Design a smile that brings you joy.

Every day, your smile plays a key role in how you interact with the world and how the world interacts with you. Your smile helps you express a wide range of emotions to the people around you, and in doing so, it also helps shape the way people view you. It’s an extension of you and your personality, so it should also be something you’re confident in. But what if you’re self-conscious of your smile instead of confident in it? Well, modern dentistry can help design a smile you love!

During a smile makeover, modern dentistry techniques can improve slight flaws in your smile or design larger changes in a smile’s appearance, shaping it to complement your physical features in a seamlessly natural way. Gaining your ideal smile like this helps ensure you can always smile broadly and brightly whenever you feel like it with the self-confidence that comes from genuinely loving your smile. So, what are some reasons you might want to improve your smile, and what are your options?

Gain a whiter, brighter smile.

One of the most striking features of a beautiful smile is the shade of your teeth. When your smile is white, it looks healthier and can even help you look younger! Over time, though, everyone’s teeth develop stains from the foods and drinks they consume or habits they indulge in like smoking or chewing tobacco. Thankfully, most of these stains are relatively easy to remove during a single professional whitening treatment at our office. These treatments can transform your smile by making it multiple shades lighter in about an hour.

Unfortunately, whitening treatments can’t remove all types of staining on your teeth, especially stains that occurred in childhood from issues like too much fluoride, certain antibiotics, or an injury to a developing tooth. This doesn’t mean you’re out of options, though! Dental bonding or dental veneers are both great options to cover staining and give you the bright, white smile you’ve always wanted.

Dental bonding is a tooth-colored resin that covers the stained portion of a tooth while matching the color and gloss of the rest of your teeth. It doesn’t last as long as veneers do and is more vulnerable to staining, but it’s reversible. This makes tooth bonding a great starting treatment if you’re not sure whether you want to commit to veneers.

On the other hand, dental veneers are thin sheets of porcelain that can be permanently cemented to one or more stained teeth. Each veneer is custom-made, making the treatment incredibly versatile and allowing you to choose its shade, shape, and size to match or completely transform your smile.

No matter which method you choose, gaining a whiter smile might sound like a relatively small change—and it is, but it’s a small change that can transform the way your smile looks as well as the way you feel about it.

Straighten a misaligned bite.

Straight and even teeth are also major features of a beautiful smile, and they’re easier and more convenient to achieve than ever before! Clear Correct aligners can resolve nearly every orthodontic issue that traditional braces can, but they do so discreetly.

Just like their name implies, they’re clear, so many people may not even realize you’re undergoing orthodontic care. It helps you look professional and maintain confidence in your smile throughout your treatment. You’ll even see the results of your teeth shifting and straightening in real time, allowing you to benefit from increased confidence in your smile throughout the process.

Clear aligners have a wide range of other benefits, including the fact that they’re removable, which allows you to eat your favorite foods throughout the treatment process and makes oral hygiene easier than with traditional braces.

Treatment times and costs will vary based on the details of your case, but dental insurance plans cover them the same way they cover traditional braces, so the cost is often similar. This makes them a very real option for most people—and one that could also improve your oral health since straight teeth are easier to clean. When your treatment is complete, you’ll likely be shocked by how striking the change in your smile is!

Close a gap in your smile.

Many people consider gap-toothed grins, which is when front teeth have too much space between them, to be a charming and unique feature, but others feel self-conscious of the gap in their smile. What matters here is loving your smile, so if your gap makes you self-conscious, it’s completely OK to change it! You have plenty of options to choose from, too, including dental bonding, veneers, and Clear Correct aligners.

When bonding is used to close the gap, a little of the resin is carefully applied to each tooth next to it, closing it without noticeably changing the size or shape of either tooth. Closing a gap with veneers is similar because it involves placing a veneer on each tooth next to the gap, but it’s a longer-lasting solution than dental bonding.

Bonding and veneers both provide more immediate results, but if you’d rather undergo a longer treatment process that produces results that will last a lifetime while leaving your teeth themselves unaltered, clear braces are likely the treatment for you.

Clear Correct aligners are discreet and often shift teeth faster than traditional braces, especially if the only major reason you need orthodontic treatment is to close the gap between your teeth. While this is another relatively small change in the grand scheme of things, it can make a huge difference in the overall appearance of your smile, changing it from cute to beautiful.

Restore damaged teeth.

Your teeth are strong, but they work hard for you every day, so they can develop damage over time in the form of chips, breaks, cracks, and even simple wear and tear over time. When this happens, modern dentistry has many options to restore the functionality and beauty of your tooth while protecting it from future damage.

Dental bonding and veneers can both be used to restore minor damage to a tooth, such as a chip or crack. Veneers can also restore slightly broken teeth. However, when a tooth suffers more extensive damage from a bad break or advanced decay, a dental crown is often the best option to restore and protect it.

Crowns are tooth-shaped pieces of porcelain that are placed directly over your damaged tooth. Just like veneers, crowns are permanent; once you get one on a tooth, you’ll always need it, but they can be a vital part of saving a tooth that might otherwise be lost. Crowns are also custom-made for you, ensuring that the size, shape, and shade fit your needs and blend into your existing smile seamlessly. In fact, these treatments are each little works of art, designed to improve your oral health and bring out the natural beauty in your smile.

Your smile is an expression of you, so it should bring you joy and confidence! Smile makeovers consider many different aspects of your smile to design a smile that’s equal parts healthy, beautiful, and completely unique to you. If you’re interested in gaining newfound joy and confidence in your smile, visiting your cosmetic dentist in Morristown, TN, for a consultation is the best place to start, so feel free to schedule a consultation with Dr. Sexton at any time!