A Guide to the Most Popular Cosmetic Dentistry Treatments
Rather than targeting a specific dental problem, cosmetic dentistry treatments focus on improving the overall appearance of your teeth and the surrounding areas of your mouth and jaw. These procedures can address a range of concerns you may have about your smile, including missing or crooked teeth, gaps, discoloration, and even fine lines and wrinkles on your facial skin.
Here’s a closer look at six of the most popular cosmetic dentistry treatments and how they can help you achieve a brighter smile.
Clear Aligners
Dental braces are a common and effective orthodontic tool for straightening crooked teeth, but some patients — particularly adults —may feel discouraged by their metallic, wiry appearance.
Luckily, clear aligners from Invisalign® and REVEAL® offer a nearly invisible, patient-controlled alternative to traditional braces. Patients receive a series of custom-fitted aligning trays that work quickly to straighten teeth without changing the day-to-day appearance of their smiles.
Clear aligners can even be temporarily removed with ease to facilitate eating, brushing, and flossing.
Porcelain Veneers
Porcelain veneers have the power to completely transform your teeth and overall appearance by correcting some of the most common aesthetic imperfections, including severe stains and discoloration, unwanted gaps, crooked or misshapen teeth, and chips and other breaks. Able to last many years before needing replacement, veneers are simply thin, tooth-shaped pieces of porcelain that a dentist bonds to the surfaces of existing teeth.
Installing veneers is a quick and painless process, and your dentist will work closely with you to find an optimal shape and shade for your new teeth.
Porcelain Crowns
Unfortunately, veneers are not a viable solution for every tooth.
Severely broken, fractured, decayed, or worn-down teeth can be better corrected with porcelain crowns, which sit like caps over the entire structure of each tooth. Crowns offer the added benefit of strengthening and protecting teeth that otherwise may be susceptible to further damage and functional difficulties.
During your first appointment, your dentist will make molds of each affected tooth and give you temporary crowns to wear until your custom-made permanent crowns have been completed, a process which usually takes around two weeks.
During your second appointment, your dentist will remove the temporary crowns, clean your teeth, and install your brand-new crowns while ensuring that your spacing and bite are correct.
Porcelain Fixed Bridges
Missing teeth can negatively affect the appearance of your smile as well as your ability to speak, chew, and retain your overall facial shape. Acting as a form of an advanced crown, porcelain fixed bridges are an effective and durable solution to missing teeth.
Several varieties exist, but traditional bridges are made using two crowns that fit onto strong anchoring teeth with artificial teeth linked between them to fill in the spaces left by missing teeth.
Like crowns and veneers, porcelain fixed bridges can last many years with proper care.
Teeth Whitening
Any number of substances can stain and discolor your tooth enamel over time, from coffee and tea to tobacco smoke and red wine.
Professional teeth whitening is a safe, easy, and non-invasive way to restore your teeth to a more natural shade of white. Your dentist will fit you for a custom, clear plastic tray, which you will use to apply a special whitening solution to your teeth periodically for a couple of weeks.
Teeth whitening isn’t permanent, however, so you may need touch-ups in the future, especially if you resume activities that stain tooth enamel.
Non-surgical Injectables
In 2021 alone, nearly 2 million dermal filler procedures — using injectables — were performed in the U.S. Although not usually associated with dentistry, non-surgical injectables such as BOTOX® and JUVÉDERM® can work alongside cosmetic dentistry treatments to enhance your overall appearance and facial structure.
Our Exceptional Dental team is specially trained to provide these treatments to reduce facial wrinkles and fine lines, smooth and lift the skin, and even treat painful conditions of the face and jaw, including TMJ and migraines.
Injectables require no recovery time, and results can last from four months to a whole year.
Book an Appointment for Your Cosmetic Dentistry Treatment
Cosmetic dentistry treatments can resolve a wide variety of aesthetic and structural imperfections in your smile, enhancing your overall appearance and boosting your confidence and self-esteem.
Exceptional Dental has been providing residents of South Louisiana and the Gulf Coast with a full range of cosmetic services for more than two decades.
Schedule an appointment with us at our Long Beach, MS dental office or any of our Louisiana locations in: