Cosmetic Dental Makeovers: Pros and Cons
Ready to Jump?
You've spent considerable time thinking about your teeth. You're not happy with the way they look and everyday you get up, stare at your smile in the mirror and wish something could be different. Your dentist agrees that your smile needs improvement.
Fig. 1 Fig. 2
Before you jump, first ask yourself is this an aesthetic improvement or a cosmetic enhancement? What's the difference? Unbeknownst to many the two words are far apart in meaning but are often used interchangeably. Lets look at the meaning of both words.
A posed but powerful portrait of a ‘Female Aborigine of N.S.Wales’ , showing the different standards applied to black and white women. It may have been drawn by Francois Peron, an ethnologist with the French expedition, commanded by Captain Nicholas Baudin, which visited Sydney in 1802.
(GPO 1 – 06391, Government Printing Office Collection, State Library of New South Wales.)
- Aesthetic: Concerning or characterized by an appreciation of beauty or good taste. http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
- Cosmetic: Serving an aesthetic rather than a useful purpose. http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Simply stated, cosmetic procedures are performed to change the aesthetic appearance of an object or being. What is aesthetic? Aesthetics is perceived, cultural and may change with time. The female aborigine fails to evoke a sense of aesthetics among most westerners yet she is perceived as beautiful in the Aborigine culture. Similarly, Twiggy sensationalized her era as the face of the swinging sixties yet her emaciated figure lacks an aesthetic appeal for people today.
Aborigine Twiggy(1960's)
A posed but powerful portrait of a ‘Female Aborigine of N.S.Wales’ , showing the different standards applied to black and white women. It may have been drawn by Francois Peron, an ethnologist with the French expedition, commanded by Captain Nicholas Baudin, which visited Sydney in 1802.
(GPO 1 – 06391, Government Printing Office Collection, State Library of New South Wales.)So what! You still want big white teeth and you're willing to do whatever it takes to get them. It's no wonder you've become self conscious about your smile after reading material like Sara's Teeth Whitening Blog . http://www.sarahsteethwhitening.com
According to Sarah Richards, "The embarrassment of ugly teeth is something I am no stranger to! I was mortified when people took my picture before I had a chance to close my mouth and smile carefully. I often covered my mouth when I laughed so people wouldn’t see the colour of my teeth."
When so many magazines inundate you with large chalkboard chicklet smiles it's hard not to fall prey to the psychological magnet drawing you closer to chalkboard white. This is the society we live in, this is the society that manufactures aesthetics with billboards, magazine covers and Entertainment Tonight on HD TV. Sarah's blog shouldn't be too heavily criticized however. After all, the only real harm in tooth whitening is to your bank account. And if the benefits make you happy and more productive then one could easily argue its value.
What happens when tooth whitening just doesn't cut the mustard? Now the price of aesthetics takes on an entirely different meaning. Not only does it hurt your pocketbook considerably more but if your teeth had vocal chords they'd probably shout STOP! Ever see what a porcelain veneer tooth preparation looks like? It ain't pretty. For decades porcelain veneers have been marketed as minimally invasive. I'm not entirely sure what "minimally invasive" implies but when it comes down to elective dental procedures it smells a lot like being a little pregnant.
Fig.3 Teeth Prepared for Veneers
99% of porcelain laminate veneers are irreversible! Once they are placed they need to be maintained, replaced when chipped or broken and considered a life long financial commitment. A ten-year life-span for the restorations is realistic. If placed during a patient's twenties they might need to be replaced several times during that person's lifetime.
When porcelain laminate veneers were first introduced during the 1980's tooth whitening hadn't been introduced. It took several years for the tooth whitening and bleaching phenomenon to explode and by that time thousands if not millions of patients had already been treated with porcelain laminate veneers. Many of the clients treated with porcelain veneers early on regretted the shade selected for their veneers. By the time the bleaching craze was in full swing the early porcelain veneers were considered too dark. What was considered aesthetic in 1985 was no longer as attractive in 2005. Within twenty years changing cultural norms in the United States had diminished the luster of the original porcelain veneers. How will cultural norms change over the next twenty years?
The teeth of this young patient (Fig. 1-4) were severely abraded due to acid erosion. The enamel was completely stripped from the inner surfaces of the teeth.
Fig.4 Fig.5
The subsequent restoration of the teeth (Figure 2,4) was both a cosmetic restoration that improved aesthetics and a functional restoration that covered exposed dentin. Without the restorations the patient's teeth would have eroded and abraded at an accelerated pace. Therefore the restoration was preventive in nature. In this situation porcelain veneers proved to be a more conservative solution than full coverage restorations such as caps (crowns).
Before agreeing to strip the enamel from your teeth and forever holding yourself captive to your dentist make sure you are doing the right thing for the right reasons. Be aware that in the end aesthetics is about achieving balance between you and nature and not matching your body image to a current fad. The best dental aesthetics is a blend of the dentition with the surrounding body parts so others see the the entire face as one. If the teeth stand out the first thing people will question is if the smile is artificial.
But what about Nitrous Oxide and its fabulous truth-revealing properties?
Love the photos...
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These methods have their own advantages and disadvantages that you definitely learn first before doing
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They surely do. An educated consumer is a happy consumer is applicable exponentially when it comes to these procedures. Thanks for your comment.
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