Are you confused about the multitude of treatments available for brightening and updating your smile? Here’s a brief explanation of the technology and treatment options available today. Porcelain Veneers or Dental Veneers Porcelain veneers involve three easy visits to the dentist. In the first appointment, you will make decisions about smile design and your dentist will plan the steps for changing your smile. The next visit will take one to two hours and the teeth are prepared. A small amount of the tooth is buffed down to make room for the porcelain shell. You may require a local anesthetic for comfort. A mold is cast of your teeth and sent to a lab where the veneers are molded to your specifications. If necessary, temporary veneers will be placed on your teeth while the permanent ones are being made. Lumineers Lumineers are dental veneers which evolved from the Cerinate studio, owned by Den-Mat, which is a lab that services over 2,500 dentists nationwide, creating crowns, composites, and veneers. Cerinates have been named in the "Top 100 Products" by Dentistry Today. Now Cerinate dentists are elevating their practices by also offering Lumineers as an alternative to porcelain or dental veneers when a dentist desires not to remove sensitive tooth structure. Dental Implants If you're missing one or more teeth and are unhappy with your natural smile, you may want to consider dental implants as an option for restoring your teeth. The effect of tooth loss varies from person to person and depends on what exactly is missing. If you've lost the crown, you've lost the visible part of your tooth. But if you've lost the root as well, you've lost the unseen part of your tooth. The root anchors the tooth in your jawbone, providing stable support for the crown. Without the root, the bone around the lost tooth may gradually recede, remaining teeth may shift and chewing may become more difficult with time. You can choose from a number of ways to replace your tooth crowns. But if you're interested in replacing your entire tooth - crown and root - your only option is dental implants. Invisalign and Invisalign Express Invisalign® is the invisible way to straighten your teeth without braces, using a series of clear removable aligners to straighten your teeth without metal wires or brackets. You wear each set of aligners for about 2 weeks, removing them only to eat, drink, brush, and floss. As you replace each aligner with the next in the series, your teeth will move - little by little, week by week - until they have straightened to the final position your orthodontist or dentist has prescribed. You'll visit your orthodontist or dentist about once every 6 weeks to ensure that your treatment is progressing as planned. Total treatment time averages 9-15 months and the average number of aligners worn during treatment is between 18 and 30, but both will vary from case to case. Invisalign Express Designed for milder cases and relapse patients, Invisalign Express is a simple, dual arch orthodontic treatment consisting of a series of up to ten clear removable aligners. Invisalign Express allows doctors to more affordably offer the reliability and quality of Invisalign treatment to patients with only minor crowding and spacing. Teeth Whitening Options for whitening your teeth range from the inexpensive whitening strips available at the grocery store to the laser and tray whitening systems available at the dentist. Brand names for these whitening systems include Brite Smile, ZOOM! Whitening, ZOOM! 2, Nite White, Day White, Opalescence, and Tres White. Bleaching and Laser Whitening are also commonly used to achieve similar results. A new product that is rapidly gaining media attention for its excellent tooth whitening is supersmile, which was developed by Dr. Irwin Smigel, the dentist known nationally as the father of aesthetic dentistry. Celebrities such as Kelly Ripa, Adam Sandler, and Ivana Trump have publicly praised supersmile for its effectiveness. Supersmile is available at many dentists’ offices, and at Sephora or Nordstrom. When you visit the dentist, remember that having unrealistic expectations will only disappoint you. Your dentist can only improve upon the raw material available - he cannot create new raw material. No restoration can replace your natural teeth. If you understand the limitations, you will be happier with the final results.
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