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cosmetic dentistry in Port Moody

Treating Injuries With Cosmetic Dentistry

Dentists who practice cosmetic dentistry near you prioritize making your teeth and gums beautiful. That does mean helping people dissatisfied with the appearance of their teeth achieve the teeth of their dreams and imaginings. But that’s not all. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!) Cosmetic dentistry is not just about vanity; it’s also about recovery. Cosmetic dentists help patients recover from facial and oral trauma sustained in slip and fall incidents, motor vehicle accidents, sporting injuries, abuse and assaults. (There are even programs that provide cosmetic dentistry services to survivors of domestic and sexual violence who have sustained dental injuries, such as the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry’s Give Back a Smile Program.)

Here are three examples of common dental injuries and the cosmetic dentistry procedures that a dentist near you can provide to help restore an injured person’s appearance and confidence.

Discolouration

If you’ve ever noticed your knee turning black-and-blue after tripping and falling, you understand how trauma can cause discolouration. The same phenomenon applies to teeth. Teeth exposed to trauma also change colour — usually grey — because they stop receiving adequate blood flow or because broken blood vessels cause blood to leak into the dentin layer of your teeth. What cosmetic treatments can help?

Veneers are shells made of porcelain that can cover teeth discoloured following a traumatic accident and can last for a decade or more while eliminating other types of flaws, too. Teeth whitening can also reduce or remove discolouration from teeth, though it’s a procedure that has to be repeated from time to time since daily life conspires against our teeth remaining their whitest.

Chipped or broken teeth

The most common type of injury sustained in sporting collisions is teeth injuries. Suffering chips and broken teeth is very common. That’s why your dentist in Port Moody recommends that athletes of all types wear mouth guards. What cosmetic procedures can help repair teeth chipped or broken in a sports incident?

Veneers referred to above can cover chips and fractures in otherwise healthy teeth as well as cover discoloured teeth. If you’re looking to repair a small area and not to cover the entire surface of a tooth, dental bonding using composite resin material tinted to match your own enamel will make repairs quickly and inexpensively. Dental crowns repair chips by covering the entire tooth from biting surface to the gum line. That might be overkill for a merely chipped tooth, but a tooth weakened by fillings and cavities or extensive cracks can be restored to full dental function by a properly fitting crown.

Avulsed teeth

“Avulsed” is a fancy word for having a tooth knocked out, something that might happen in an assault, slip and fall, motor vehicle accident, or even a particularly traumatic sports collision. Incredibly a tooth that has been entirely knocked out can sometimes be put back in its rightful place if you act quickly enough. That’s one reason that you should always treat an avulsed tooth as a dental emergency.

Even if an avulsed tooth can’t be replaced, though, there are cosmetic dentistry options to replace that tooth: partial dentures; bridges; and even implants. You might think of dentures, bridges and implants as features of restorative dentistry, and you’d be right. But the categories of dental treatment are not absolute silos; there’s lots of overlap between them and this is a good example of that. Dentures, bridges and implants do restore dental function lost due to avulsion, but they also restore the appearance of a healthy and youthful smile.

If you’ve suffered oral or dental injuries in any incident, don’t hesitate to ask your doctor and dentist for advice about how to protect your health, restore your lost dental function and restore your healthiest and most youthful appearance. All those goals are important and, with the help of cosmetic dentistry in Port Moody, achievable.

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