About Tooth Bonding
A smile can be dulled by stained, chipped, cracked, or misaligned teeth. Dr. Nataupsky, a skilled cosmetic dentist, can quickly and painlessly restore your smile’s natural beauty using the latest bonding techniques. During this cosmetic dentistry procedure, a thin coating of plastic resin is painted over the damaged teeth, strengthening them and making them virtually indistinguishable from natural teeth. Call us for a FREE cosmetic consultation today.
Rebuild A Malformed Tooth
BEFORE
This youngster was born with a lateral incisor that was malformed. It’s called a “peg lateral” due to its unusual shape. It is a common abnormality but not an attractive one.
AFTER
In this situation, we used a combined approach of first building the tooth up in composite resin (bonding) to establish extra strength and extra surface area. Then we placed a porcelain laminate veneer on top of the bonding to make it look natural and unnoticeable. These photos were taken minutes after placement. The redness around the veneer heals within a few days, with good home care.
Closing Spaces
BEFORE
This young lady did not want to have a space between her two front teeth. One option for treatment was to have orthodontic treatment (braces). Other options included porcelain laminates or caps. We felt that these options were not very conservative in this case. The most conservative choice was to close the spaces by adding composite resin to each tooth. This is called direct composite bonding.
AFTER
We performed the bonding with a minimal amount of roughening of the tooth. No anesthesia was needed. Notice how well the bonding is shaped and polished. This allows the light to reflect in a very natural way, adding to the lifelike appearance. It’s very difficult to tell that this person had anything done to her teeth.
Rebuilding Worn & Broken Teeth
BEFORE
This woman had severely worn teeth, particularly in the back. She had a fair amount of sensitivity to cold and the enamel was sharp and irritating.
AFTER
Although we could have rebuilt these teeth by putting caps on them, we chose to be more conservative in our treatment by applying composite resin to rebuild and reshape the teeth. This allowed us to accomplish our goad conservatively (in two appointments) and kept open the option of porcelain laminate veneers or caps for future treatment if necessary. This treatment is also available when a person breaks or fractures a tooth. This occurs frequently, especially when a tooth has a large, old filling.
Straighten Crowded Teeth
BEFORE
This woman was particularly concerned about he poor appearance of her teeth due to the excessive crowding and overlapping. She also disliked the odd shape of her front teeth.
AFTER
We were able to reshape her teeth and create the illusion that she had braces. In this instance, the patient had composite resin bonding directly applied to her teeth to realign them. Porcelain laminate veneers would achieve a similar result. Creating pleasant symmetry and a famine appearance creates a very happy smile and patient. It’s interesting to notice how much happier the “after” smile appears. This effect was unsolicited!