Philadelphia Smile Makeovers
A major difference between Dr. Goldwater and a general dentist is in the area of smile design. The patient above came to Dr. Goldwater looking to change the aesthetic of his smile, both with the color and shape of the front teeth. Dr. Goldwater presented multiple options of crowns, veneers, and bondings. In this case the patient chose crowns, allowing for enough room to create nice straight teeth.
There is a different mindset in this type of creative endeavor. Dentists are trained in dental school to be authoritative with the patient. Whatever is broken, they know how to fix it. With general dentistry, this can be reassuring to patients, but when it comes to cosmetic dentistry, this approach can be the source of serious communication problems. Appearance-related dentistry turns on self-esteem, which comes down to the issue of what you, the patient, think of how your teeth look. Therefore, an excellent cosmetic dentist must be a good listener and must be able to translate your desires and image aspirations into a beautiful smile design, personally crafted to your expectations.
Anytime Dr. Weiss or Dr. Goldwater does a smile design for you, your input is always the most important ingredient. And before any case is finalized, they will make sure that you think it’s perfect. Ordinarily, they will do a provisional smile design just to make sure it’s the way you want it to look before it is created in porcelain. And there will always be a try-in where you get to try on the completed smile before it is bonded to your teeth.
The bottom line—you will think it’s beautiful, or the case goes back to the ceramist.
Smile Makeover Treatment Options:
Porcelain veneers are the treatment of choice for most smile makeover cases. This gives Dr. Weiss full latitude to create the shape you want in your teeth, the length of the teeth, and the color.
Dental bonding is generally used for moderate re-shaping of a limited number of teeth, but it can also be used for a complete smile makeover.
Bleaching is used if the only issue you have is with the color of the teeth.
Porcelain crowns are used instead of veneers if there is damage to the teeth. While a veneer is very thin and covers only the front of the tooth, a crown covers the entire tooth and usually requires fairly aggressive tooth reduction.
Dental implants are usually placed when there are missing teeth.