BONDING

Bonding is a popular technique in aesthetic dentistry due to its many advantages and because of the fact that it can literally alter your appearance in a single visit. By sculpting teeth with aesthetic composite resins, it is simple, quick, cost-effective, requires minimum or even no tooth preparation and can therefore be regarded as reversible. Each smile is separately designed and recreated offering a customized outcome according to the needs of every smile. It can correct a variety of aesthetic problems, it is repairable if damaged by accident or due to trauma and can even offer a last-minute smile fix before important events like new career opportunities, business meetings, personal life moments or social occasions like a wedding.

Bonding is suggested at the following cases:

• Permanent tooth color change
• Coverage of discolored teeth
• Management of white or dark spots on front teeth
• For a straight and symmetrical Hollywood smile
• Gap closure between teeth
• Correction of tooth size and alignment without orthodontics
• Change of shape of hypoplastic or smaller teeth
• Straightening crooked teeth

It offers a direct and fast smile fix to those who do not wish to undergo orthodontic therapy in order to get straight teeth and is ideal even for younger patients and teenagers, in cases when no removal of tooth tissue is required, or when no drastic changes are needed. The desired change can be initially designed on casts and checked by the aesthetic dentist and the patient for corrections and possible alterations. There is also the chance of testing your new smile intraorally before the treatment begins with the “mock-up technique”. The treatment is simple, requires no or minimum tooth preparation and is completed without local anesthesia within a few minutes. External tooth surface is properly pre-treated before the application of aesthetic composite resins, which are either placed with the monochromatic or with the multi-shade technique. Generally, the multi-color technique results in a more natural-looking smile appearance and nobody will be able to tell the difference between treated and untreated teeth, while the monochromatic technique is more suitable for the totally white and bright Hollywood smiles. Bonding can be performed on a single tooth that is inclined, misaligned or discolored after a root canal treatment, on more teeth or even all the front upper and lower teeth for a total smile makeover. It can also be combined with other aesthetic dentistry treatment like cosmetic recontouring, veneers, white fillings or ceramic veneers, so that every tooth is separately treated according to its needs.

Duration of the restorations depends on chewing and dietary habits and may last up to 5-8 years. Consumption of coffee, tea and red wine may induce slight discolorations at the margins of the restorations after a few years, but polishing with special pastes during dental teeth cleaning, can remove them in minutes. Bonding is not indicated for heavy teeth grinders, in cases of large occlusal anomalies and for heavy smokers, because stains from smoking gather up quickly on tooth surfaces and compromise the appearance faster.