Healthy Smiles Dentistry Georgetown Georgetown Texas

Cosmetic dental services, like composite bonding or the placement of restorations, can help fix unnatural gaps between your teeth. Medically termed diastemas, these gaps can impact how your smile looks and the way that you feel about your appearance.

A gap between teeth is one of the things that most people notice when you open your mouth. These gaps are more likely to develop in the front of the mouth, but they can also occur at the back.

Fixing spaces between teeth with cosmetic dental services

Various cosmetic dental services can be used to restore the smile if a patient has diastemas. Factors like the size of the gap and its location often determine how a dentist approaches fixing it. Treatments that a dentist might recommend for diastemas include the following.

1. Composite bonding

This gives patients the most affordable and least invasive way to go about closing spaces in their smile. Composite bonding involves filling the gap with composite and molding it as needed, so it looks like the two teeth next to the space meet naturally.

This approach to closing up spaces between teeth does not require removing enamel from the patient’s teeth. This means the patient is free to explore other options in the future if they choose to do so. It takes about 45 minutes to fill up a gap with composite resin, and the patient can leave the clinic with their smile restored.

2. Veneers

A veneer can also be used to close up spaces between teeth. This approach is more invasive than composite bonding because enamel has to be removed from the front part of a tooth. Removing enamel from a tooth is irreversible, and it will always need a restoration to protect its more sensitive inner layers.

Veneers serve as masks that hide any imperfections on the front sides of teeth. Dentists close spaces with them by cementing oversized veneers to the two teeth next to the space, so it looks like they meet naturally.

Getting veneers placed on teeth requires at least two trips to the dentist. During the first visit, the dentist prepares the patient’s teeth and takes an impression. The impression goes to a dental lab where technicians make the patient’s custom restorations. The patient’s teeth are covered with temporary veneers during the first visit to protect the prepared teeth while they wait for their custom restoration.

3. Crowns

Crowns can also be used to address diastemas. Placing a crown is even more invasive than placing a veneer because enamel has to be removed from all four sides of the tooth. The process takes at least two trips to the dentist.

The dentist closes the space by cementing oversized crowns to the two teeth closest to the gap. This makes it look like they have regular spacing between them. Crowns provide the longest-lasting solution because they can last up to 25 years.