Veneers are essentially a very thin layer of durable porcelain that’s placed over your natural smile with minimal preparation. Although veneers are considered a permanent form of treatment, they have many benefits. What are some of the benefits of dental veneers?

Get a Whole New Smile

Instead of having numerous treatments to restore your teeth, dental veneers provide a whole new layer to your smile. Veneers can correct uneven teeth and even crooked teeth to make them smooth and uniform. Veneers can dramatically transform chipped or gapped teeth or even shorter teeth, giving them a new appearance in just one to two weeks for dramatic results.

For patients who want a new smile in a short period of time with minimal preparation work, veneers may be a good choice. You can talk with your dentist about whether or not your concerns about your smile would improve with dental veneers.

Get Rid of Stains

If teeth are deeply stained and don’t respond to a traditional cleaning or even professional whitening treatments, it may be time to consider veneers. Veneers can make yellow or stained teeth whiter and younger looking. It can make thin or translucent teeth thick and strong.

The best part about dental veneers is that the veneers themselves are very resistant to stains, so you won’t need BriteSmile, Zoom, Crest Whitening Strips, or any other chemicals to whiten your teeth after the treatment. Instead, you can just enjoy your beautiful new veneers!

Improve tooth Sensitivity

For people who have experienced enamel damage and have very sensitive teeth, dental
veneers can actually help stop tooth sensitivity from worsening and, in fact, can even improve existing tooth sensitivity by adding a new layer onto teeth and shielding your natural teeth from hot and cold temperatures.

Many patients who receive dental veneers appreciate that their teeth are less sensitive after the treatment. In fact, some dentists use a desensitizing treatment before bonding porcelain veneers to your teeth to help enhance the protection from extreme temperatures you’ll experience with dental veneers.

For patients that qualify, dental veneers make a dramatic transformation and give many
patients the smile of their dreams without whitening treatments, orthodontic work, or tooth bonding. If you have several issues you’d like addressed with your smile, you can ask your oral healthcare professional if dental veneers could be for you!

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The sucking action is natural for infants, but the natural action usually decreases before a baby is one year old. Thumbsucking beyond this age is a habit, but this usually decreases by about the age of 6. Most dentists agree that thumbsucking is harmless in the early years before the permanent teeth have erupted. If the habit continues after that, it can cause problems with the teeth and the roof of the mouth, which can lead to crooked teeth or buck teeth.

The problem with thumbsucking and teeth positioning occurs when the intensity of the sucking puts pressure on the roof of the mouth. This can cause the front teeth to be pushed forward, sometimes both front teeth and sometimes just one. Damage to the roof of the mouth can also occur, and the child may develop a callous on their thumb.

Some parents give their newborn infant a pacifier in the hopes that this will decrease the likelihood of the child picking up the thumbsucking habit. Pacifier use can actually cause the same dental problems as thumbsucking, but it may be an easier habit for the child to break. For one thing, parents can take pacifiers away from children when they reach a certain age, but they can’t take the child’s thumb away. Most children will distance themselves from pacifiers on their own when they get older or when they start school. Thumbsucking may be the more dangerous habit, because the thumb is always with the child and always a temptation.

Helping an older child break the thumbsucking habit can be accomplished with encouragement and patience. Rewards for not thumbsucking, rather than punishment for thumbsucking, are recommended to encourage the child’s self-esteem. Some older children who suck their thumbs are troubled by anxiety or other self-esteem issues, so punishment or criticism may make the problem worse.

Physical barriers to thumbsucking like mittens, finger splints or bitter tasting liquid on the thumbnail may work with some children, but others may feel frustrated by these methods, and then the emotional desire to suck the thumb can increase. When a child has a difficult time breaking the habit of sucking their thumb, intervention from a mental health professional could help. A visit to a dentist can also determine how the child’s thumbsucking is affecting their teeth.

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