Are You Looking For A New Smile In 2024?
Some fantastic ways to improve the appearance of your teeth at our Canterbury Dental Clinic.
We hope that you all had a good Christmas and New Year. It probably seems like a long time ago now and you may already be turning your thoughts towards the warmer weather ahead and planning holidays and perhaps shorter breaks in spring. With the turn of the year generally, we often look to make a few changes in our lives such as getting fitter, losing weight, stopping smoking (a very good idea from an oral health perspective) etc.
We often see an increase in bookings for cosmetic dentistry appointments around this time of the year and it’s reasonable to conclude that smile improvement is a key aim for many people. If this is you, you might be interested to see what we can offer at Bradley and Partners Dental & Implant Clinic to help you have a nicer looking smile in the year ahead.
Teeth whitening
The most popular cosmetic dental treatment available is teeth whitening. This should come as no surprise given its affordability and the lack of any invasive dentistry involved. Even the most nervous patients should be able to have this treatment with very little concern at all. Our fast acting and pain free teeth whitening is a great way to improve your smile, lightening the colour of your teeth by several shades.
You will need to have a consultation before having the treatment to make sure that your overall oral health is good as there is little point in whitening a tooth that is decaying. The treatment doesn’t produce permanent results and the effect will gradually fade over a period of several months, but the good news is that you can repeat the treatment as often as you like with no harm to your teeth. This is a popular treatment too for those who have completed their orthodontic treatment and want to get the very best from their smile.
Porcelain dental veneers
While teeth whitening is a great treatment for most people, it is less effective for those whose teeth are very badly stained. It will offer some improvement but may not offer the level of whiteness that you hope for. This can be discussed during your initial consultation at our Canterbury dental practice.
For people in this position, fitting porcelain veneers may prove to be a better choice. Although this does usually require some invasive treatment, the results will last for much longer. Providing that you take care of your veneers and the teeth they are attached to, they can last you for around ten years before they need to be replaced.
In order to fit veneers, it is often necessary to ‘shave’ away a very fine layer of enamel from the front surface of the tooth. Impressions will then be made, from which the veneers are produced in a dental laboratory. During the period of time that you are waiting for these to be ready, usually around a week, you will be provided with temporary veneers to protect your teeth. Once your new veneers are ready, the temporary ones will be removed and the new ones attached to your teeth using a powerful clinical adhesive. They will then be trimmed and polished to give you a great looking smile.
Crowns
Where a tooth is broken, especially where visible, it can sometimes be restored aesthetically with a veneer. If the breakage is too significant though, a crown or ‘cap’ may be used instead. The tooth will need to be shaped in order to fit the crown which, again, is attached using special adhesive.
Orthodontics
While the above treatments can provide you with a great looking smile in a short period of time, problems like crooked and uneven teeth are likely to take longer to correct. Some that need correcting for aesthetic purposes only, such as where they are only slightly crooked, can now be achieved in just a few weeks depending on the situation. Our team will be able to give you an estimate of the time required.
Where more extensive correction is needed, the treatment time will be significantly longer and may even be more than a year. The good news for our patients is that we offer a range of modern discreet orthodontics that are not only almost invisible when being worn, but can be removed when you eat meals or clean your teeth. This makes wearing orthodontics much more convenient than the more traditional ‘fixed brace’ method.
As you can see, there are a number of options available to those of you hoping to improve your appearance in the new year. If you would like to discuss any of the above treatments with us, an initial consultation is the place to start and with no obligation to proceed if you don’t wish to. Why not come and see what we can do for you by arranging your consultation at Bradley and Partners Dental & Implant Clinic? Please call us today on 01227 463529.