Dental bonding is the use of white (or tooth-colored) composite (filling material) for filling, or repairing, or making aesthetic improvements to a tooth. The procedure is – what we in the profession call – “technique-sensitive,” which means the systems in the procedure have to be performed precisely and without error.
Unlike placing mercury fillings where you essentially fill a hole, placing composite bonding takes precision and detail or the bonding will fail (the filling will leak, fall out, crack, break, or the patient will have sensitivity after the filling is placed). Done correctly, however, bonding is an excellent, highly aesthetic, and long lasting result for repairing, restoring or enhancing a tooth.
The Austin cosmetic dentists at Babineau Cosmetic & Family Dentistry doctors are perfectionists in all they do – including their precision bonding. They have mastered the sensitive technique, and have thousands of successful bonding results to their names.
There are two basic types of bonding procedures:
- Restorations (fillings/repairs of chips, cracks, etc)
- Cosmetic Bonding (prepless veneers)
White or tooth-colored fillings have been a preferred method of filling teeth for decades. These fillings are an excellent option for filling a small cavity, replacing a small old mercury or composite filling, and repairing an otherwise healthy broken tooth.
Limitations of the bonding material exist when the cavity or old filling is large, if the tooth to be restored has cracks or fractures, or if there is are heavy chewing forces on the tooth to be restored. Sometimes a porcelain filling is a better option than bonding.
At Babineau Cosmetic & Family Dentistry, we will discuss the pros and cons of using bonding for your specific situation. We will discuss all of the options for fixing, filling, or improving your tooth/teeth, so that you have all of the information you need to decide which restoration is the very best for you.
At Babineau Cosmetic & Family Dentistry, when we place chairside veneers to improve your smile, we use a highly aesthetic bonding material applied directly to your teeth to fix dark or white spots, repair chips/fractures/cracks, reshape teeth, reduce the poor appearance of crooked teeth, and whiten your smile.
Our team of doctors has decades of experience along with the skill and innate talent required to achieve incredibly aesthetic results using bonding to improve the appearance of your smile. Babineau Cosmetic & Family Dentistry delivers results that are truly un-detectable, natural-looking, and beutiful.
Even though dental bonding material is an advanced polymer, it is still a type of plastic. And, a drawback to plastics as a restorative material is that they are porous (on a microscopic level), and therefore they absorb stain. So, in the smile zone, if we are covering all of the teeth with chairside bonding/veneers, these restorations will require more maintenance (polish, stain removal, chip repair) than using porcelain (which is resistant to stain because it is not porous). For this reason, Babineau Cosmetic & Family Dentistry will usually recommend porcelain as your ideal option for improving 8 or more teeth in your smile.
It depends who your dentist is. At Babineau Cosmetic & Family Dentistry, we have record success using tooth-colored fillings. Here’s why: (as described above) Placing tooth-colored fillings is an extremely precise, detailed procedure which – if you are not careful – will result in a filling that will cause tooth-sensitivity, and/or a filling that will leak, crack, fail, or fall out.
Babineau Cosmetic & Family Dentistry doctors understand the precision needed to achieve top success using tooth-colored fillings. Because our doctors are skilled perfectionists they perform this procedure (and all others) with the fine-detail needed to ensure success. At Babineau Cosmetic & Family Dentistry we pride ourselves on staying up-to-date on all leading-edge technology and advancements including the best bonding principles. In fact, dentists around the country turn to our Babineau Cosmetic & Family Dentistry doctors to learn the latest and best practices.