Whitening
There are three methods for bleaching teeth. The method that will work best for you depends on the number of teeth that need to be bleached, and on how badly they are stained (or discoloured).
Your dentist may suggest:
- Putting a special bleach on your stained teeth and using heat (or heat and light) to start the bleaching action
- Wearing a custom-made mouthguard filled with a special bleach for part of each day
- Brushing with a special bleach mixed in toothpaste
Bonding
Bonding is a quick and painless way to repair chips in your teeth. Bonding uses a white plastic paste, called composite resin – a plastic that is semi-liquid at first, but that becomes hard and durable when cured with light.
This material can be tinted to match the colour of natural teeth and can also be contoured and shaped to resemble the missing part of a chipped tooth. It can be painted over a stained tooth, and it can make a fractured tooth look whole and perfect. Composite resin can even build up the size of teeth so gaps between them are reduced or eliminated.
Much like white fillings, dental bonding is made from a composite resin, and is matched to the color of the rest of your teeth. Dental bonding can be used to correct teeth that are:
- Chipped
- Discolored
- Broken
- Misshaped
- Crooked
- Worn
Veneers
Veneers are very thin acrylic or porcelain shells that are attached to the front part of teeth. Like bonding, veneers can cover badly-stained teeth, chipped teeth, uneven teeth and large fillings.
