What Is Dental Bonding

When it comes to repairing a chipped, cracked, or discolored tooth, you can choose to get dental bonding. You may think of it as something closer to veneers but the matter of fact is that dental bonding is quick, easy and gets completed in a single visit. This process mainly involves application of tooth-colored composite resin to the chipped, cracked or discolored area of the tooth. The reason it is called dental bonding is that the material bonds to the tooth.

Dental bonding is among the cheapest and most convenient procedures you can consider to get your teeth restored. But this restoration is usually for the cosmetic purposes only. In some cases, this procedure can be helpful in closing wide spaces between the teeth.

In some cases, the dental bonding can be used as an alternate to dental amalgams. It can also be used to cover the tooth’s root area which gets exposed due to gum recession.

Preparation for bonding

Since it is one of the simplest dental procedures, there is no requirement for preparation beforehand. Anesthesia is not required unless it is the tooth decay which needs to be covered.

The procedure

It starts with the color-guide which your dentist will look at in order to find the exact match between the composite resin color and that of your tooth. After the color is selected, your dentist will slightly etch the enamel from the edges of the chipped or cracked ends. This etching allows the bonding to get hold of the tooth. It is a putty-like resin which is applied to the teeth. It is then molded and smoothed until the resin completes the shape of the tooth. A special ultraviolet light is then used for the hardening of dental bonding.

After the bonding material hardens, you may not get perfect shape of your tooth yet. So, your dentist will then trim and shape the tooth. After this trimming and shaping, the tooth is then properly polished to create the shine that of natural teeth.

Tea, tobacco, coffee and alcohol are the worse strainers of resin. Typically, you would be advised to avoid staining foods in the first 48 hours after dental bonding procedure. Furthermore, you need to stick with proper dental hygiene to ensure that the bonding doesn’t get stained.

Risks

Dental Bonding is not quite strong as your natural teeth are. So you have to make sure that you do not chew on hard foods and hard non-foods because it can result in the fractured bonding. With proper prevention, you can get dental bonding to remain in your mouth for several years.