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Dental Health and Food: Learning to Eat Better

My intense love for candy, cakes, and everything in between started as a child. I simply couldn't go one day without something sweet to eat. But my love for all things sweet took a toll on my teeth. My dentist diagnosed me with seven cavities, each one a different size and depth. After sitting through four long dental appointments, I decided to make a change. I now monitor my diet and only eat things that benefit my oral health. I'm here to help you take better care of your teeth. My blog offers tips on how to improve your diet, maintain good oral hygiene, and many other topics. Hopefully, you can learn to overcome your bad habits just as I did. Good luck with your future dental health.

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Dental Health and Food: Learning to Eat Better

How Can Dental Bonding Help Give You a Hollywood Smile?

by Eric Bailey

Dental bonding is a popular and inexpensive cosmetic dental procedure that can fix a wide variety of problems. If you have any cosmetic dental concerns, you should consider dental bonding to vastly improve the look of your smile. Check out these four common ways dental bonding can give you a Hollywood smile.

Whitens Teeth

Professional teeth whitening is the best way to fight tooth discoloration caused by aging, tobacco and food/drink. These organic stains don't stand a chance against the bleaching agents used in professional treatments. However, some stains are resistant to traditional whitening techniques, such as trauma, antibiotics and overexposure to fluoride.

Professional whitening can actually worsen these stains. While it won't actually make them darker, it may make them appear darker as the surrounding teeth become whiter. If you have these types of stains, dental bonding can help.

The composite resin material used in dental bonding is placed over your teeth, so it can hide any stain. It is also stain-resistant, so it helps prevent further stains, but it is less stain-resistant than porcelain veneers and dental crowns.

Replaces Metal Fillings

Metal fillings used to be the norm when you needed to fill in a cavity, but they aren't as attractive and end up looking black. Metal fillings also require more healthy tooth structure to be removed to keep the filling in place, and metal fillings weaken the healthy tooth overtime. Dental bonding can be used in place of metal fillings or to replace old metal fillings you have.

With resin fillings, you end up with a seamless fix, so your tooth looks perfectly healthy and whole. The color can be matched to your tooth, and resin fillings cause less damage to the tooth tissue. On the down side, resin fillings aren't as durable or strong as metal fillings, so they don't last as long. They last at least five years, while metal fillings last at least 10 to 15 years.

Corrects Chips and Cracks

For correcting chips and cracks in your teeth, dental bonding is a great option, and it is less expensive than veneers and dental crowns. Porcelain crowns cost between $500 and $3,000, and porcelain veneers cost about $925 to $2,500. Dental bonding costs significantly less at $100 to $400 per tooth.

If you have chips in your teeth, the dentist can fill them in with the dental bonding material, much like filling in a cavity. For correcting large cracks, the resin can be used like a sealant to fill in the crack and hold the tooth together better. In some cases, such as with lots of small cracks, the dentist can place the resin material over the entire surface of the tooth.

Fixes Teeth Misalignment

If you have mild to moderate crooked teeth, dental bonding allows you to get a straight-looking smile without the hassle of braces. The material used in dental bonding is placed directly on teeth and then shaped and scrupled by the dentist. This means your teeth don't actually move, but the final result leaves your teeth looking perfectly straight.

This can also be done with porcelain veneers and crowns, but for the veneers and crowns to fit, the dentist must remove a large portion of tooth structure. Some enamel may need to be removed if you choose to reshape your smile with dental bonding, but it is much less, which lowers the risk of damage to your tooth's pulp.

If you aren't happy with your smile, you need to consider dental bonding. It is cheap but can correct many dental concerns. For more information about dental bonding, contact a cosmetic dentist in your area today. 

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