Dental bonding is an excellent cosmetic dental treatment option in Suffolk County and a great alternative to porcelain veneers or professional whitening.
What Is Dental Bonding?
Dental bonding adds a tooth-resin composite material to the front surface of your teeth to cover over surface flaws, such as chips or gaps.
What Can Teeth Bonding Fix?
If you have any of the following conditions, then bonding may be an option for you to help improve the appearance of your smile:
- Slightly crooked teeth
- Small to moderate-sized gaps between your teeth,
- Chipped teeth
- Jagged teeth
- Small teeth
- Pointed teeth
- Flat teeth
- Dark or stained teeth
Complete Smile Makeover with Dental Bonding
While some people just want to focus on bonding specific trouble areas listed above, others ay want to go for a complete smile makeover where boding covers more teeth or is combined with other treatments.
Combining options like bonding, whitening, crowns, or veneers allows us to design a uniform smile. And since bonding material is available in a variety of shades, we can choose a bright and beautiful color for your enamel. Typically, a smile makeover will consist of bonding a few specific teeth. Our Suffolk county dentist can help you decide how many teeth will need to be treated to give you the look that you’re trying to achieve.
Dental Bonding vs. Porcelain Veneers
Veneers are lab fabricated, thin shells of porcelain material that are shaped much like an artificial fingernail. Veneers are cemented permanently to the front surface of your teeth. Before placing veneers, our dentist has to reduce the thickness of the teeth to make room so that the veneers fit without looking too bulky.
Bonding differs from porcelain veneers in a few ways. Bonding is completed chairside in one visit, so no outsourced dental lab is required. And the amount of tooth reduction needed is minimal. The bonding procedure may not even require that you’d be numbed beforehand, like you would have with veneers. Composite bonding is also a less expensive alternative to porcelain veneers.
Dental Bonding and Teeth Whitening
While professionally whitening your teeth can give you a brighter smile, it won’t do anything for imperfections as far as the shape or positioning of your teeth. Although bonding can stain over time it will last longer than bleaching alone. Cosmetic bonding is a better option for achieving a brighter, straighter, and more uniform smile if you have one or two teeth you feel embarrassed about.
However, if there are only a few teeth that you would like to bond for the purpose of reshaping them, then we may recommend that you do in fact whiten your teeth first. Since bonding material doesn’t whiten once it’s applied, you may want your smile to be as bright as it naturally can be by whitening first and allowing us to match the composite material to your lighter shade.
The Tooth Bonding Procedure
As previously mentioned, bonding typically doesn’t require any numbing medication or injections. Since we’re not removing any decay, there is no risk of discomfort associated with the procedure.
To begin the tooth bonding procedure, our Long Island dentist will gently roughen the surface of the teeth to help the bonding agents adhere to your enamel. For the next step, we’ll apply some solutions to the surface area of each tooth to be bonded. An etchant material, a desensitizer, a primer, and a bond are commonly used. Once the teeth are prepped, we’ll apply a bit of the moldable bonding material in the pre-selected shade, and shape it until we achieve the desired appearance for that tooth.
After the material is in place, we’ll shine a special curing light over the teeth to harden and permanently adhere the bonding material to your teeth. Next, we’ll smooth the teeth up to finish achieving the desired contour, then we’ll polish the bonding so that your teeth feel smooth. Finally, we’ll check your bite to make sure your teeth come together properly.
Caring For Your Dental Bonding
If cared for properly, bonding can last for many years. Here are a few tips on ensuring that you get the most out of your cosmetic bonding treatment:
- Brush your teeth thoroughly at least twice a day. This will help prevent cavities from developing around the bonded area.
- Smoking is discouraged because it can stain the bonding. If you smoke, please be sure to let our Long Island dentist know during your consultation.
- Consuming a lot of dark drinks like sodas, coffee, and red wine can also cause discoloration.
- Avoid biting directly into hard foods like apples, and certain granola bars, which can cause the bonded material to break off.
- Biting your nails, or using your teeth as tools to open packages or cut thread, can cause broken restorations.
- Clenching and grinding your teeth places a lot of pressure to your teeth and can cause your bonding to pop off. If you are aware that you clench or grind, please let us know ahead of time. We can make a nightguard for you to wear to protect your investment.
- Visit our Long Island dentists regularly for checkups and cleanings. During this time, we’ll take a close look at your dental restorations. If we see anything that may cause an issue in the future, we can address it before it becomes a big problem.
Cosmetic Tooth Bonding in Long Island
If dental bonding sounds like something that you may be interested in to improve your smile, then our Suffolk County dental team would love to help. During your consultation, we’ll discuss your concerns and get a grasp of the image that you’re hoping to achieve. From there, we’ll determine if dental bonding is the right cosmetic treatment for you. We can help you get the smile you’ve always wanted, so don’t hesitate any longer. Call the cosmetic dentists of Sachem Dental Group today. We look forward to meeting you.