It's time to smile

Teeth whitening is a great dental tool to have at your disposal. Whether you choose to go the in-office route or do it yourself at home, whitening can restore vitality to your smile. However, as well as brighten your smile, a whitening treatment can also reveal things that you previously didn't know were there. Craze lines, white spots and even horizontal lines are all common discoveries that patients make after a whitening session.

Endodontics, which you've probably more commonly heard of as root canal treatment, is used when the inside of a tooth is infected. This is usually caused by decay due to poor dental hygiene and care, and sometimes because of damage done to the tooth in an accident. Yet there's another, lesser-known, problem that can lead to a root canal being needed: leaky fillings. The term might sound strange, and either worrying or slightly comical depending on your point of view, but leaky fillings can be serious if they're left.

Dental crowns give patients an alternative to tooth extraction when teeth are badly damaged. However, much like your natural teeth, dental crowns are not faultless. For instance, if you had a dental crown placed over a badly damaged tooth in the smile zone a few years ago, you may now notice that there is a black line around it at the gum line. The most likely reason for this is that you have what is called a porcelain-fused-to-metal crown.

If placed by a competent and experienced cosmetic dentist, veneers can last many years. They may even last a lifetime. However, for various reasons, some of which will be covered here, some patients are unable to fully benefit from their newly veneered teeth. This often means that the veneers need to be replaced every few years. In some cases, where a patient is more fortunate, their veneers may be 20 years old.

Many of us are self-conscious about our smiles. Perhaps our parents didn't have access to good dental care when we were children and we've never found ourselves in circumstances that allowed for correction as adults. Or we may have complicated genetic and/or lifestyle issues that lead to a set of teeth we'd rather hide than highlight. Cosmetic dentistry is the perfect solution to all our mouth maladies. Cosmetic dentists offer a wide variety of services, though perhaps the most well-known are veneers.

Some dentists want to pull all of your teeth the day they put in your new dentures. One of the biggest problems after the surgery is figuring out which foods you can or should eat. Your entire mouth will be tender, so chewing is not a good idea at the moment. But you still need food, so you have to find something that works. These tips and suggestions will help you find foods that you can comfortably and safely eat.

Orthodontists, like those from Care Dental, rightly advise you to avoid hard and sticky foods such as candy treats and nuts. Not only can they compromise your treatment by damaging wires and brackets, but these kinds of foods tend to leave your braces in a sticky mess that takes time to clean. Almonds, which are currently the most popular nut in the world, are also one of the hardest nuts. This makes them a threat to your braces.