The Cosmetic Revolution

Cosmetic dentistry has been a hot topic for a long time. 10 Years Younger and Extreme Makeover have created greater awareness of cosmetic dentistry and what it can do.

One thing that you rarely hear talked about on these programmes is what we call the "restorative cycle." Put simply, just how long do you think that your new smile will last?

The truth is that crowns, veneers or any artificial material that is placed in the mouth by a dentist has a lifespan. Nothing lasts forever no matter how well it is done. The actual lifespan of any treatment will vary hugely from one person to the next. For example what you eat, how well you brush, or floss, whether or not you grind your teeth will all have an effect on how long things last.

As a Preventive Dental Practice we don't like it when teeth need to be drilled! We believe that any treatment should have as long a restorative cycle as possible.

So if you want straighter and whiter teeth. You usually have 2 options

1. porcelain veneers

2 orthodontic treatment and whitening

We prefer moving the teeth orthodontically and whitening rather than grinding the teeth down for veneers. Why?

Veneers will probably get you to the end result a little faster, but you should plan on replacing them every 7 to 15 years. Considering the averge female born today is expected to live for 81 years that means quite a few sets of veneers in a lifetime. generally veneers need removal of some natural tooth to make space for them and each time the veneers are replaced there is the potential for a little more tooth to be lost.

Compare this to the orthodontic option. If you move the teeth to the correct position and retain them there, the result will be lifelong. There is no porcelain to chip, or become stained at the edges and usually the teeth are left untouched. When the total cost to you over a lifetime is calculated the orthodontic option wins hands down. No one solution is right or wrong, and there are still situations where porcelain veneers or crowns are the right treatment. Make no mistake change is coming. New technologies and approaches such as the Inman Aligner and 6 Month Smiles are gradually superceding more traditional aproaches to the smile makover.

Here are the results for just one patient that we helped at Craigentinny Dental Care.

All done with No INJECTIONS, and NO DRILLING away of healthy tooth.

As well as moving the teeth we did use one extra technique to get this result and i will talk about that soon.

The Secrets Of 1 Hour Whitening

Tooth whitening in an hour fact or myth? Lots of people ask me if 1 hour tooth whitening works or not. The fact that at present we don’t do 1 hour tooth whitening as a standalone treatment in the practice probably tells you a lot about my views on this. I have spoken to patients who will argue a case for both sides. On thing that you need to be aware of if you are having this done is that your teeth will get whiter just by being dried out for an hour. And believe me when I say that 1 hour bleaching WILL dry out the teeth.

Take a look at these 2 pictures, we did not do any whitening at all for this lady. We used some layered resin bonding to close a space between 2 front teeth that she was unhappy with. This in its self is fairly routine cosmetic dentistry at our practice in Edinburgh. No injections needed and a relatively short treatment time of around an hour. Low stress for our patient who liked the idea of injection free treatment and loved the final result. Happy patient = happy dentist!

Now look at the colour of the rest of the teeth, you will notice in the after photo that the teeth look much whiter (evenallowing for different camera exposure settings.) This is because the teeth had dried out during the treatment. Given an hour or two another photo would show the overall shades of the teeth to be back to normal.

This is the same phenomenon that many people see after 1 hour whitening where the initial results look fantastic but seem to fade back from this level very rapidly. My point here is not to say that 1 hour whitening is bad per se but simply to highlight one risk with assessing before and after colour of teeth on the same day. Colour stability after whitening can take up to 2 weeks to develop depending on the system used.

Natural tooth whitneing systems will boost your smile and get rid of the stains that build up over time but if you want the really white look it is still necessary to use a deep bleaching system which mixes together in practice and at home whitening for the best and most predictable results.