Cosmetic Dental Surgery Is An Investment, Not An Expense

An investment in cosmetic dental surgerycan bring a full, gleaming, properly straightened white-toothed smile to you or a loved one. What would you invest to buy yourself or a loved one that smile? You know the kind. A smile that lights up a room in an instant. While we want to dismiss the idea that looks play a part in our everyday life, its a fact. A smile affects a persons look or the way they are perceived by other people. Correcting dental imperfections that make your smile less than perfect is the goal of cosmetic dental surgery.

A poor smile causes pain and self consciousness. I can speak from personal experience. In my 20's, I lost a tooth in the middle of my smile. It just fell out of my face. For the next 18 months, I literally kept my mouth closed. I looked as though I had never seen a dentist in my life. A missing tooth, in the lower middle part of my mouth, reduced me to feeling like a real hillbilly with little or no personal value. I avoided new people. Those I was forced to meet, I kept the time short. I didn't want anyone to see my smile and my missing tooth

My dentist, after I avoided him for months, suggested a couple of cosmetic dental surgery procedures that would fix my problem. The only issue was the cost. Most insurance will cover about 50% of the cost in the United States.

Here's a look at the specialties dental surgeons can use to affect the "perfect" smile. Orthodontics to straighten teeth using some form of braces. Tooth whitening in all the various packages. Dental implants, veneers, bridges, and bonding are all additional methods used to fix teeth.

A dental bridge will cost from $1,000 to $5,000 per tooth. The bridge is pretty much what you can imagine. Just like a road, or a path over a ditch, the bridge is a permanent device that bridges the gap between an open or missing tooth. A small 3 unit bridge will cost you between $3,000 and $10,000. The larger bridge, and the one I had installed 16 years ago, is five units and costs run to $15,000. The procedure involves filing the teeth next to the open area down to points to provide the anchor for the ends of the bridge. A mold is taken, and the device is built. Installation and bonding of the bridge to its anchor points is pretty painless.

Other forms of cosmetic dental work don't involve cutting the gum, filing teeth, or inserting strange devices into the mouth. One of the most popular is tooth or teeth whitening. The yellowing and staining of teeth is something that comes naturally over time. Cola and coffee drinkers experience it. Age and some prescription drugs also cause yellowing. If you feel it affects your looks and the way you think of yourself, you can fix it. Costs for tooth whitening vary greatly, as do the costs for all the procedures we will discuss. The over the counter kits are the ones you probably are most familiar. They include gels, whitening strips, and one size fits all trays to work on clearing the stains from your teeth. They'll cost you about $20 to $100 bucks. At your dentist you can expect to pay around $650 for an in-office whitening procedure. Your results will vary depending on the quality of the procedure you use.

The dentists preferred method of tooth whitening are the professionally dispensed take home kits. These come in the form of a specially fitted mouth guard like device. The low concentration peroxide gel that goes into these trays can stay on your teeth from one hour to overnight. Its safe for your teeth, and a great method to improve your smile. Cost is $100 to $400 for this kit.

Porcelain veneers can whiten and repair damaged teeth as well. Expect to pay from $900 to $2500 per tooth for these. Veneers are the cure for severely discolored, chipped teeth. Or for teeth with small holes or pits, misshapen, crooked, or to correct unwanted or uneven spaces--think David Letterman. The procedure to install veneers is similar to bridges, without the extensive filing. These products are glued onto your natural teeth after a very small portion of the tooth has been removed. Usually, sedation dentistry is not required for this procedure. Unlike crowns, veneers require the dentist to remove less of the tooth itself in most cases.

One heavy duty cosmetic dental surgery is dental implants. Implants replace a tooth by inserting a titanium screw into your jaw bone, then attaching the new tooth onto the post. This was an alternative to my issue, but I was chicken. Cost for implants can run to $5,000 per tooth, and sometimes higher depending on the nature of the tooth's location and complications.

These are a few of a wide range of procedures your dentist can do to improve your smile and the function of mouth. Using these cosmetic dental surgery procedures is not an expense. Its an investment in great health, both physical and mental.

You've seen it before. You are at your child's school. The kids are picking teams for some kind of event. It may be an athletic event. It may be a scholastic challenge. The results are almost always the same. The best looking children are picked first. The ones who are last to be selected appear to have a flaw. Maybe its their clothes. Maybe their hair. Or maybe its the way they do or don't smile. As adults, we make choices in very much the same way. Its not a prejudice, at least not a conscious one. Its a form of "natural selection". Modern dental technology, through cosmetic dental surgery, has given us a way to fix at least the smile portion