Cosmetic Dentistry

Cosmetic dentistry is really something I highly emphasize in my practice. A lot of people think you specialize in cosmetic dentistry. Really, there is no specialty for cosmetic dentist. Pretty much every dentist is a “cosmetic dentist” there are family in cosmetic dentists, but there's really just a few of us that have really put the time in to go and learn about cosmetic dentistry and what's involved? What's the materials? The process? The diagnosis? The understanding of, really, how to put a beautiful smile and bite together, because very often those two things are quite related. I spend a lot of hours, hundreds hours every year in education. Whether it's going to a symposium, whether it's in an institute, whether it's a continue education course of someone I want to see. I really make it a strong emphasis in all that I do. I think that's one thing that really sets me apart in cosmetic dentistry, is I put the time in to learn it. That's probably been going on for the past 15 years in my practice.

Big things that we do at cosmetic dentistry, the simple thing, it would be maybe some whitening. A lot of tooth whitening today is very, common, popular, it's easy to do. Maybe the next level would be some bonding. We'd use some composite bonding to change the shape of teeth or maybe contour a tooth a little bit better. Then we get into porcelain veneers. The use porcelain veneers is the dramatic before and afters. Someone has a terrible smile or something that they're really afraid to show, we get into use of porcelain veneers and the bonding with porcelains. There's all kinds of veneers I use to meet the challenges of each smile. Often people say, “Veneer, well, yeah, but what kind of veneer?” There's probably four or five different veneers I use, depending on the situation. It's the use of porcelain veneers that really is probably the main stay in cosmetic dentistry today.