt can be overcome with the use of sedation dentistry. Consult your local Toronto Dentist about a Sedation dentist.