It's time to smile

If you have lost a tooth or several teeth, your dentist may suggest you have dental implants. Read on for a summary of the implant process to help you decide whether implants are the best fit for you. What are dental implants? Dental implants are small titanium posts that are surgically inserted into your jaw, below the line of your gums. Your dentist will use these posts to mount crowns, which will look and feel like new teeth.

Losing a toothbrush for a single day isn't too much of an issue—as long as your teeth are in good condition. However, if for some reason you can't replace that toothbrush for several days, for instance, because you are camping in the wilderness, you can call on Mother Nature. In fact, that's exactly what cave-dwelling prehistoric humans did long before toothbrushes and floss came along. When researcher, Karen Hardy examined the remains of some of the earliest human beings to be found in Europe, she discovered that they used small twigs to clean their teeth.

Gum disease is a serious problem, and in its later stages it can increase the risk for heart problems, diabetes and other illnesses. Naturally, you'll want to do all you can to avoid gum disease -- but is there anything you can do at home? Whilst working closely with your dentist is important in the prevention of gum disease, there's also plenty you can do on your own. You might even be able to avoid complicated and costly gum disease treatments later if you take the following measures now.

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.