As the world of dentistry continues to advance, patients have greater access to treatments that are affordable, convenient, and effective. One such treatment is dental bonding.
Our Toluca Lake dentists utilize dental bonding in order to achieve a wide variety of structural and aesthetic results. With bonding, you can correct existing dental damage, close gaps between teeth, resurface dull or dark enamel, and even make crooked teeth appear better aligned. But what is it like to undergo dental bonding? Keep reading to learn more about the process.
Dental bonding involves our dentist applying customized dental resin to the patient’s natural tooth structure. After this resin is shaped and sized appropriately, we cure it, so that it hardens and bonds to the tooth.
When you come in for your appointment, our team will assess your smile, to make sure that dental bonding can meet your specific needs. If we determine that bonding is right for you, we’ll then thoroughly clean your smile, to ensure that built-up plaque and tartar cannot negatively affect the bonding application.
Then, we custom-shade the composite resin to match your dental shade. We’re able to achieve exact shade matches so that the patient’s end result looks exceptionally natural. Keep in mind that if you are using dental bonding for just one or two teeth, and you want to lighten your natural teeth as well, you should undergo professional whitening prior to bonding. This allows our team to match your bonding to your post-whitening smile.
The next step is for our dentist to place and shape the dental resin. We may use the resin to fill in dental cracks or chips or to build out a poorly proportioned tooth. We can also apply resin to make crooked teeth appear straighter and to resurface dark or stained enamel.
Once the resin is placed and shaped appropriately, we cure the resin with a special light. As we cure it, the resin hardens and bonds to the natural tooth surface.
When treatment is complete you’ll be able to jump back into your regular daily routine—there is no post-treatment recovery time associated with bonding.
If you want more information about any of your dental treatment options, including bonding, please feel free to give our Toluca Lake dentists a call!