Fixing a tooth can mean many different things, depending on how, exactly, it’s been compromised. For example, it might mean repairing a minor crack in your tooth’s surface, or a significant fracture throughout most of its structure. Or, it could mean completely capping the tooth to address a concern that significantly impacts the tooth’s overall health and integrity. Whatever it takes to fix your tooth, our goal is always to design a treatment plan that offers optimal results in a convenient and minimally invasive way.
1. Bonding or reshaping the tooth
Tooth bonding and contouring (or reshaping) or minimally invasive treatments by nature. Bonding a tooth means to apply a small amount of custom-designed, highly lifelike composite resin to the tooth’s damaged area, then sculpting the resin to restore the tooth’s healthy size, shape, appearance, and integrity. By contrast, contouring a tooth can smooth out jagged or rough edges caused by certain types of tooth damage, giving your tooth its natural and healthy contour back.
2. Placing a custom veneer on the tooth
A porcelain dental veneer is a thin shell of dental porcelain that’s designed to mimic the front surface of a healthy, natural tooth. The shell matches the size, shape, contour, and appearance of the tooth, minus any blemishes or damage, and is bonded securely to the tooth’s front surface. This allows a veneer to address a variety of different types of tooth concerns, including cracks, chips, breaks, slight misalignment, and much more. Because they’re minimally invasive in nature, veneers can offer optimal smile restoration results with highly conservative treatment. By minimizing the amount of tooth structure that has to be prepared to receive them, veneers can also help you retain more of your tooth’s natural strength and integrity long-term.
3. Completely capping the tooth’s crown
In cases when tooth damage is too extensive for bonding or a porcelain veneer to fix it, the most appropriate solution may be to cap the tooth’s entire visible structure with a custom-designed dental crown. A restorative dental crown is designed to closely mimic a tooth’s entire healthy crown structure, and after it’s secured in place, the restoration can reestablish the tooth’s full function and integrity. Capping the damaged tooth structure also stops the damage from getting worse, which reduces your risks of the tooth experiencing further damage and potentially being lost, or needing to be extracted.
Learn how we can fix your tooth
With the right customized dental treatment, we can fix your tooth successfully and in a highly conservative manner. To learn more, schedule an appointment by calling MMC Dental in Houston, TX, today at (713) 926-8896.