Here is a tooth that had a large cavity and big silver filling.  You can see the dark shadow of the filling through tooth.  Because there was so little healthy tooth structure remaining, we decided to place a porcelain crown.

A few more photos of the office, after our renovations.  Look at the post below to see the same image during the construction.  Big change!!

Let’s get to the bottom line:  I felt crowns were WAY too aggressive to replace a little discolored bonding.  Veneers were an option, but with this patient in her late teens, I was looking for a more conservative option (leaving veneers for the ‘next step’ down the road in 5-10 years.) We decided on a course of tooth whitening and then simply re-surfacing the existing bonding with a brighter-colored composite.  We only had a few weeks, so she quickly finished whitening at home.  Here’s what she looked like after the whitening, with the original bonding:

You’re gonna love this one.  We recently saw this young lady for a 3rd opinion.  She previously had some bonding on a few front teeth that was getting a little older.  She was heading to college and hoped to improve the overall esthetics of her front teeth. The options she was initially presented included veneers alone, or veneers and crowns. Here’s what things looked like initially:

Here’s the final result.  The patient was SO excited to have a tooth again. And look how natural it appears.  The process takes a long time, but a dental implant is still the ideal way to replace missing teeth in many, many situations.

Notice how the new front teeth blend well with the existing teeth in back? They look like they’ve been there forever!

Remember how the front teeth were originally so thin when we started? (see here) Well now look at them.

They look great!

The front teeth have worn so much that they don’t even touch the lower teeth. See here:

And here’s the final result, along with a photo of where we started. Remember, these teeth were symptom free but definitely had cavities hiding in the grooves. So if your dentist talks about some spots with a cavity starting and wants to complete a filling, don’t wait! Take care of it now while it’s small!

When we started cleaning these teeth, the extent of the decay became apparent. Deep? Not really. But what’s the sense in waiting for these cavities to grow and grow until they’ve destroyed a huge amount of tooth structure? Why wait? If there’s already decay starting, take care of it before it gets bigger!