It is becoming increasingly common for people to plan a smile makeover in time for a special event and even small changes can make quite a difference. For example, you might wish to improve your smile in time for a wedding or other celebration, but equally you don’t need to have an excuse to treat yourself. These days cosmetic dental treatments are often far more affordable than you might think and it could be that you only require very small modifications to improve the appearance of your teeth.
How to Begin Planning a Smile Makeover
Tsawwassen Place Dental has Smile-Vision®, a great way to see your smile before you buy. This system uses enhanced digital photography techniques to help you visualize your new smile so you can decide for yourself if a certain treatment is worth the effort. Dr. Larry Leslie can also discuss the types of treatments which might be useful and will explain how each procedure works.
Treatments Which Might Be Useful
The most popular cosmetic dentistry treatments include tooth coloured fillings, veneers and of course tooth whitening. Each of these treatments can work well in conjunction with each other and using more than one procedure can often prove more cost-effective in the longer term and this approach can sometimes be the most conservative.
Veneers
Porcelain veneers can look amazing and this procedure is relatively non-invasive. Veneers are useful for correcting minor defects such as small chips or cracks and are very good for covering up internally stained teeth which may not respond to teeth whitening. Although it is possible to cover up all your front teeth with veneers, this might not be necessary and you could use this treatment in conjunction with tooth whitening, selectively veneering a few teeth that would be improved through being covered up. If you choose this option then it is best to have your teeth whitened before we make your veneers as that way your veneers can be more accurately matched to your teeth.
Tooth Whitening
We have two different methods of tooth whitening and both are very effective. Our in-office tooth whitening will quickly brighten up your teeth and is perfect if you have something special coming up very soon. Otherwise we can supply you with a home whitening kit which includes custom-made whitening trays and we will prescribe you the correct strength of whitening gel. This method does provide greater control over the degree of whitening achieved and can be good for people with especially sensitive teeth. Often using both whitening treatments can provide the best and most long-lasting results. One great thing about our home whitening kits is that we can simply re-prescribe whitening gel for you at a later date when you want to top up the results.
Renewing Old and Stained Fillings
If you have any old fillings, particularly in your front teeth, then renewing them can make a surprisingly large difference. Tooth coloured composite resin fillings do discolour over the course of a few years, especially if you eat or drink a lot of highly coloured foods.
These are just a few of the things we can do to help improve your smile, but everyone is unique and each smile makeover, no matter how small or large is fully customized for each of our patients.
