White teeth are all the rage these days, and it doesn’t have to be complicated, painful or even expensive says a Toxteth dentist. A home DIY kit costs as little as £40 and is easy to do yourself, visiting a salon in the High Street is also an option as most now offer whiter teeth for as little as £200-400. Depending on the discolouration either method may well suit you. Veneers are an option as well; with the new Lumineer’s having a set fitted is an easy procedure and takes just a few hours to do a whole mouth. These very thin veneers are tough and long lasting and leave your teeth with no permanent damage, as opposed to conventional veneers that require enamel to be shaved off the tooth. Let’s take a look at what the salon offers to the client. A mobile technician will prepare your teeth by inserting a soft gum shield in your mouth, and then they coat a gel onto your teeth and shine a blue intense light source onto the teeth. The gel reacts with the tooth`s natural enamel and blends the colour cells of the enamel to produce a white coating. This is done in 3 x 15 minute sessions, allowing for a cooling off period in between. You`ll need to stick to a strict diet sheet if you want it to last though, so no more red wine or artificially enhanced food dyes or cocktails. You can eat and drink anything white, but not strongly coloured.
Archive for July, 2010
Teeth Whitening made easy, by a Toxteth dentist
Thursday, July 29th, 2010Lumineer’s are they really that good? Aintree dentist advises
Sunday, July 18th, 2010
Lumineer’s are the latest thing to come out of dental advances, they are a cosmetic solution to the age old problem of misaligned, discoloured, chipped and cracked teeth, says Aintree dentist. Made from a newly designed formula, which includes Porcelain, they are so tough and hard wearing that they come in a super thin format. Unlike conventional veneers, which are also made from Porcelain, these particular veneers can be fitted straight onto the teeth without any preparation work. Most Lumineer’s can be fitted by a dentist in their surgery, and in your lunch hour as they take less than 30 minutes to adhere to the teeth. Although they are very thin, they still cover all the aforementioned cosmetic problems that a lot of people have. With normal veneers a lot of preparation work is needed to enable the thicker veneers to be fitted properly. The teeth are shaved of their enamel and the veneer then replaces that enamel, which means that unless you want to lose the tooth entirely, you can only ever have a veneer fitted to it. The Lumineer lasts around 20 years compared to 10-15 for the conventional veneers. If you need any other work done on the tooth, then with the Lumineer it is quite easy to have it lifted off to enable this to be done, then you can either leave the tooth as it originally was or have the Lumineer re-fitted. That is one of the main advantages along with the reduction in cost.
Root Canal`s save teeth, more people should have them. By a Everton dentist
Saturday, July 17th, 2010
A Root Canal is a brilliant dental procedure that saves teeth; there is nothing better for a dentist than to be able to save a tooth that would otherwise have been lost, says a Everton dentist. Dentists hate it when a patient loses a tooth, especially when it could have been avoided. Many teeth are rotted away by infection, and many more are lost through continuous infections coming back to haunt the patient. A root canal procedure is there to save such teeth, and it works in a high number of cases. First of all let’s look at the cause of deep infections in a tooth; these are caused by germs and bacteria seeping into the inner chamber through a crack or an infected gum. The infection rises and is then killed off by antibiotics, but because it is deeply buried in the inner chamber of the tooth, it keeps coming back. The solution is to dig it out and illuminate it completely, thus saving the tooth. The tooth`s inner part is drilled out, painlessly I have to add, then the infection is scraped out, but germs are tiny to the eye, so a light is used to kill off any lurking behind. A spray is then used to coat the exposed part to make sure no more will grow there. The hole is then plugged with filler and the tooth is saved. The procedure sounds complicated, but it isn’t and it certainly isn’t painful for the patient.
Inman Aligners are a blessing, says a Kirby dentist
Monday, July 12th, 2010
An Inman Aligner is a brace with a difference says a Kirby dentist. Gone are the days when braces were cemented onto the teeth and wired together. The basic principles of a brace and how they train the teeth to become better aligned is still there, but the awkwardness and unsightly appearance of a brace is well gone with this design. If your front teeth are wonky then this brace is for you, it doesn’t work effectively on the back teeth though. It starts with a fitting procedure that involves taking digital pictures; these are fed into a program which devises how the braces will be designed. The braces are made from 3D images generated by the program, they are all self contained and look like a gum shield in appearance, they have a thin bar running across the front. All the springs and pulleys are encased within the brace, now here`s the amazing bit, they are removable by the patient to eat and clean the teeth. They are very popular amongst executives who can pop them out when doing meetings, and then pop them back in. The digital pictures are also used to make a 3D film of the entire procedure and this allows the dentist and the patient to follow the progress week by week. As long as you wear the brace for at least 20 hours a day, it will work, and work well, to straighten your teeth to the position they should have grown into.
Dental Implants; the perfect solution for missing teeth, says a Birkenhead dentist
Saturday, July 3rd, 2010
A Dental Implant is in retrospect a new tooth for an old one, says a Birkenhead dentist. Implants are like a denture that needs no removal, glue or soaking in a special solution overnight. A denture is a false tooth on a plate that is fixed to the mouth with glue; an Implant is a false tooth on a plate that is fixed to the jaw bone with screws, so they aren’t so different in some respects. The implant takes a lot longer to fit, it can range from 3-6 months, but it is a permanent fixture that works by integrating the plate into the jaw line itself to make it more natural. The procedure starts with a Titanium plate being inserted under the gum, the plate can be for a single tooth or a row. It is screwed into place and then left to fuse with the jaw over a period of months. The plate has pre-drilled holes in it to take poles later on; these will be where the new tooth sits in position. After the procedure is completed the patient will soon settle into their new teeth and most simply forget that they even have false teeth. They are cared for and cleaned just like real teeth and for all intents should be treated as real teeth. They cost a little more to have made and fitted, but that is outweighed by their benefits, and the fact they need no special care when cleaning takes place.
Bad Breath and its causes. By a Merseyside dentist
Thursday, July 1st, 2010
Bad breath is something we`ve all suffered from, no matter how well we look after our teeth says a Merseyside dentist. It has many causes which ranges from odorous foods like garlic and smoking and drinking alcohol, all of which will make you someone to avoid! Other causes can be from an infected liver or other vital organ, bad breath can simply be a sign that something is wrong with you. The most likely cause is a bad or lax oral hygiene regime, if you don’t keep your teeth clear of food debris throughout the day then you`ll suffer bad breath. Too much sugar or fat in your diet will stop your Pancreas from producing vital Insulin; we need Insulin to unlock the doors to vital organs and muscles to enable energy to feed them. You may not necessarily be Diabetic in order for this to happen, and a classic sign is a dry mouth. With the saliva gland not working properly your mouth will allow bacteria to breed quickly, they live off the food trapped in between your teeth. They produce acid which has an odour, and this is the most common form of bad breath. If you floss, brush and rinse twice a day that will help, but you also need to be alert to acid production in the day and when you are asleep. In the night the saliva gland is asleep and that also causes bad breath through acid production. Drinking water through the night will help enormously, as will drinking water through the day.